FINAL DAY of 3-DAY WEEKEND BUILD

Ah, painting, what can I say about it?  It's always an anxious proposition.  I get restless and often will not sleep well, nervous with anticipation.  Why?  When you build models you learn quickly that paint is the final process by which you can either make or ruin your model.  And god knows I've ruined plenty of them.  I've ruined them usually at the start of the painting process because of accidents, or carelessness with the paint systems, or something usually goes wrong with the steps.  When I used to paint models with the rattle can I felt a little bit more in control, but the airbrush came along and changed my painting and models forever.  The IWATA ECLIPSE is a super airbrush, and you could never blame it for mistakes.  It's not the airbrush, it's the user's fault.  Always.  If you take care of it and keep it clean, it will help you get to the next level, and the next level is simply automation of skills, process, and results.  You get good at it.  Not right away, but eventually.  Practice makes perfect, so musicians say.  And they are right.  I've been using the airbrush now for about ten years, and it's gotten easier.  Much easier.

I learned from Craig Fraser's book that H.R. Giger (one of my favorite painters--Alien fame) uses the airbrush in a very unorthodox way and that is by using his thumb on the trigger.  If he could learn to do his amazing art this way, I then most certainly could learn to spray models with it.  It becomes an extension of your arm, your hand.  You follow through.  It's learning to serve in Tennis, or the swing in Golf.  You get good at it, used to the machine at your fingertips.

So today is painting day, another airbrushing day, hopefully filled with delight and pleasure in the routine of spraying paint in layers and watching what happens.  I am not kidding you when I tell you that it's always seemed like magic to me.  MAGIC indeed.  You start out with primer (the blank canvas) and you go from there, layering in base coats and effects, and by the time you finish, the work has been transformed.  Your imagination has been properly exercised.

It's Day 3, Final Day, it's Midnight or BUST!  Cheers, Doctor Cranky