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Last week I tried out some of the Vallejo metal color paints I have - Gunmetal Grey, Dark Aluminum, Dull aluminum - and when applied with a paintbrush there is quite a noticeable difference with GG being very dark, Dark Aluminum kind of a midtone, and Dull Aluminum being almost white. Now that the hose adapter arrived for my new compressor I had a go at spraying them through my airbrush and the results are a lot more similar than I expected (or wanted).

 

 

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Left mini is Dark Aluminum, right is Dull. There is a slight difference to be seen with the Dull being a brigther and more 'white' color, but not by much. In fact, I sprayed the second figure with Dark first and then tried a zenithal spray of Dull to see how it would do as a highlight and there wasn't much contrast at all so I just sprayed the whole thing in Dull to see what its coverage was like. In fact, when I was carrying both of them back to my hobby desk to take pictures, I couldn't tell them apart in normal room lighting and had to get them under my incredibly bright lamp to do it.

Yeah... Vallejo has a great range of colours but they're not known for their metals. In fact, their metals are atrocious. They have the problem you highlighted (pun intended), have bad coverage, and they clot over time even when in use, and they spray horribly. 

After mostly ditching GW metals I tried a ton of brands and my top pics are now Army Painter and Scale 75.  

I read up on Vallejo Metal Color paints after that last post and discovered I made a mistake by adding a drop or two of flow improver which is most likely to blame for the spotty finish noticeable on the chest and abdomen armor, and are supposed to be airbrushed straight out of the bottle. I'll give it another go with that method.

  • 2 weeks later...

It's not just scaling it up, which breaks all the supports, and then copying them over from the normal size one - bigger parts weigh more, produce greater suction force when the build plate moves up and down, and even hollowing the part isn't a sure fix. All of which can mean failure after failure before you finally nail the sweet spot. And that's on one part.

She printed up nice, brothers!

 

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And in that empty spot on the build plate just to the right of the hull section I was able to squeeze in a Rapier escort with a Voss prow.

 

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The grand cruiser is going to need a bit of work before I can assemble it; the backs of the weapon bays are slightly rounded and won't fit flush and there's a similar issue where the aft section joins the hull piece.

 

The grand cruiser is going to need a bit of work before I can assemble it; the backs of the weapon bays are slightly rounded and won't fit flush and there's a similar issue where the aft section joins the hull piece.

 

 

That just gives you the authentic feel of the original White metal kits. Though should be easier to fix than having to cut or bend the metal.

Looking good so far a nice clean print, probably a good thing I don't have a resin printer yet I don't need more BFG with no one to play with.

When taking the pics of the assembled Grand Cruiser I was trying to use some poster tack to hold the rudder fin on and apparently cured resin doesn't want to stick to it very well, and I think I like the look of the ship better without it. I'll need to print a couple more of the dorsal lance turrets because even though I knew they were going to be fragile and handling them as gently as I could, the barrels still got broken on two of them and I left them off for the time being.

 

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I like it without the fin as well, I think it’s a bit sleeker and more battleship this way.  That large fin can’t really have much of any function in space anyway, it just looks a bit silly dangling there IMO.  I always imagined the concept of the dorsal lances differently, I guess, not as gigantic actual water navy battleship cannon turrets.  Hope the reprinting goes well!

I never realized how much it resembles a Star Destroyer until these pics with the rudder decoration removed. This 3rd party version is longer and thinner than the GW Grand Cruiser, but the arrow shaped nose, the bridge set way on the back, and the overall shape of it is very reminiscent.

 

In Templar news, some goodies have arrived in the mail to spruce up my new plastics, most important of which is some tasty armor veneers for the Redemptor.

 

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Thanks! Just got some new stuff to put up as well.

 

A couple of printed heads to try out and I think I might use the 2nd one here on my three bladeguard.

 

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I printed out a primaris marine split into legs, torso, arms, and head, and I also printed a set of gravis templar legs just see how they looked. Not really caring for the gravis torso design, I tried out the primaris chest on the gravis legs and tacked on a GW arm and head and I think I might be on to something here.

 

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The chest is obviously too small for the legs and I would simply print the chests larger to go with them.

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