Vallejo Game Air: Using Vallejo's New Airbrush Paints

Many readers are familiar with, and probably use, Vallejo's awesome line of military airbrush paints: the Model Air line. Can't say enough about Model Air paint. Great pigment density, brilliantly pre-thinned for airbrush use. Fantastic coverage. What could Vallejo possibly do to make their line of airbrush paints any better? 

Well...how about a line of bright colours more suited to fantasy and science fiction figures? That's just what they've done. Released in Europe a few months ago, their new Game Air line got great reviews...and it's finally available in North America.

Nothing tells you more about the differences between Model Air and Game Air than this single photo. On the left, there are the muted historical military tones of the Model Air line: USAF Dark Grey, USAF Green and IDF Green. Now, on the right, we have some of the new Game Air colours: Ultramarine Blue, Magic Blue and Electric Blue. Perfect for so many fantasy and sic-fi projects.

So, my first project to try out the Game Air colours was this Mage Knight metal figure of a Crypt Worm. Once I had finished it, I realized that it probably wasn't the best example because I did it up in muted organic colours...but it did at least utilize pink...something not in the Model Air line!

Anyway, starting with the base figure, this two-part model was glued down to a base, primed and inked...and I painted up the flagstone base first. Now to move onto the paint job.

The Vallejo brochure that came with the Game Air colours suggested a few triads of paints that can go well together. I wanted a rotting flesh look for the Crypt Worm, so I used their suggested Khaki—Dead Flesh—Bonewhite progression. At first glance, this didn't make much sense to me; This wasn't a progression of a single colour. But I wanted to give it a try anyway.

I'm glad I did. the subtle brown from the Khaki and green from the Dead Flesh worked really well together. I added in the Squid Pink to provide colour interest around the mouth and underbelly areas of the worm.

To pop out the model's detail, I washed with Sepia, Fleshtone and Red.

I then went in and brush-highlighted the raised portions of the sculpt. This is where I would normally go to standard hobby acrylic paints...but I wanted to see how versatile the Game Air line was, so I used them with a brush. The highlights were painted on with the Dead Flesh, Bonewhite and Stonewall Grey colours.

Super-happy with the results. The thin, but dense, Game Air paints provided great coverage and translucency during the highlighting pass.

And the tonal variations I was able to lay down initially with the airbrush carried through to the final figure.

So, overall, this new line of paints from Vallejo gets two thumbs up from me. I picked up my set at the Game Store in Red Deer, south of Edmonton.

'Til next time.

Woodland Monsters

Many years back, I was involved in the creation of the game Mage Knight, put out by our (at that time) company, WizKids Games. The figures for the game were pre-painted plastics, with masters sculpted in the USA and mass-produced in China.

A little-known fact was that 32 of those initially released Mage Knight figures were struck in white metal as limited edition hobby releases. I've had a box of them stashed away in my basement for well over a decade.

Anyway, as my thoughts and efforts have recently turned to RPGs, I remembered having these models and dug through some boxes to find some new RPG monsters. And the result...

We have the Wood Golem and the Living Elemental. Of all the initial Mage Knight releases, these two were my favourite models, and I was glad to find them in metal. Super fun to paint up, and I went to town on the Wood Golem giving him some extra love on the base and covering him with moss.

Hope you like the end result.

'Til next time.

In The Beginning...

Hello Cyberspace.

Never thought I'd do a blog, but several guys associated with my game club have started up blogs, so I thought I'd jump in.

I'm pretty passionate about my miniatures gaming hobby, and I'm always looking for info on what other miniatures enthusiasts are up to. Hopefully, you are like-minded and will find interesting material here.

Starting a blog after being involved in miniatures gaming for 20 years feels a little weird. I could just go straight to what's on my workbench today, but I think it would be better to do a light survey of stuff I've worked on over the past few years (or decades...I suppose).

I've been a game designer since 1985, and fell into miniatures gaming as a result of that career choice. I designed my first set of miniature game rules back in 1990 with Silent Death, which was a set of space fighter rules inspired by Star Wars and set in my Spacemaster game universe.

I have plenty of painted miniatures for SD, but no pics of my own stuff...so here is a pic of someone else's figs.

Back then I was playing a lot of Advanced Squad Leader as well. I got into DASL, which was a micro armor version of the game. 6mm is a pretty small scale, but that just means you can collect a lot more of it! Here are some of my micro armor pieces, painted between 1989 and 2006.

Sherman V and Priest.

T34/85.

Ram Kangaroo with Infantry.

25 Pounder Battery.

Around 1999, I was contacted by my old friend from FASA, Jordan Weisman (who was responsible for games like BattleTech, Mech Warrior, Earth Dawn, Crimson Skies, etc.). He had an idea for a new miniatures-based game that would do away with the monster rule books which pervaded the industry at that point. Together, we came up with Mage Knight, the first collectible miniatures game. Our company was called WizKids, and it went on to produce lots of different miniatures games based on cool properties like DC and Marvel superheroes, Mech Warrior and Major League Baseball.


Here is a pic of some of the figures from that game system.

I moved to Edmonton in 2005 and hooked up with Bob Barnetson's excellent Edmonton Wargame Group. Miniatures gaming really took off for me at that point and I started collecting lots of armies, gaming models and terrain sets.

Here is a sample of some of the figs I've collected and painted for our games over the past few years.

15mm German PaK and Infantry for Disposable Heroes.

15mm German Motorcycle Troops & Panzers.


25mm British Paratroopers.

15mm Ancient Greek Hoplites.

1/72 scale Pfalz D.XII for Canvas Eagles.

25mm Troll Chieftain for War of the Ring.

25mm Wild West Gunfighters.

1/144 scale diecasts for Warbirds in Miniature.

30mm Warmachine miniatures.

25mm Romano-British Calvary

Well, there's a sampling of what has occured in miniatures gaming for me over the past while. Next, I'll move on to current projects. Thanks for taking the time to look through this blog...hope you liked it. I'll try to update regularly.