Vallejo Shifters - It's all Dust Baby!

In 2023 I managed to snag an absolute bargain of an eBay joblot. I got a metric ton of airbrush paints including this trio of Vallejo Shifters sets.

I've used them on a few models so far but my main gripe is that the supplied swatches don't at all marry up to my experience.  I decided to make my own swatches and to test if it using a gloss black undercoat made any difference to the effect. 

Before anyone shouts "You should have used spoons!", I probably should but my main objective was to have something I could tuck into the box as a handy reference and not have to dig out my cutlery drawer.  Some of these paints don't look anything like what is in the bottle and their names are no help either.

Galaxy Dust

• 77.002 Light Violet Green - A minty coldish green which flips to a greyish purple at about 20 degrees.
  
  
• 77.008 Green Gold Cold Blue - A nice verdant green which flips to a dark blue.
  
  
• 77.009 Turquoise Violet - A really nice 70s blue flake flipping to a solid purple with flecks of irridescent blue. This is the standout colour of the set.
  
  
• 77.010 Emerald Green Mauve - a darker more blueish green flipping to purple.
  
  
• 77.017 Green Silver Blue -almost identical to 002 but a bit more opaque to begin with before flipping to a much greyer colour.
  
  
• 77.018 Dark Green Tin -a really nice warm green which flips toward yellow.
  

Magic Dust

• 77.001 Violet Old Copper - nah, this is definitely a purple to blue shift and it's really quite good doing multiple flips the further away from 0 degrees you get.  Nice.
  
  
• 77.006 Gold Pale Blue - this was way too subtle for me.  It's a greeny gold to begin with and it pretty much stays there.
  
  
• 77.007 Pearl Violet - Purple to a dark grey.
  
  
• 77.011 Old Silver Pale Violet - Another super subtle shift which just goes black to my eyes.  I will chalk this up to a faile in application even though this was the most successful swatch of the three.
  
  
• 77.012 Silver Pink - Is it? just looks Greeney Purple to me.
  
  
• 77.015 Gold Yellow Burnt Orange - Green to a very nice Gold.  Just pipped into second place by 001.  I used this on the cockpit glass of my Swordfish II model and it looks great even if it has a propensity for spiderwebbing.
  

Space Dust

• 77.003 Orange Violet - This is the colour I chose to use on B'lakor's wings and over a curved surface it works quite well.  However, this doesn't cover great and will need multiple coats to get a really pronounced effect.
  
  
• 77.004 Electric Blue Intense Violet - Blue to a sort of purple, just not as successful as 001.
  
  
• 77.005 Green Blue Velvet - I think I might have messed this one up, I'm not getting an effect at all but it is a really nice metallic green.
  
  
• 77.013 Bright Gold Brown - Very subtle but a transition from green to an orangey brown is there.  Perhaps on a larger curved surface this will work quite well
  
  
• 77.014 Old Gold Grey Violet -  I'm just not getting the gold here.  It's another green to purple transition.
  
  
• 77.016 Red Gold - this is definitely a green to gold transition but it is green for a long time..
  

To Gloss or Not to Gloss, That is THE Question. 

I have to say I can't see any difference myself.  However, airbrushing the paint onto a gloss surface made a huge difference when you are actually spraying.  The gloss is a barrier and makes the paint much more likely to pool or to spiderweb.  There is a lot of acrylic medium in the mix which is what suspends the metallic particles, but this takes an age to dry and if you are like me patience is something I have yet to learn...

Overall Opinion

There are a lot of colours which basically look green.  I imagine that there is some perfectly reasonable physics paper which explains how the light refraction effect works.  I will continue to use them and these swatches are going to help a lot in the choices I make.  However, it really does depend on the miniature you are painting and the exact curves on the model to achieve the best results.  

Space marines or any character wearing pauldrons or other similarly curved armour pieces is going to look great using shifters.  Large Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) with flat panels I'm guessing less so, but I am intrigued to see what it looks like on a windscreen of a car.

Blue Monday

I wasn't planning on making a post today, but when I find something on the interwebs that I think is amazing, I tend just jot it down in here and share it with everyone.

Blue Maps Monday

Tim Hartin has been making his Old School Blue Maps available every Monday since 2022.

What is an Old School Blue Map

Old School D&D modules were famous for their gatefold covers and the ubiquitous blue maps which were found inside.  Fun Fact! this is a well known anti-copy technique using a particular shade of blue called "non-photo blue".  It is also widely used by traditional illustrators to make their initial sketches as the blue will not be picked up in any subsequent scanning or photography stage.

Back in November 2011 I wrote about the various free software options you could use (at the time) to make maps at the "Dungeon" scale maps and included a fun little level editor Tiled 

Sadly the tileset I created is lost to the mists of time, but I will rebuild it and make it better than ever...

Mwahahaha

Scavengers Reign - An Exploration of Xenomorphology

I saw this trailed last year and, as a big fan of the art of the great french comic book illustrator Moebius aka Jean Giraud, I was gobsmacked with how similar in style it looked to many of his amazing strips.

It immediately brought back memories of watching Les Maîtres du temps (The Masters of Time) and I knew I would have to give it a watch.

More than just a Robinson Crusoe Rehash

The story revolves around the lives of three groups of survivors who landed their escape pods on a lush and verdant planet in very different circumstances.  Many of their shipmates have not been so lucky and did not survive to reach the surface, although it is not long before you start to realise that maybe its the dead who are lucky.

The 12 episodes are a busmans guide on how to create a planet full of interesting and diverse flaura and fauna which spends all of its time trying to eat you.  Wrapped around this core survival trope are evolving backstories which explore why each of the very differnt characters chose to thrust themselves out into the great void.

Beautifully animated and biologically complex, the writers have crafted a world which has so much natural diversity and complexity in their life cycles and symbiotic relationships with each other.  This goes well beyond the simple and makes Gieger's Xenomorph look like a children's story book.  

In the same way, the individual backstories of each character are explored in detail from the venal and pathetic Kamen to the strange relationship between Azi and her robot companion Levi.  These are as complex and interesting as their surroundings.  However, sometimes I feel this is designed to lull you into a false sense of security.  Needless to say in these more tender moments their next brush with the disaster is only around the corner.

Traveller Eat Your Heart Out.

This is exactly how I remember early Traveller scenarios going back in the day.  Every scenario was an exercise in exploration and discovering new and deadly lifeforms.  I remember playing those classic double adventures like Shadows or the Chamax Plague and loving them.   

Justifiers - Out of The Mists	Traveller - Shadows

It also brought back memories of running my favourite long dead sci-fi exploration RPG Justifiers.  With only a little modification each of these episodes would make for an entertaining set of encounters for any party.

Is Scavengers Reign Worth Watching?

If you enjoy carefully crafted and beautiful landscapes filled with interesting biology then yes, absolutely.  If you want fast paced action then this is not the animation for you.  If you can imagine watching a 6 hour long Studio Ghibli masterpiece where your own mortality is repeatedly rammed down your throat in the most violent but interesting ways.  Only then are you getting somewhere close to the gorgeous grotesqueness of this show. 

It is rare for a show like this to ever get greenlit or make it past a 30 minute long short so we have to reward the creative geniuses behind the scenes and watch their show.

Jessie's Prints - Episode 33 - The Girl with the Robot Hand

This week, I are mostly been printing... A girl riding a robot hand!!

Trix Robot Rider - Cults 3D 

I found this on EthanTSavage's Cults 3D page and thought it was an awesome sculpt.

The aesthetic is undeniably Anime, and for me is reminiscent of the fabulous Tank Girl comic of the 80s.  Whilst the movie ranks as one of the worst in history, I am a big fan.

I love Giant Robot anime, my favourite being Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still.  If you haven't watched it you should it's just the right shade of bonkers to make a strange sort of sense and is a blend of diesel punk / magical superhero anime which is incredibly rare.

This was a very quick model to make taking me only a few days to complete.  I used a skull base which I had originally intended for my huge demon model and slathered on the old poundland polyfilla to form a crust over the skulls. 

This is my homage to the famous scene in Terminator 2 where the T800s are walking across the field of human remains crushing skulls underfoot.

Jessie's Prints - Episode 32 - Cowboy Bebop Spike Spiegel Swordfish II

This week, I are mostly been printing... The Swordfish II

Cowboy Bebop Swordfish II - Thingiverse: Thing 3082811

Anime fans will instantly recognise Spike Spiegel's red starfighter the Swordfish II.

This is an older file designed for FDM printing and is therefore a abit on the low-poly end of the spectrum  but it is very well put together all the same.

Meet the Parts

I opted to print this on my Resin SLA printer and I was mindful of the large size of the model.  The main core of the ship needed to be split in two using meshmixer and I took the opportunity to learn how to use the hollow functions. 

I couldn't believe how easy this was and it's definitely something I will be using in the future when I make larger objects as I reckon it saved a metric ton of resin and didn't lead to those peeling and splitting issues I experienced when printing my 3D Printed Akira - Kaneda Bike.

Sub Assembly

Once I had worked out what parts I needed and got them all printed to my satisfaction, I began gluing up the sub assemblies.

The core body and nose were split in meshmixer so needed to be joined back together.  Despite a really good print whenever I use mesh mixer I need to putty the seams.  The hollowed out core and nose also needed the drain holes filled and sanded.  I then doubled pinned the wings to this main assembly.  In hindsight I should have spent more time on this as there was a little bit of an alignment issue between the wing root and the wing itself.

The back half of the model was an utter nightmare of badly fitting airfoils and I bodged as best I could.

The cannon barrel, cockpit and reversing gear were painted using various colour shift paints and left until final assembly   

This was all given a solid black primer with my go-to rattle can matt black car paint from Poundland.

Panel Scribing and Underpainting

I knew I was going to want to try out the underpainting technique I've seen a lot of AFV modellers use to create their panel lines, but this model didn't really have any.  I dug out a ruler and scribed the aileron's and the folding wing joins with the back of an x-acto blade.  The rivet detail was simply drilled with a pin vice and a few other panel lines added.  This was all recoated in black ready for underpainting.

I used a Daler Rowney FW artists white ink straight out of the bottle through the airbrush.  I'm a pretty novice airbrusher and I have always struggled with thinning and getting the right consistency of paint and prerssure to prevent spidering.  

However, this ink added the new complication of fisheyes.  I'm not sure if it is the ink or the undercoat, but it was a real pain.  Several coats went on and some had to be wiped off.  I persevered and finally it was time to add the red coat. 

Weathering and Paint Chipping

The Swordfish is an old ship and given the meagre budget that the crew of the Bebop operate with, there is only the money to do basic maintenance.  A scuffed up worn out appearance was a must.

I use the sponge chipping method lightly dabbing some black on all the leading edges that would take the most punishment on re-entry.  This was then highlighted with some bright silver from Army Painter.

A simple but effective method to weathering whilst maintaining a clean look and not taking an age to dry.

Spike Spiegel - MyMinifactory

No model of the Swordfish II would be complete without it's pilot and the main hero of the show, Spike Spiegel.

I found a lovely model of Spike on MyMiniFactory which was a breeze to print and paint.  I think it makes a great addition to the model.  Shout out to sculptor EthanTSavage whose work is prertty amazing and scales up really nicely. 

The Base

I considered lighting this model but to be honest it was a bit of a pain once assembled.  I had a plan for routing the LEDs to the engine and the two spotlights on the nose, but I was not confident that the effect would be worth it given the low-poly detail of this model.  

I did want a modern looking base and found the perfect match in a box style frame in a thrift store.  Removing the glass and gluing the mdf backer in place proved a sturdy enough platform for a coathanger to be glued in place supported by a generous volcano of milliput on the underside.

I also took the liberty of drilling an extra hole in the corner for Spike to be glued in place.

The Swordfish II Plaque - Thingiverse: Thing 6455107

One of the more iconic graphical elements to the show is the logo.  I love the big kanji script but wanted the center to bear the name of the ship.  I found a suitable image online and modified it with GIMP.  I then converted the JPG to an SVG using Convertio and imported this into Tinkercad.  I added a simple solid back to the object and exported as an STL.  

From start to finish this took no more than 10 minutes.  You can download the STL file for free using the Thingiverse link above.

Many Thanks to...

A big shout out to Lou Dalmaso aka Aztek Dummy on YouTube.  I've thoroughly enjoyed his forays into 3D printed models and it was his channel that inspired me to give it a go myself.  

Big thanks also to the rest of the Youtube modelmaking community for giving me hours of enjoyable content over the years. Plasmo, Mr E Models, SpruVerse, World of Wayne, TrekWorks, Interstellar Modeler, Boylei Hobby Time, Luke Towan, MSPaints, Squidmar, Ground Affected, Midwinter Minis and so many more...