Greetings one and all,
This is a very special article as it celebrities my milestone of reaching 700 followers on Twitter. Thank you all very much for taking the time to follow me and read the semi-dumb stuff I post up. And now, without further ado, I give you my top 7 painting tools.
Number 1 - Blu tack. Yes, you read right. That putty-like stuff you use to hold up posters and erm… Well, in my case I use it to blu tack models to my spray stick, as well as when I dry fit models. It’s also incredibly useful for positioning models in just the right way, so I can get at the right angles in my spray booth when airbrushing. And this leads me on nicely to…
Number 2 - Airbrushes. I use a Sparmax Professional Mini Piston Airbrush Compressor (2.5-litre air tank) and whatever cheap airbrush I’ve attached to it. I still consider myself a novice though when it comes to using an airbrush, but for batch painting basecoats, slight highlights and sealing models, I honestly don’t know how I coped without it. Now, moving on but still tangentially related to airbrushing…
Number 3 - Vallejo Acrylic Metal Color Airbrush Colors: Gunmetal. I love this paint, you can spray one coat on and call it done. What's even better is that it works perfectly well when applied with a brush too, and in fact, that's how I used it at first. It was a happy accident that I mistakenly ordered it one day and decided to just take a punt anyway. I even reviewed it a few years ago.
Number 4 - Drybrushes. Of course, when it comes to painting metal, like with the Vallejo Gunmetal, I tend to drybrush a lighter colour over it. I basically drybrush everything whenever I can, because man I love drybrushing. It’s like cheating. So it will surprise nobody that I have a whole range of Citadel and Army Pinter brushes for this exact purpose and having a flat edge and a rounded brush really opens up the effects one can achieve.
Number 5 - With all this painting, my brushes get a lot of use and lets be honest here, some of them aren’t cheap. So I make sure to take the best care of them that I can and to that end, I’ve always got a pot of The Masters Brush Cleaner and Preserver somewhere on my desk. I’ve been using it for years now and honestly, it works magic on my brushes. I dread to think of the state my brushes would be in without it.
Number 6 - When Citadel brought out their first line of painting handle, I won’t lie, I laughed. “Why would I need one of those” I scoffed, “I could just use a stick and some blu tack” I joked, “It looks like a b-” Okay, I’ll stop, you get the point. Now though, I own 8. And I would honestly buy more if I could justify it. What changed, I imagine you ask? Well, it’s simple. I tried using one and, well, yeah. There good. Really good and oh so useful, I find them really handy for turning models so I can get into difficult places that my fingers would otherwise be in the way of and that would risk the models falling off the stick, but again, I’ve written quite a lot on these so why not go read the articles?
Number 7 - My last top tool is my Army Paint Wet Pallet. This is such a step up from my old Tupperware Box, with a sheet of damp kitchen roll and grease-proof paper. It allows me to mix my paint so much better in my opinion and of course, they stay wet for longer, therefore saving me paint and ergo money.
And that’s it! My top 7 tools; what they are and why I love them. And again, I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who’s followed me. It means so much, and I hope to keep doing this and growing further with this as we move on into the future.
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