Friday 2 January 2015

Sprue Cutters Union : Old dog, new tricks

2015 has come and with it the long-anticipated rebirth if the Sprue Cutters' Union. In short, a bunch of modelling related blogs writing about the same topic once a month. (More info about the union here.)

- What New Products/Techniques Will You Purchase/Attempt This Year? -

I'm not sure about trying new techniques the coming year. How about we get a proper handle on our current techniques first?
2014 hasn't been an extremely active year at the bench, so this year I would like to simply start by trying to be more active and producing a higher quality of models then up until now.

Being scared to "ruin" a model with a new technique is a bad excuse, but one I'm prone to using too often. Ruining a model only costs you the price of the model and a bunch of hours. Those hours are not truly wasted of you learned something, right?

Let's make this my 2015 resolution : dare to try more.

Fighting monochromaticity

Pre-shading, post-shading, black basing, ... whatever you want to call it or in whichever order you apply your layers, I will be trying to add a lot more colour variation in my work. I gave it a first try on the Chinook, but obliterated much of the shading with subsequent layers of paint. I'm now trying to do it a lot more careful on the Viper Mark VII.


Oil paint

Filters, washes, streaking, ... many people swear by oil paints, because they can be manipulated (or removed) for hours and hours, as opposed to quick-drying acrylic paints. I was finally persuaded to try it and bought a bunch of oils from Mig Productions. I experimented lightly with it on one of the castle walls, but it's time to suck it up and attack a real model.


Chipping

Also something I've dabbled with in past and current models. My first try was relatively nice, the second model turned into a disaster which I'm still recovering from (i.e. hesitant to re-tackle). I will give this a new go in the coming months.



Even though the year has just started, some of my fellow bloggers have already jumped on board the SCU carousel with their contribution:

2 comments:

  1. A good read Jeroen and i agree with trying to perfect what i am currently doing as well. I would like to try to weather a build and chipping would be high on the want to include in that....
    Good luck with the bench time this year.

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  2. Another good job on the pre/post shade front. you make it look like a deliberate process vs some that seem to want to cover too much of the model,like a blanket.

    Also agree that in trying to do the perfect model or technique, I will lose sight of the fun of building, aspect of modeling and end up not completing anything.
    Happy New Year

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