Cheap GaGa MILANO . GANZTON Airbrush - Is it worth it?

I saw an airbrush on Amazon a couple of weeks ago for £26.99 whilst looking for some other things, and noticed it had a 4.5 star rating...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B016PXGZ68/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Here's a pic if the link dies (as Amazon often expires these things)

So this is a gravity feed, double action brush with three nozzles and a braided hose....for £27?? It can't be any good, right? Those star ratings must be from people who listed or work there, right? I mean, a braided airbrush hose will set your back £5 by itself from Amazon (in fact, one that looks suspiciously identical is listed for £5.12!), so we're talking about a double-action airbrush for around £20....that seems crazy.

As I was getting some airbrush cleaning things at the same time, I bought one of these on the basis that being £20 out of pocket for an experiment like this isn't a bad prospect. When it arrived, I was pretty surprised and impressed with what came.

That looks pretty identical with the Amazon picture - so far so good...

Opening the box I was surprised of the quality of what was on offer. I mean, the box and packaging is pretty standard cheap plastic fare, but the airbrush, hose etc all looked pretty good.

I don't have a braided hose, so I popped this out first - no issues from what I can see at all, standard 1/8" fittings with a 1/4" adaptor on one end.

Next up is this - a quick release adapter - another nice feature here

Again, no observable issues, all parts seem like they're good quality.

Last in the airline department is a moisture trap - I've a large trap on my line feed from my compressor, but this is a great little addition too. The only thing I don't like about this is the plastic connection - that type of plastic is pretty brittle and I can see it getting snapped off....

Now here's the main deal, the airbrush itself. I do have a Badger gravity feed brush, but the cup is so small I've never used it. This, on the other hand, has a nice big paint cup and (importantly for me, with the way I use my brushes!) a lid. It's nicely weighted, and feels very comfortable in the hand. You'll notice that it's branded GANZTON - which is different from the name I ordered (GaGa Milano), but its the same unit - when neither is a recognised brand name, does it matter? Not to me!

Here's the lid and rear guard taken off. The brush ships with a 0.2mm nozzle, but it also has 0.3 and 0.5 nozzles and needles supplied

I like the fact these are all individually packed and labelled - seems obvious but we've all struggled with unlabelled products sometimes!

Lastly, we have two pieces - one is essential, as it's the nozzle spanner, one is a little dropper that will be used once or twice and then thrown away. It's inclusion is nice but effectively irrelevant for me.

So I got this all hooked up to my existing compressor, and used it to prime a bunch of my Cthulhu Wars Onslaught 2 minis, as you can see in my former post. That's not really proper airbrushing, however, so I also had a go at a recent model kit I've finished - the Sturer Emil (or more accurately, the 12.8 cm Selbstfahrlafette auf VK30.01(H) - doesn't really roll off the tongue though!). For this I used Vallejo Black Primer, and a mixture of Tamiya black, white and Army Painter Cool Grey. I primed in balck, then mised a dark grey that I progressively lightened on the panels of the tank. Here are the results, which I am happy with, and am impressed by how smooth the brush functions, and how easy it's been to clean and keep running so far.

So if you're looking to get into airbrushing or just fancy another brush - this is a fine little piece of kit which costs not much more than the replacement parts you might need to keep your more expensive piece of kit running!

Cthulhu Wars Onslaught 2: Painting Sleeper & some IGOOs

OK, admission on mis-selling/advertising here - this isn't really painting the CWO2 minis, it's starting to paint them! There's a lot, and I also wanted to test out my new airbrush (more on that in another post), so this was really about priming them ready for painting. I went down the zenithal priming method, and I think it came out pretty well, as I hope you'll agree.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with zenithal priming, this involves three steps (all sprayed, I'm afraid - it's not impossible to do this by brush, but that's really better done with your final colours):

1. Prime the mini with a good-quality black primer - I use Vallejo and can't recommend it highly enough, it's great stuff - good coverage, sticks well and airbrushes like a dream.

2. Spray at 45 degrees with a mid-tone grey (I used Army Painter Cool Grey). This has the effect of covering the primer in all but deep overhangs, creating an illusion of depth - don't be worried if the effect is subtle at this stage, it'll soon pop at stage three.

3. Spray from directly overhead with white (in this case Tamiya Model Colour flat white). In practice, you need to spray from 90 degrees minus 10-15 degrees to create a good effect. Start with the directly overhead and then examine your mini to see how much you need to adjust - you'll get a feel for it quickly and it will differ depending on the make-up of the mini.

Here's it in action - Zenithal spraying (this isn't my video, but it illustrates the technique well and there's no point re-inventing the wheel)

So here's how the Sleeper faction turned out...first it's Tsathoggua

I think the fur really shows well using this technique. Next are the Wizards...

The cultists after that - again, the technique really shows up features like the robe folds well

I love the Formless Spawn - tentacles also come out well using this zenithal shading - you get good gradation and not such harsh definition as on some shapes which helps I think.

The Snake Men look good - elements of the cultists with the robes plus their heads have very clear definition

The High priest will probably need more post-work than the cultists, but the smaller elements here show up well, like the emblem on his chest.

I've found Sleeper challenging to play so far - I've not got the hang of them yet - played two games and come woefully behind in them both. Opener of the way, however, I blasted through and won easily - they're (quite literally!) monstrous!

I also had a bunch of IGOOs that I primed at the same time (oh, and some insects from Shaggai)...here they are:

This is one of my favourite figures:

So there you go - it might not look like much, but it does make the minis easier to paint and I think it enhances their appearance to play with them before they are painted. What do you think?

More painting - the Ba'kash get dirty!

A couple of weeks ago I put up some pictures of my Ba'kash getting their first touches of paint - an overall coat of Army Painter Weapon Bronze. I then gave them a coat of Strong tone to knock this back a bit. This worked as intended, and my original intent was to then dry-brush, detail paint and then weather, but I then found after a test I really needed to weather first before drybrushing to knock back any over-application from the weathering stage.

Now of course, space "weather" is really just variations on subatomic particles and radiation, with maybe some ionised gas thrown in for good measure. This is rather immaterial, however, because what I wanted to do was to create the "feel" of a raider fleet that used rather aged and worn - if still perfectly serviceable - ships. As I'd gone for a bronze base, I decided to spot wash a three-stage weathering mix - a dark blue-green, followed by a lighter turquoise and finally some Vallejo Green Wash. This produces a very distinct finish;

I also went mad on one cruiser just to see what it'd look like...

So after this had dried I decided it probably should have been more dilute for the effect I wanted (the original ones I tried were)...oh, well, just chalk it up to experience! This is why I definitely needed to drybrush after weathering, which I did...

This absolutely improves the look, although the photographs don't really capture the look that well. Anyway, I then went on to drybrush with Greedy Gold to add some lustre.

Finally I added a Shining Silver/Bronze/Gold mix (all Army Painter colours) to further accentuate the worn look and give some detail highlighting. Overall I'm pleased with how this turned out.

The next stage was to detail paint the "stripy" banded elements on the main body and arms, which I envisage as some sort of inorganic ballistic or ablative plating. This I did in Vallejo 70.896 - German Extra Dark Green.

The destroyers had a similar treatment on their exposed pipework, leaving the "collars" in the base metal

This was followed by a Strong Tone wash and highlighting with 70.890 Retractive Green.

I'm pretty happy with them so far - just need to add engine and weapons glow to them now, which I'll do by airbrush, with final highlights by brush...then my raiders are ready to fully support the Zenian League wherever needed!