Ready for take off!

Ork Bommer Almost Complete

     The Ork Bommer, which has been languishing about for years now, is nearing completion.  I have been using this model as a test bed for some weathering techniques I had read about.  Essentially the plane itself is all finished up.  I have the two over-sized bombs to paint up, and a fancy resin base from Secret Weapons Miniatures to do.  I need to go pick up some appropriate flock for the base, and figure out what colors I'm going to use there.  The bombs actually present a bigger challenge in the style department.  I could see doing them up in a really rusty dilapidated manner, or painted and decorated in a lovingly Orky style.  I thought about painting one up as Bullet Bill from the old Super Mario games, but I fear that's a little obvious and it's crossing the streams a bit.

Weathering Techniques I Tried

     One of the biggest experiments on this model was using oil paints.  I have long read about them, heard many a story about how it can add another dimension to your painting.  I was a bit intimidated about using something that wasn't water based, and took so long to dry.  After reading through Forge World's Model Masterclass book, I finally felt as though I was armed with enough information to proceed.

     For the first technique, I used the oil paint to shade panel lines and add a look of rust here and there.  Essentially I started small here.  I didn't use the one oil paint I choose in huge quantities.  First I selected Burnt Umber as the color, thinned it with mineral spirits and began using it to shade some of the metallic paints, and panel lines.  The first thing I noticed was how translucent the paint was.  This meant that, applying it as thin as I was, I could control the effect by adding layers after letting each layer dry to build up an effect.  With the paint thinned and the long drying time of the oil paint, this allows you to "push" the paint around quite a lot.  You can easily go back with just a brush loaded with just a bit of the mineral spirits and easily remove the paint if you don't like the look.

     The second technique was using a mixture of the oil paint with a rust weathering powder flicked on to the model using a brush and a toothpick.  The second step was to airbrush mineral spirits over the spots to soften them, then use a brush to streak the spots.  I'm not absolutely certain that I did this properly.  I didn't see the spots softening quite as much as I expected.  The streaking worked like a charm, so I'll certainly use that in the future.

Here are some more shots...