Monday evening

I was feeling a bit lazy this evening after work and didn't feel like fixing anything for dinner.  Instead, I went by Fruizen to try out their ramen.  I know, I know, why would I get ramen at a dessert place.  Actually, it was not bad.  I ordered the spicy sesame with roast beef, but I think they gave me kind of a mish-mash.  It had the roast beef, but the other stuff, which included mushrooms and a hard boiled egg were from different ramen types and the broth tasted like soy, not sesame.  Regardless, I actually enjoyed it.

Now, onto the hobby parts.  Okay, my dad has been bugging me about taking the masking tape off of my Storm Talon.  I did tonight.  I'm... not really happy with the results.  Here's the left side.

 The left side looks alright.  Not great, but I guess passable.  My problem really is with its right side.

From a distance, I suppose it looks alright.  But when you actually look up close at it, you can see that a lot of the white layer bled through.  Not only that, but the white paint I used just plain sucked.  It left a sort of orange peel like texture on the right side of it.  That paint always did that to me regardless of how well I shook the can before spraying or how far away I stood.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this.  I may be in need of a bucket of Simple Green.  I hope it can strip this paint.  If I start over, I'll just do it straight in a dark gray and leave it at that.

In other news, I tried an experiment today.  I've been looking around at different techniques for doing weathering.  One that I've been intrigued by is the salt method.  Basically, after you base coat, you take a wet brush and run it along the edges and generally where you'd like to have the paint peeling.  Alternatively, you can spray it with hairspray.  After that, you sprinkle salt onto the model.  It sounds really stupid, I know, but it actually works.  After the water or whatever medium you use dries, spray it down either with spray paint or an airbrush.  Once that's dry, you just rub or scrape off the salt.  Here's the results I got.

This is the Zvezda 1/100 scale KV-2 I got from Pegasus.  This was just meant to be a test model for when I work on my Chaos Marines' Predator tank, but I think I might actually go ahead and finish painting this thing.  I like how the weathering came out.  The salt works surprisingly well I have to say.  Before I get to the Predator itself though, I might try another technique using a Liquid Mask.  I know Vallejo makes one.  The results should be about the same, but I'll have more control and I'll be able to cover larger areas.

I worked on a few miniatures also.  These guys are from yesterday.

 I got another of my cultists that I'd received for Christmas finished.  It's taken me way too long to get to these guys, but I am getting to them.

I've got another of my Iron Warriors almost finished as well.  All I really need to do here with this guy is paint his chainsword, add the hazard stripes to his pistol, add some rocks to his base, and paint it up!

Here is one of today's samples.

My father has been bugging me to do an Ultramarine for him.  I don't like these guys.  They're total Mary Sues and they get way to much focus over the other Space Marine chapters.  At least he was easy to paint.  Just need to do his weapon, his backpack, and his base.

The final bit for tonight is an update on my Typhus proxy.

As I post this, he's actually even further along.  I've chosen to make my Chaos Marines' officers in gold so they stand out more, but still match the general yellow color of the chapter.  Just a bit more work and he'll be finished!