Age of Sigmar: Sisters of the Thorn Progress

Hi folks,

The short story is: I have primed Penny's Sisters of the Thorn in Vallejo surface primer successfully. Using the airbrush to do this was challenging.

The long story goes something like this...

I have four projects on the boil at the moment: an Iron Snakes Storm Eagle, a lance of Draconis Combine 'Mechs, a Gundam with Oscar and Penny's Sisters of the Thorn. I am focusing on Penny's figures the most, as they are long overdue, so I have been trying to push that project forward everyday, at least a little bit. Last night I took Oscar to his fist Kung Fu lesson, at the club I trained with back when I was his age. We got home pretty late, and with just minutes of daylight left, I decided to undercoat Penny's models with my airbrush. It would be a bit of a test to see how quickly I could set it up.

To speed things up, I attached the figures to my priming stick, which (giggle) made it look a lot like 6 witches sharing a broomstick.

I then went through my procedure of testing the airbrush and noticed that the trigger was very loose in its action. I could push down for air but when I pulled for paint (or in this case water), it just flopped back. A close inspection (aim away from face, people) showed that when I was pulling for water the needle was not sliding back to allow the fluid to flow. Damn.

[The last rays of sunlight disappeared behind the wooded ridge and a lone dingo howled]


Five minutes later and I have stripped half the airbrush, with literally no idea. My usual advice to starters, handed down to me from Sgt Waz, is "don't pull your airbrush apart unless you absolutely have to". In our experience, they almost never go back together problem free. If you are thinking of doing this, take a photo with your phone as you remove each part, so that you can reassemble it step-by-step.

The piece that controls moving the needle back/tension on the trigger is in the bottom left-hand corner. It had fallen completely flat inside the airbrush, ostensibly due to me storing the airbrush lying down, though I am guessing this is how they are packed in the box to begin with.

Here is a close look at the piece, which needs to be:

1) dropped through the trigger slot at the top of the brush, in the correct orientation, loose, without it falling over (again).

2) threaded through with the needle without changing the orientation or damaging the needle tip.

Here it is, back in its rightful place, as well as the re-assembled and fully operational battle station air brush.

Well... that was more exciting than I ever expected. I stumbled back into the house, covered in mosquito bites, about 45 minutes later. The priming itself took less than 5 minutes, once everything was working! With that done, I am ready to start blocking in the base colours, though I will probably have a craic at the banner first. It is going to be hard.

See you across the table,

Marc