The monthly model build gathering was very successful this month. We got a good amount of work on the PG Astray done; some new folks were introduced to the group; and I finally got to give the airbrushing class I’ve been trying to teach for the past couple of build gatherings. I think the class was a rousing success. We had 11 people airbrushing at the same time. We also brought back Rockband to the gathering as the past few have been fairly subdued and quiet with the lack of rocking out.
To start off folks showed up relatively on time and the dining room table filled up with folks building. The front living room was bare and Sean ended up just working on the floor as I needed the folding tables outside for the airbrush class. Sean brought some new comers to the gathering that are mainly pvc collectors, so hopefully the little taste of airbrushing, and work on resin figures will draw them to the dark side… We’ll have to wait until next month to see if they come back.
We had 7 compressors with four of them attached to the four tanks all together able to run 11 airbrushes simultaneously. I thought that was pretty damn impressive.
We had a few people who had never airbrushed ever. A good number of the folks have airbrushed, but I wanted to see everyone’s technique for spraying. For the most part, everyone knows all the basics and the various techniques to painting. There are little things here and there that I pointed out.
We started with proper thinning ratio, and how to discern a well thinned mixture to a mixture that is too thick or too thin. There is no perfect mathematical formula for thinning, it is all about consistency. A consistency of milk is desired, but the true test is to spray it out of the airbrush and see how the paint preforms. A high pitched squeal coupled with splattering means the paint is too thick and is having trouble coming out of the airbrush. An extremely light and easily beaded up spray means the mixture is too thin. Again, it isn’t exact science, and it basically comes down to experience, so the more folks thin and paint, the better they get.
Each person had a sheet of paper in front of them for practice spraying thin lines, dots, and drawing with the airbrush. The is one of the most important things that I glossed over. I needed to impress upon to the folks in the class that they need to use the sheet of paper to practice spraying at different air pressure settings, at different distances. Spraying thin lines to thick lines, spraying different sized dots. All this works to build up skills on trigger control and gives the painter a deeper understanding on the mechanics of how airbrushing works. At the end of the day, will make them a much better painter.
Art had a friend that offloaded a ton of old kits and he brought in the box of stuff. Some really old and out of print items were in the box. Very cool stuff.
Work on the pg astray continued and rockband comes back to the build gathering. Folks would take breaks from building to go play through out the day and evening. I added in some progress work on my end of the PG Astray. I masked off some internals using sticky tack and then painted over with some alclad steel, then pealed it away. A very easy step that brings details.
And here’s Terry drumming to one of his favorite songs on rockband.
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More pictures: http://gamerabaenre.com/mbg24.htm
