Hello everyone! It's been a while since I wrote a tutorial for this site so here's one. I have painted a valkyrie over the last two days firstly to relax and change my minds before reattacking the paint job of the juggernaut and other projects for Toronto and Chicago. The goal was never to paint an entry for the Golden Demons so this piece is far from perfect. But I took a few shots of the different stages so here is the step by step!

The built itself was pretty straightforward. The latest kits from GW are better and better. Now the only thing they really need to improve is the quality of the instruction booklet. A lot of times you are not sure that you are using the right pieces. Even worse they ask you to glue to pieces under the wings... pieces which I still have to find on the sprues. Lastly if you are building this kit I highly recommend of not glueing the roof of the valkyrie straight away. If you do good luck to include the gunners if it is your desire.

All the colors airbrushed were Tamiya flat paint. I prefer those for airbrushing than GW as they are mainly designed for airbrushing. Don't get me wrong here, GW paint or P3 can easily be used with an airbrush but they are less practical. GW or P3 paints are designed to be applies by brush, they dry faster and cover better. The problem is when you airbrush these paints they tend to accumulate on the tip of the needle which jam your airbrush more quickly. You'll need to retract more your needle to get paint out which only invites a disaster! Therefore you'll need to constantly clean the tip of your needle, carefully.

The initial base coat was Dark Grey XF-24. All the contours of the various parts of the plane where shaded in Flat Black XF-1. The black was highly thinned down so several layers were necessary.


The model received a coat of hair spray which will be explained later. The real color was then applied, Medium Grey XF-20. Now the laborious work begins. Every panel of the plane will be lightly shaded and highlighted with Flat Black XF-1 and Flat Whiter XF-2. So every panels need to be tape to maximise the the sharpness of the lines.


Difference between done panels and still to be done:


The whole model done. An additionnal coat of Medium Grey XF-20 was applied to solidify the cohesion of the model. This coat was highly thinned down to ensure a smooth transition and built up :


Now what is the purppose of the hairspray? Technically it is to protect the inital coat of paint. Technically now I could use a paint, a little rough, dipped in water to peel off the top layer only letting the bottow one showing. The problem is depending on how many layers that you applied on top it might be harder to do and require a little bit of alcool on your brush... and since I did that while working at the store... well I had no alcool handy. I would have mostly peeled off the paint along the edges or any other place where friction is most likely.

In the absence of alcool I used the blister foam technique. Using the corner of a foam from a blister, in this case a Mordor Siege Bow, I know quite relevant it is, you applied paint along those edges to create that chipped paint effect. I used Charadon Granite from Foundation.

For the next step, it is easier if you have a satin or gloss finish. Therefore a coat of Purity Seal was applied. The next few steps are done using oil paint. We seldom overlook the advantages of this type of paint when we were brought to the hobby by Games Workshop or other similar games. It is a little bit more complex to use but the advantages, especially in the case of vehicules cannot be neglected. They allow you to achieve realistic weathering effects in a fraction of the time required with acrylics.

Mig Productions offer an interesting line of fine quality oil paint for modelers. In this case industrial earth was used. Thinned down with turbenthine to have the consistency of a wash every lines, corners, recesses received a dose of the wash. There is nothing more simple. In order to do so simply charge your brush and simply delicately touch one of those line and the capillary action does the rest. This example is best illustrated by video but simply try it yourself and you'll see how simple it is.

More streaks were applied on the model along the direction of the movement of the vehicule. You can also se the chipped effect discussed earlier.


Now we will add more streaks using pure white, still and oil paint. Some lines are painted on the edges:


Using a flat brush with a little bit of turbenthine these lines are faded with the rest of the model. In an instant you achieve impressive and realistic results without too much hassle!


As you can see, most of the initial brown streaks are gone... that is the problem with oil paint, it takes days to dry properly. Otherwise as soon as you show up with a little bit of turbenthine, well, bye bye brown paint! In order to avoid that you have two choices... well 2 and a half... The first one is to wait 2 or 3 days. The second one is to apply a coat of varnish (remember satin or gloss) to protect what was already applied. The other half one is simple as well, since you can have squadron of 1 to 3 models in your army well you work on the second and then the third one while the first one dries!

For now don't worry we will simply redo these brown streaks...!

The whole model weathered with the white paint:


The core of the job is done. Now it is the time to apply a new coat of varnish, this time a flat one. this will unify the flatness and glossiness of others in one unify texture until we decide to pic and choose what should be gloss or not.

The details are now painted. Quite rapidly I must say but as said initially the goal here was to relax and not to produce a contest winning entry.

Here is a final picture of the model:


The metallics received a base coast of boltgun metal. They were then shaded by a mix of black and chestnut ink. The ink was thinned down using Future floor finish. It allows the ink to go in the crack and we avoid the usual stain effect produced by ink. It also keep the consistency of the ink and its glossiness.

As you'll see on the following pictures, some areas of the model, where oil leaks are more likely, were airbrushed with chestnut inks, once again thinned down with future. Yes I know there's a few blotches here and there but hey.. I was tired... I know lame excuse but once again it was to relax :p I probably went a bit overboard as well with the chestnut but hey! Next time I'll dose it more!

The other step was to airbrush with Flat Black XF-1 the burnt areas so behind the engines and on the engines themselves.


So here we go! These are only a few of the different techniques used by military modelers. They are usually quite simple, fast and realistic. Yes you need to acquire new products and master them but the time you will save is definitely worth it.

These techniques and some others are discussed in my Miniature Mentor video on the painting of a Dreadnought. Furthermore the classes on weathering and airbrushing at GENCON will explore these principles and more.