Product Review: Stynlrez primer

I recently picked up a bottle of this at my local hobby shop after a recent meeting of my IPMS club.

The product in question

I had only ever heard of it in passing and never seen it in stores.  The Des Moines metro area is blessed with a good sized gaming community and several (3) stores the promote the hobby.  They carry a pretty good range of war gaming related hobby products, mostly the mainstream big name stuff.  40K  (and some 30K ), AOS and Warmachine are the big games around here. Accordingly, the big lines of paint are GeeDubs and P3.  The traditional hobby shoplease in town also carries Vallejo Model Air and Game Color. At the same time, DSM is also something of a desert for hobby paints that aren't the big names.  But I'll get into that later.  

First impression: I didn't think I was going to like this Stynlrez primer.  It claims on the bottle that there is no need to thin it before airbrushing.  So I loaded up my airbrush and went to work on anew AOL Chaos Blood Warrior.  It seemed so think coming out of the airbrush.  It felt like it was having trouble getting through the nozzle.  It looked like it was clumping on the mini but the bottle said it was self leveling so I pressed on.  By the time I was finished I still wasn't sure.  It covered pretty well but felt as though it was straining to get through the brush.  I was using a .4 mm needle in case you were wondering.

So I left it to dry for a short while.  What I found when I came back changed my opinion entirely.  It was gorgeous.  It covered perfectly and dried smooth and flat.  The picture might be a little hard to see but you can get an idea.

Chaos Blood Warrior primed with Stynlrez black primer.

My go to primer lately has been Vallejo black primer.  Here's a side-by-side of models primed with each:

Stynlrez on the left, Vallejo on the right

You can see how the Vallejo leaves a little bit more glossy finish and just doesn't quick cover as well.  My first impressions were proved wrong and I'm very glad I picked up this primer.  I just found a new go-to.

Now for a list of what model and hobby paints are available in the DSM:

Testors  Model Master (enamel & acrylic)

Testors square bottle enamels

Tamiya acrylics

Alclad II lacquers

Floquil railroad enamels

Citadel acrylics

P3 acrylics

Vallejo Model Air

Vallejo Game Color

Vallejo Model Color (very limited selection only at Hobby Lobby)

Model and hobby paints not available in the DSM:

Citadel Air

Tamiya Lacquers

The Army Painter

Vallejo Panzer Aces 

Life Color

Humbrol 

Revell 

White Ensign  (if even sold in stores)

Badger Minitaire 

Vallejo Game Air 

Anything Guide

Reaper

So yeah, we've got some of this and some of that. We don't have everything but we've got what we need to get us by.  

Miniwargaming.com

Recently I received en e-mail from Miniwargaming.com offering me a whole series of Horus Heresy painting tutorials if I signed up for a free trial of their Vault subscription service.  I've been a fan of them for about a year now after discovering them on YouTube.  I watched as many of their batreps as I could and they are about 95% of why I got back into the war gaming hobby.  At some point in everyone of their videos they always offer up a free 7-day trial membership and Matthew will always guarantee that you'll keep it.  I just scoffed at it every time I'd hear their pitch but this email offer made me pause for a minute.  Free? Downloadable?  Painting tutorials?  Ok Glanfield, I'll give it a try.  So I signed up.  SO MUCH EXCLUSIVE CONTENT!  I've had to explain to Mrs. Mediocre Modeler that knowledge and information are gold to me.  That's why I'm always on my phone or tablet watching videos or reading about all kinds of things.  With this membership I was able to watch the second half of so many narrative batreps, countless daily quick tips from Kris and I'll even admit that the behind the scenes bits hosted by Quirk have been entertaining. I've scoured YouTube for all the 40K and 30K batreps I could find and the production quality and general view ability of MWGs content is far and away the best out there.  Now that they're doing 30K, it's even better. I suppose $10 a month isn't too much to ask for the amount of content that they offer.  You'll pay a hell of a lot more for your favorite adult-themed website.  If you aren't aware of Miniwargaming.com I'd strongly suggest looking them up on YouTube and if you're on the fence about a Vault membership, try out the free 7-day offer and see for yourself.  Shut up and take my money Matthew!

How to: Bases

As previously promised, here's a quick walk through on how I do my bases.

Materials:
PVA glue
Old paintbrush or toothpicks
Basing sand
Static grass (one color is fine but two is better)
Static grass clumps (one color is fine, two is better)
Black primer
Brown paint
Lighter brown paint
Light brown or tan paint.

1. We'll start with a standard 40mm round base.  Cover the top with a layer of your favorite PVA glue.  You can water it down and spread it with ano old brush or even a toothpick.  Once the glue has been spread evenly, I place the base upside down in my container of basing sand.  Then I'll flip it over and shake the container to make sure the base gets a good even coating of sand.

I've had a container of the old GeeDubs basing sand for ages.

I bought a large container of the basing sand sold by GeeDubs probably 10 or so years ago and I'm still nowhere near done with it. Their packaging at the time was less than ideal so I eventually transferred it into a small storage tote with a locking lid.  I also sifted out all the larger rocks.  It gave the bases more variety but also had a tendency to make it harder to place the miniatures.

GeeDubs packaging times 1000

Be sure to give the glue a couple hours to dry, ideally overnight.

2. Our next step will be to prime our base black.  I like to use Vallejo Black Surface Primer.

I spray this in my airbrush at about 20 psi.

Our primed base.

Once again, be sure to give this plenty of time to dry.  Overnight is not entirely necessary but several hours at least.

3. Next, I paint the base with Vallejo Game Color scorched brown.  I also spray this through my airbrush just for ease of application.  It is perfectly feasible to paint it on with a brush.

It's tough to see but the base is now brown.

4. Now we add our first highlight using P3 Gun Corps Brown.  Give the base a fairly heavy dry brush at this stage.

First highlight applied.

You can see how dry brushing our highlight started to make the raised edges of the sand pop.

5. We'll now dry brush our second and final highlight using Vallejo Game Color Khaki.

The base on the left had a heavier application of khaki than the one on the right.  Since we will be adding more materials to our base shortly it is nothing to be concerned about.

6. Our next step is to begin adding I our grass products.  This most certainly warrants and in depth discussion of available products but I will leave that for another time.  First I will be using a static grass from The Army Painter.  They call it Steppe Grass.

The Army Painter has a great lineup of basingetting materials.

This comes in a nice little tub that should last quite a while.  My method for applying  this is to start by putting some PVA glue on a piece of masking tape.  Use a toothpick to dab the glue on your base in the spots you would like to grass to be.

Just apply the glue fairly sporadically across the base.

Then while holding the base over your tub of grass, use a pair of tweezers to grab a clump of grass and basically drop it onto your patches of glue.  Once you've applied all the grass you want, give it about 30 seconds and turn the base over to dump and excess material back into the tub.  Give the base a few gentle taps will also help dislodge any errant blades of grass.  If you wanted, you could leave your base like this and call it good, but I like to go a few steps further.

7. Apply some more PA glue in the splotches manner we used previously.

Just like before.

Now we're going to apply some of the brighter green static grass that GeeDubs used to sell.

I keep this in a container just like my basing sand.

Apply it in the same manner using your tweezers.  Fingers would work too.

8. Next were going to apply just one or two smaller grass clumps.  These are also a product from The Army Painter.

These come in a variety of sizes and colors.

The different shapes and colors of the clump grasses will help break up the base.  I'm going to use one winter tuft and one wilderness tuft.  Simply place a spot of glue on your base, open the package of clumps, grab one with your tweezers, gently pull it off the backing paper and place it on your base.  They're very simple to use and ado a great level ofor realism.

Our nearly completed base.

The final step is to paint the rim of the base.  I usually choose black, but you can do whatever color you like.

Here are a few shots of our base with a Stormcast Eternal Liberator glued on.

I hope this how-to article has given you a few ideas or tips.  You can check out more of my work on Instagram @themediocremodeler.  Until next time, happy modeling.

Airbrushes

I got my first airbrush as a junior in high school, spring of 2003.  It was a cheap Aztek A270 starter pack that came with a can of compressed air.  It was a siphone-feed single-action tool that never really worked.  I think I successfully painted maybe 3 models with it.  I could hardly get the thing to feed paint successfully and the can of air that came with it ran out after 2 uses.  It came with an adapter for a normal compressor (which my dad had) but nonetheless, it was never anything even approaching reliable.

The first airbrush of countless frustrated modelers

I lost interest in scale modeling and moved back to tabletop gaming shortly after purchasing my Aztek so it got put into storage for a few years.  When I got back into scale modeling in early 2009, I ended up digging it out, purchasing a new set of nozzles and rediscovering how terrible an airbrush it was.  It was just worthless.  I could not get any paint out of the thing, no matter how well thinned it was. Once I became accustomed to the push down for air pull back for paint operation of a double action airbrush I was able to paint some pretty mediocre (Ha!) model kits). I eventually bought an airbrush compressor fron a friend of mine which made everything a breeze.

In about March of that year I headed off to my local Hobby Lobby with a 40% coupon in hand and bought myself a brand spanking new Paasche VL.  I felt like I was shit hot walking out with a double action airbrush with interchangeable needles and nozzles.

At 40% off its actually a pretty good airbrush.

I still didn't have my own compressor so I had to go to my folks house to use my dad's 5 gallon shop compressor. Certainly not ideal but it was all I had.  And my folks only lived 4 blocks away.  And I had a key to their house.  The VL proved to be a pretty handy piece of kit.  I picked up an airbrush compressor from a friend and the VL and I painted quite a few kits together over the next few months.  The push-down-for-air-pull-back-for-paint operation of a double action was almost intuitive, not entirely without a learning curve, but not as complicated to master as I feared.

Speaking of conpressors, let's talk about those for a quick minute.  My first compressor was an Airbrush City unit I bought used from a friend for $40. It was meant only for airbrushing, was super quiet and came equipped with a moisture trap.  The outlet pressure was very easy to adjust and the control simply popped up and down to lock in place. Buzz your tongue with your lips open and that's about how quiet this thing was.  It was great.

Another necessary piece of kit.

The only downside of the compressor was that even with its rubber feet it had a tendency to walk itself across the floor.  I'd been using it pretty heavily for about 9 months when it bit the dust on me.  My friend had used it for I don't know how long before he sold it to me so I wasn't too irritated when it crapped out.  I figured $40, no big deal.  I ended up replacing it with a Husky Air Scout with a 1 gallon tank for $100 at Home Depot.

Wonderful for putting air in your tires, for airbrushing...not so much...

I worked with it for about 6 years and experienced a number of issues that I don't really want to go into.  Just last spring I relegated the Husky to filling flat tires when I got a Harbor Freight airbrush compressor.

Virtually the same as my old airbrush compressor.

It may sound stupid but the quality of my work took a marked upswing after beginning to use this compressor.  Ok, long story short, a good compressor meant only for airbrushing is a necessity for achieving quality results.

Back to airbrushes.  My friend sold me the airbrush I've been using for nearly 7 years in the fall of 2009.  It is an Infinity from Harder & Steenbeck.  

My 3-year old was able to use this successfully when he was 2.

It's a double action gravity feed airbrush with a number of interesting features I wasn't used to.  You can adjust the tension on the trigger spring by adjusting the nut on the middle of the handle, pretty standard for most airbrushes.  It has a governor (for lack of a better term) that allows you to limit the amount that of needle travel thus limiting the amount of paint you get.  Just turn the end cap at the back to adjust the amount of travel you would like, push the cap in to engage it and pop it back out when you're done.  I'll post a video of it in operation some time.  My particular brush is different from the one pictured above in one way. I have what H&S calls the FPC  (fine pressure control) module.  It screws on the bottom where you hook up your air hose and simply twists back and forth to allow you to adjust the pressure right at your brush! These two features work great together when trying to highlight small figures and preshade panel lines.  It also features a quick disconnect for the air hose.  I have both a .4 and a .15 needle and nozzle for it and I have never found myself wanting something bigger or smaller.  You can get comparable models from Iwata or Badger but I'm going to stick with H&S.  

Those are my experiences with airbrushes and compressors.  Certainly not a comprehensive review of anything.  Just thought I'd share my thoughts.

Remember when White Dwarf didn't suck?

Yeah, I do too.  Now I've been out of the hobby for a few years but when I left the last time in late 2010, WD was still the monthly $8 an issue tome of all that was awesome in the world of GeeDubs.

The nerd equivalent of a Tricia Helfer centerfold in Playboy, back when it didn't suck too.

The first issue I ever bought was in early 2001 right around the time they released the updated for 3rd Edition Tyranid lineup.  It featured a 4 or 5 page story, modeling and painting tips and a battle report between the new 'Nids and the Crimson Fists. It was worth reading.

Apparently long gone are the days of the WD editorial staff publishing and promoting the idea of scratch building your own vehicles and giving yout a template for its rules so that you could play it in a legit game of 40K.  What happened to all the step-by-step articles on how to convert a mini into a cooler and more badass mini?  This same thing goes for their website as well.  I used to check their website every day for new painting and modeling articles.  I used to love White Dwarf.

I just got back into the hobby about a year ago thanks to all the YouTube battle reports from MiniWarGaming. I picked up a few issues around the launch of Age of Sigmar and was horrified as what they'd done to my beloved WD. It was now worthless.  The thing they call "Paint Splatter" was a far cry from the painting tutorials they used to publish.  Where were the battle reports? The interviews with the designers and artists? Where was the content worth shelling out money for?

An apt analogy of the new White Dwarf

Ok, I'll admit, some of the AOS war scrolls were kind of nice, but $4 for 3 pages of unit stats that are supposed to be part of a "free" rules game? I guess it makes sense from GeeDubs stand point but I'm not even going anywhere near that can of worms.  At least they started posting the painting tutorials on their YouTube channel.  I do actually like those videos.  Or I did.  Until they had the Emma lady do every other one during the "WarhammerTV Advent Calender".  It was a great idea and I hope they do it again next year but I can't stand that lady.

But I digress.  Like all things we love they are not meant to last.  I only wish I hadn't thrown out all my old issues from back in the day.  Somebody queue up Sarah Maclaughlin...

Why mediocrity?

As a bit of self-agrandizing humor I adopted this moniker for myself.  See, I have a habit of pointing out flaws and inaccuracies in the scale models I build and present at meetings for the IPMS club I belong to (IPMS Des Moines-The Hawkeye Modelers). I often point out what's wrong and follow it with "Meh, I didn't feel like putting in the work to fix it".  My modeling motto has pretty much become "striving for mediocrity since 1985".  Call it laziness if you will, I'm just not a stickler for every last detail being perfectly correct.  I once went full on accuracy crazy on a 1/32nd P-51B build that actually turned out to be a lot of fun.  Granted, it took 16 months to complete but once was good enough at this point.  Once it becomes a chore it's no longer fun for me so mediocrity often becomes the name of the game. Some kits are easier than others so they have better results but some times you just have to settle for getting it done.

You can check out some of my work yourself over on Instagram, @themediocremodeler.