An Adventure in Airbrushing

The long awaited moment finally arrived last Friday.  My airbrush paints were finally in hand, and it was good:



So why did it take so long?  That's a story in its own right.  As I regale you with what's been going on behind the scenes I'll be showing off what my airbrush paints can do:



Previously I mentioned that the first place I went to ended up dragging their heels, and was awaiting word from a second place.  My order with Atomic Games (which I do not recommend) was constantly in a, "Waiting," status.  I called them for a status update, and all I got was, "We have until 'X' date to get your order shipped," and when I inquired when on that day they clarified that they had till the end of day.  Well, the awaited day came and went with no change to my shipping status.  I promptly called and cancelled my order with them.




So at this point I'm getting a bit frustrated, and I decide to give it one last go.  My line of reasoning so far is that the orders haven't gotten filled due to stocking issues, and with that in mind I hit up ebay with the reasoning that the auctions listed means items in stock.  I ordered a small number of paints from Macabre Games, which arrived rather promptly (unfortunately these were secondary colors I wanted to round out my collection). 



The other order was with Noble Knight Games.  At first things were going normally, but then NKG stepped up the communicaiton and got me a tracking number right away.  I watched with great interest, but no change came in the tracking number.  After about a week with the tracking number not tracking and nothing in hand I sent them an email. 



I got a very prompt response stating according to the tracking number the package had been delivered via Fedex not long after I had ordered.  Turns out there was a glitch in their system that sent out tracking notices with USPS as the carrier and not Fedex.  After double checking their numbers I saw that indeed the package had been delivered.  This would be the first package I have ever had swiped from my doorstep. 



In steps Rick from Noble Knight Games asking me to check with my neighbors first, and if that fails then they'll replace my order.  After confirming that no one had gotten my package by accident, I worked with Rick to get my order replaced.  I had him send the paints to an alternate address, and after some small delays (they had to wait for paints to get restocked) the paints arrived at their location.



The communication from Noble Knight Games was spectacular, and their customer service is above and beyond what I've gotten from other companies so far.  I plan to make use of them for my future airbrush paint needs.

There is just so much that I love about my airbrush.  Even with a conversion kit I'm going to be a little limited with what I can do, but even for doing basecoats and scenery it is quite impressive.  Over the coming months I plan to experiment with it, and my first batch of test subject will be my Relic Knights pieces (assuming they show up before Gen Con).



So far I have been satisfied with all the colors.  Some are thinner than others and will require a white undercoat to use, like the yellow and chrome silver.



There's a red basecoat underneath, and you can easily see it peaking through.  But the chrome works ok on a regular/grey basecoat:



It's been a long time coming, but I'm glad my paints are finally here.  A special thanks again to Rick and Noble Knight Games!

Followup: Wyrd Customer Service

Spent twelve hours working today, most of which consisted of driving.  When I got home though I found this waiting in my mailbox.



Why it's an envelope from Wyrd Miniatures.  I haven't ordered anything recently, so I wonder what it could be?

 

What?  A pair of arms?  Oh wait, I remember now!  A while back (June 21st) I made a plea to Wyrd Miniatures for some spare parts.  I had purchased some miniatures second hand, but hadn't realized the arm was missing.  I contacted the guy I bought it from and we both looked through our stuff, but nothing was to be found.  So I made use of Wyrd's new missing part form, and clearly stated the situation (since the form is for mispacked stuff).  It has been less than three weeks!  This just tells you how much Wyrd cares about it's customer base, and the lengths that they go to.  The model retails for $16 USD, and is a set of two models that work together in the game.  That's $16 that I would have to pay just to get a set of arms.  Wyrd has demonstrated before that they care about their players, and this proves their reputation.

So what will it look like when put together?  Here's a close concept.



 I haven't gotten my tools out yet, but I feel much better knowing that I'll be able to.  Thanks Wyrd!

EDIT: It appears that there is some difficulty with my imgur account.  I'll have to keep an eye on things and see if it happens again.  I think the problem may be on imgur's end since I can't pull up the pictures on my imgur account page either even though I can see the thumbnails.