A bit of mood music first!
Hello folks! Today I want to chat to you about a brilliant little set of
products I stumbled across recently: Precision Ice and Snow from an outfit
called Krycell.
I really don’t know where to start with this stuff because basically it is just
brilliant from beginning to end! That, however true, is not going to be enough
for the enlightened modellers that you are. So let’s try and break this down
and look at the various aspects of these little bits of awesomeness. I ordered
two different snows, a “Snow wash” and one Ice sheet. As yet I have not tried
the ice sheet as the project it is destined for is not ready to receive it. But
let’s take a look at the snow!:
What do you get?
Now going out on a limb I prepared to break my piggy bank; and then discovered
this would not be necessary! When placing my order I saw that overseas orders
were granted a free reload pouch of snow! So here is what I got for a total of £42 (not counting postage):
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| The "Snow" package |
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| The "Ice sheet" package |
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| Inside the box: micron sieve, two bottles of "snow", a reload bag of "snow", and little instructions sheet |
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| The "Ice sheet" unpacked |
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| And finally the "Snow wash", also complete with instructions |
As you can see the packaging itself is extremely aesthetically pleasing and
adds that little something that a simple cardboard box just wouldn’t do. I
know: do we care about the box? Ultimately no, but it should be credited to the
product creators that they did not ignore this aspect and delivered something a
little above standard from the outset.
Also you can see that they don’t mess
around with safety: that Ice sheet could have been thrown out of a plane and it
would still have arrived in one piece!
Now how to use the stuff?
Well the guys at Krycell don’t do
half measures: all the tutorials are accessible directly from
their site, as well
as downloadable “quick start” step by step instructions. These instructions are
also included in the package of goodies: so if you still haven't grasped how to use the
stuff it might mean you need to learn how to read…
I chose to add snow to a model that had already been based – my rendition of
Nork Dedogg – so blasting hair spray evrywhere was not an option… But oh joy! This stuff
can be applied on any type of varnish, and what precision instrument do
modellers often possess that can deal with varnish?: an airbrush! So I loaded
up some matt varnish into my
Prince August airbrush and blasted the base. You
do need it to be a thick coating, as the little instructions explain very
clearly. Then using that beautiful micron sieve I sprinkled the snow
everywhere. Now I got really scared because this stuff does get EVERYWHERE when
you sprinkle it. A bit nervous I waited about fifteen minutes to be absolutely
certain my varnish had dried, and then came the moment of truth: brushing and
blowing off the excess snow. This was literally a breeze: it might get
everywhere but it sticks to NOTHING except the varnish and comes away very
easily from anywhere untouched by said varnish. Now I wanted a light sprinkling
of snow so I only used one layer of snow, but you can continue applying layers
of varnish followed by snow until the build-up is to your satisfaction. Also note how it gracefully sits on the barbed wire.
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| As you can see: snow everywhere to perfection! |
Next came the “Ice wash”. This stuff intrigued me because
basically it appears to be a portion of the “snow” product mixed into a form of
very liquid medium. When it comes out of the bottle it looks like grainy milk.
I’m not sure if it can or will damage brushes in the long term, so to be on the
safe side I fished out some of my crappy brushes to avoid potentially ruining
good sable ones.
Now this stuff really does need a serious shake before being used and you
really have to shake nearly in between dipping your brush in it. This sounds
annoying doesn’t it? Wait till you see what it does for you though! I applied
very sparing amounts around chosen areas of Nork because I didn’t want to
overload him with effects and mask the paintjob entirely. This stuff is really
easy to use! It behaves a lot like a wash, quite close in fact to Prince
Augusts’ (Vallejo) “Smoke Ink” in its behaviour. You can even thin it out using
water or medium if you want; though at present I don’t see that as being of any
use. It does sometimes run all over the place but this is no different from
many other very liquid products used by modellers, so it is simply a question
of learning to use a new product.
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Discreet touches of the "Snow wash" are clearly visible around the various crevices of the armour design. It even mixed nicely with the rustwork I had performed previously!
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Right, now that I have waxed lyrical about all the good aspects: what isn’t so
good?
Well to be honest the products, their packaging (both collective and
individual) are very high quality; their uses are multiple and the methods of
application are very simple and accessible even to the most beginner of
modellers.
There are however three things I would like to see: the first would be a
thinner yet removable nozzle on the bottles of snow to reduce potential product
loss while loading up the sieve and still allow for an easy replacement of
salvaged product.
Which brings me to my second point: that sieve is brilliant but clearly aimed
towards sprinkling larger surfaces of scenery or vehicles rather than for
individual model bases. This causes quite a lot of product loss (easily averted
by placing your work on a sheet of clean paper to catch any loss), but mainly
you get the feeling of a lack of precision, whereas you want to feel in control when dealing
with the final key stages of your latest prized work. So really what I would
have liked, or would like to see in the future, is the possibility of ordering
a smaller diameter sieve – maybe even half the current diameter - just for that
extra feel of precision and reducing the potential loss of product.
Finally I would really have liked to find one or two agitator balls in the
“Snow wash”, that stuff needs regular shaking and a couple of agitator balls
would really guarantee a good mixing and distribution of the particles within
the medium. You can of course, as I did, add a couple of agitator balls if you
have any, but I still feel that it would be good to find the bottle 110% ready
to go.
None of these criticisms mean the products are unfriendly, quite the opposite
in fact, but the guys at Krycell are obviously geared towards improvement so
that was my two cents worth of ideas.
All that remains for me is to try out the “Ice sheet” and then order a few more
of those sheets to see the differences they offer the scale modeller.
For extra information and a look at Krycells other products
click here
Happy modelling
and don’t forget to spread the love people!
