Yesterday I decided to finish the first batch of Assault Marines, really finish them, get all the details, varnish them up, pull out all the stops. I painted all the little bits that I had missed or avoided the first time around, did squad markings, and applied static grass last night. I decided to put on chapter badge decals and seal them up this morning. I got an early start on the day, early-ish at least, in hopes that I could have all the varnish applied before noon so they would have plenty of time to dry.
 |
| The beginning of the end? |
I'm not an absolute amateur when it comes to decals. I've used them before, and with success, but as I was moving around winged blood drops this morning I realized I had never used a transfer that big before, nor do I think I have applied a decal to a curved surface before. You can probably guess where this is going, and you're mostly right. The decals didn't sit quite right, and the edges were very visible, all the little problems decals cause. I got them to good enough status, then brought out the varnish. I'm in the midst of the second coat of gloss, and the decals look pretty bad. They've come up at the edges, and the wings look like they're far too close to flapping away for comfort.
Things have not gone well with the decals. Not quite as bad as the
great zeppelin debacle of 2010, but bad enough to put a sour finish on models that I am otherwise very pleased with. I'm holding out hope that the varnish will help things out, but my skepticism grows with each passing minute. I'd hate for these decals to spoil the whole models, not just for those models but for the ones that come after as well. It took me long enough to get over my reluctance to finish models with these guys as it is, so if finished them also diminishes them then I'll be that much more hesitant to finish others in the future. And that's not good eats. I'll have a more complete post about this process when I'm all finished with the varnish.
