Recent Purchase : Mig Catalogue and Weathering Magazine

Just a quick post regarding a few things I picked up from my local hobby shop (Burnaby Hobbies), and a few thoughts on them.

I'm a huge fan of anything from Mig Jimenez (who incidentally, kind of looks like a Spanish version of George Michael).  If you don't know the name, you should.  This man has pioneered so many weathering techniques for scale models, it's crazy.  He has worked for a number of different companies, helping them formulate painting supplies to help make weathering easier and push the boundaries in what can be done with a model.  He has also founded a number of companies himself (the original MIG company, and AK Interactive, are two well known ones, which were both wrestled away from him... a long story which I may be able to go into in a later post).  His latest company is Ammo by Mig, which has an extensive line of oils, pigments, acrylic paints, enamel paints, basing materials, and some amazing how-to-books.

Well illustrated, well translated, his "Weathering" magazine picks a topic with each issue, and has a number of great step-by-step articles on that topic.

Adding depth with enamel washes

Highlighting and shading with oils... longer working times, easier to blend, but longer drying times and messier too.

Looking forward to applying some of these techniques on my X-Wing models

The Mig catalogue is more than just a list of products for sale.  There is a small smattering of how-to articles included as well (thought not quite as in depth as the ones in the Weathering magazine, or in one of his dedicated books), but it showcases the huge range of modeling paints, mediums, basing materials, pigments, washes, and books.

The catalogue is full of brief step-by-steps

Hmmm... I wonder if this would work for Vallejo paint bottles?

Sorry to sound like a sales pitch, but I can't help but geek out over this stuff.  A word of warning to anyone else who wants to get neck deep in weathering geekery... collecting all these books and paints / pigments gets pretty darn expensive over time.  I've probably spent more on these products than I have on the models themselves in recent years.

If you're into this kind of thing, another company worth checking out is Secret Weapon Miniatures.  The owner, Justin McCoy, is an award winning scale modeller himself, and has produced a great range of weathering products as well.

GW Forgeworld has a smattering of related products as well, which is appropriate because these these tools and techniques work amazingly well on their models.

If you have any questions about any of this stuff, please comment, and I will try and answer as best I can.