Thursday, January 08, 2009

New Pigments from MIG - First Impressions


Hello readers and Happy New Year! I would like to start with a thankyou to all of you who have supported this site through the last couple of years - I hope that it will continue to service your interests and grow over the coming year. This year will see a few changes for LITW including:

  • A redesign of the site with an emphasis on being even more user friendly and functional.

  • More product features and reviews to show you what types of materials and inspirations I am using

  • More step by step articles and coverage of my working process on my own pieces

  • More tutorials

  • More special guest articles by some of the best known painters and sculptors in the miniature world


To start this off I have been given the privelage of trying out some new products that have just been introduced to the hobby market. Mig productions - long famed for their contributions to the historical model hobby world - have released a new set of pigments for use with SF and Fantasy models. As many of you know I have been using pigments with my work for a few years now - so I am very pleased to get these into my hands and to see what I think and how they work for me.  I will be comparing them to other pigments I own and returning to discuss the use of them as an ongoing review process throughout this year as I make use of them in several of my projects.

MIG FANTASY PIGMENTS - FIRST IMPRESSIONS

When I unboxed these I was pleased with the packaging and overall look of the product. They are shipped securely in blisterpacking and I really like the shape of the jars - they have nice wide bases to avoid tipping and mouths wide enough to really access the contents.


Opening the jars I find that these pigments look to be even finer and more consistant than the Stardust pigments I already own and much better colour saturation than the Doc O'Brien's weathering pigments. Overall these look like they ought to be a treat to use!


An additional thing that came packaged with my shipment is a little brochure about the pigments - which I am definitely glad to have.  It shows some of the very basics of pigment use and displays a few Beautiful models where pigments have been used for great and very diverse effects. Most importantly in the pamphlet - It shows that the metallic pigment isnt meant to be applied with a brush at all but rather with a finger or, as the pamphlet shows, a clayshaper or other soft tool. This is a pretty significant piece of information and really ought to be labelled  on the packaging or included in with the blister itself - though to be fair the back of the packaging shows a picture of the metallic being added using a finger.



 Overall my first impression of these is excellent - the texture and consistantacy looks excellent, the metallic pigment is certainly interesting and something new to me (I've used graphite before but never a specific modelling pigment of this brightness), the colour saturation looks rich, the packaging is fantastic and the brochure actually useful - not just propoganda. I am anxious to use these and rather like much of the range of colours - the "plasma burn" dull blue colour has particularily caught my eye though I am still unsure as to where I will make use of it.  It puts me in mind of one of my favorite painters' -  Mathieu Fontaine - cool colour palette (his Death Korp diorama jumping immediately to mind).  This is going to be fun!!!


 NEXT WEEK - MORE MIG! F.A.Q. DVD's Vol 1 &2!!!!!!


 


 

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