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I had a really useful 0.8mm bit, was perfect for those fiddly pistol barrels etc, but it snapped just from a small drop. Didn't fancy getting a whole new set just for the smallest one! My largest bit size is 3.2mm, that was enough for drilling out finecast Helbrecht's head, although if I recall I just held the bit by hand and it wasn't the easiest task. Required a little scraping from a hobby blade as well to finish it up.

I'm just using my 3mm and doing a lot of scraping with a knife.  I haven't got any dremels or power tools to fall back on, and I sure as hell don't have the money for one, so I'm doing it the hard way.  Got 4 more or less done so far.  More or less. :P

I worked the 3mm bit around a lot too and it still wasn't wide enough.  I'm just gonna grab a 5/32" bit and hope for the best.  After measuring a few times, that seems to be as close to the width of the neck-balls (serious medical condition, that) as any bits are gonna get. :laugh.:

 

Edit- Fun.  My pin vice isn't big enough for a 5/32".  So now drilling out the neck to a proper size is roughly just as tedious as cutting off the necks.  Joy.

 

:dry.:

This condition often follows a swift, powerful knee or boot to the groin.

  • 4 weeks later...

So, progress on my Neophytes has been going slower than expected. Technical problems, like scheduling and loss of paints, not to mention drilling and test fitting torsos to heads, have been hamstringing things. But after 2 days (2 freaking days, roughly 2 and a half hours a head!) I got these done. I loathe, detest, and despise painting faces, but I'm happy with the overall results. I have to paint one more, but I'm using one of the old metal Neophytes, so that'll be a whole other nightmare.

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I never tried painting blonde or brown hair before. I'm not totally satisfied, but this was largely trial and error. When you look up hair painting tutorials, 9 times out of 10 the models have textured hair. These space marines, however, have mostly flat hair, so I had to adapt a bit. And of course, the camera continues to have focus issues. Kinda like me, really.

My biggest current issue is my old pot of mixed black and codex grey paint. It's dried out to a tarry mess, and I use it for highlighting on every bit of black, with a tiny tiny brush. That's quite a problem. Just adding water isn't a good solution, because even the slightest bit just turns the paint to a water with high surface tension, ruining coverage and control alike. Not quite sure how I'm going to adapt to this hurdle just yet...

Also, the dude with the mohawk creeps me out :lol:

Edited by Firepower

 

Why not all of the above?

A shrubbery full of kittens ready to hand out the most lethal paddlin' of the century :wink:

Or a badge of shame, as Ace suggested.

Or.......he must paint his next model with.........a herring!

 

 

Deal!

Ugh, I feel your loathing.

 

It's such a shame to spend so much time on an unhelmed marine's face to get him all dolled up, only to immediately be shot in the head, b/c any enemy with any sense is going to when he was stupid enough to leaving a gaping weakpoint in an otherwise unbreakable suit of armor.

 

But hey, at least you painted them really pretty! ^_^

Edited by Flint13

Looking good!  Yeah blonde can be tricky, but you should try Reaper paints. They have these tri-color packs that have 3 shades of a color. One of them is blonde and let me tell you it's fantastic. On SM's it can be a bit difficult as you said because they have mostly flat hair but it's really a great set. 

Ugh, I feel your loathing.

 

It's such a shame to spend so much time on an unhelmed marine's face to get him all dolled up, only to immediately be shot in the head, b/c any enemy with any sense is going to when he was stupid enough to leaving a gaping weakpoint in an otherwise unbreakable suit of armor.

 

But hey, at least you painted them really pretty! :happy.:

 

On the other hand, why waste a perfectly good helmet on a meat shield?

 

 

Looking good!  Yeah blonde can be tricky, but you should try Reaper paints. They have these tri-color packs that have 3 shades of a color. One of them is blonde and let me tell you it's fantastic. On SM's it can be a bit difficult as you said because they have mostly flat hair but it's really a great set. 

 

Using older paint pots didn't help.  My bleached bone is at the end of its life, and as the final highlight which has to be super thin, that presented a problem.  The recipe was Snakebite Leather, Desert Yellow stripes, Bleached Bone stripes.  The lines don't show up very well in the pics, sadly, but even then they aren't exactly my best work.  The highlights in the brown hair don't show up for crap even with the naked eye, unless you're looking at it real close. 

 

Whatever, just one more to go :tongue.:

 

For the tarry black-grey paint, I'm thinking of using some Vallejo paint thinner.  With any luck, it will work better than straight water.  If it doesn't, then this is going to be hellish.  None of my black-grey are anywhere near as dark as this custom mix I made all those years ago. :mellow.:

Edited by Firepower

What do you use to thin your paints? If it's water, then you should try flow improver It's far superior to water as it distributes the pigment evenly as it thins. If you have thicker paint I would try this out and see if you can't save it. When using it to thin paint, you don't need much, 1 drop will go a long way. 

 

Note that you do have to dilute it with water but the bottle has directions for doing so.

Typically I just use water, and it's terrible.  There isn't typically a middle ground with aged GW paints- it's either tar, or water, with almost a 0% chance of getting it in between simply using water as a thinner. 

 

Is that the specific brand that you use?  I doubt I'll be able to find it in any stores around here, but I can always mail order I suppose.  Obviously I wouldn't get it before the deadline, but at this point Thanksgiving will probably come and go before I'm done with these guys.  I bit off a bit more than I could chew with a few of my modeling decisions, but I didn't want another 10 generic Neophytes with nothing to identify them as Templars.  Of course now my old Neophytes are going to look even lamer by comparison, 

 

Anyway, the whole point of a deadline was to get me working, and even if I miss it, that goal has been accomplished. :)

 

Now where am I gonna find a herring small enough to paint highlights with...

That windsort & newton stuff is pretty good. I prefer flow-aid by liquitex. You can get it at Michael's for about 10 bucks. It comes in a decent sized bottle. Just dilute (trust me) it with purifield water like brita. I use a 2 parts flow aid to 8 parts water. It's like magic for your paint. I actually use it in all my paints.
I love the face firepower. I hate painting faces and I dread when I have to paint my scouts because there's so much skin. Thankfully the rest of my army is helmeted. Edited by That_One_Marshal

For tiny herrings, consult IG Ration kits.

 

On a side note, you could always attempt using the GW Medium... "L" something Medium... was it Lahman, can't recall. Decent for average thinning and saved most of my 1-2 year old pots.

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