Sons of Horus MkII Assault Squad - Part IV (Semi-Showcase)

 

Before he was shiny, now he's feeling dull.

This is a semi-showcase on account of one model being done (others aren't even primed yet) which acts as the recipe for the rest of the squad. It's also missing the jump-pack exhaust being coloured in, which I intend to do with an airbrush once all the models are ready for that.

The base was very much whatever was on the palette at the time and looking for sepia tones, browns, yellow tints to mix into greys for highlights, your basic urban rubble. I still prefer Basilicanum Grey to add depth to the base and then layer over the top with scratches and markings for visual interest. Not much to be said really.

The bulk of the rest of the model was varnishing and then metallics to highlight, Sons of Horus Green to highlight, and slight mix of Gauss Blaster Green for extreme edge highlights on the topmost areas.

The turquoise armour highlights are mostly to restore a slightly satin finish more than anything else. I probably went too heavy with the matt varnish and it dulled down the model considerably. I'm also still adjusting to not-red for this kind of thing. The finish makes quite the difference when viewing the model in person. In a photo it might be more useful not to have environmental lighting shining off the model, but in in hand it just looks off - people are used to the shine of different surfaces, and unifying it entirely seems (to me) kind of wrong. For armour at any rate, the satin surface for highlights is what I will continue to aim for.

The varnish also made a few metallic areas quite grainy. The lighting interaction with the Vallejo TMM after that varnish was particularly annoying - I should simply paint them after varnishing in future, but locking the colours in place first is far more motivational. It will come down to how I feel at the time probably, but I definitely liked the look of the metallics before varnishing, and not as much after, even with the additional highlight steps.

In general though I quite enjoyed painting a not-red model and I hope to start airbrushing the base layers of the rest soon. I'd really like to finish up some squads and keep the flow going, but I know very well how bad it is with work right now. Darn.

-- silly painter.

Crimson Paladin II - Part II

 

Doing it in style.

Continuing with the red theme from before, I had actually shaded the second Crimson Paladin along with the MkII Assault Marine. The details are once more lost in the photo, but the shading is there and it does make a real difference. I also know that the later steps will dull down the vibrancy after the matt (matte?) varnish, and I'll build up the highlights with glazes afterwards. This has definitely allowed me to progress much faster with this model: I'm not getting bogged down on the first stages and I can see progression.

Castellax Bronze as before, shaded with thinned Cryptek Armourshade. I've not yet highlighted the metallics - and there still remains a good deal of the shield to be done too. This is a good thing because I missed a spot on the right foot.

The pteruges are more or less the same as the leather pouches I've been using the MkII and MkVI: Thondia Brown, then orange tones to highlight, and darker colours (I used Corvus Black) to outline or shade. The colour isn't quite as rich as with the first Crimson Paladin, but I do like the framing better. I might try Rhinox Hide as the base colour next time again, if I can get a replacement bottle (or equivalent colour); I've had a few paints finally dry out on me after however many years it's been.

On the topic of dried out colours, Steel Legion Drab unexpectedly did that to me. It's basically dried pigment with medium on top right now and it took a long time to get acceptable base layer coverage. This made the sash a little annoying to start with, and the paint rubs off far too easily in places. It's ok now, but I might want to look at a similar colour progression with the Tone Pro line (more on why those paints in a moment). Painting the sash I used a degraded synthetic brush and tried to be a little less smooth with the applications, preferring multiple passes to build up the look with some texture. I'm not unhappy with the result but I am in search of how to jump to that next level of ability in painting coarse beige material.

The paints I own have lasted a long time, but I finally want to try out alternatives. This is great if I can access those alternatives, but every time I just want one particular colour then I need to factor in the cost of delivery - which makes the paint at least twice as expensive - or include it with another order and thus delaying the purchase for a very long time. I've been waiting a month as it is for a Two Thin Coats order. There is actually only one brand of paint that I can simply go into a local shop and buy: Warhammer Colour / Citadel. If the Tone Pro range is better for some of my use cases, then so much the better - and I don't even mind the pots. I may transfer to droppers just to take up less space on the shelf, but that's very much "may", not "will".

Back to the Crimson Paladin, next up I might need to sort out the helmet. I intend to paint all the remaining helmets in one go - but first they'll need minor adjustments with green-stuff to pad out space and let them sit slightly higher.

-- silly painter

Blood Angels MkII Assault I - Part I

 

Doesn't need a pistol. He is the long range weapon.

As with the previous box of MkVI, half of the MkII squad will be Blood Angels (and half Sons of Horus) because I enjoy a bit of painting variation and it's not like I play the games. As the squad lead of the SoH bore a volkite pistol, I figured the Blood Angels sergeant should carry a shield: Blood Angels prefer up close and personal and the shield will help him get there. Also this particular post looks really cool.

I'm likely to paint one model at a time with the MkII Marines. I just don't have the free time for much else. I might well paint parts of the others in batches, but certainly the first will be standalone to serve as a reference for the rest.

Along with a Crimson Paladin, I had actually airbrushed this model a while ago with the usual reds, followed by a gloss varnish, and then a 1:1 (or thereabouts) mix of Carroburg Crimson and acrylic flow improver. On this model it worked extremely well: flowed into all of the recesses, barely anything on the main surface. It's difficult to capture with the camera properly, but the difference before and after is quite noticeable. What I haven't done yet however, is the extra highlighting afterwards. No building up volumes more, and no edge highlights of any kind. This will be taken care of after the matt varnish stage anyway, so I'm going to try hold off until then to work on it - and being slightly satin, that should make the highlights stand out even more. I hope it won't take too long before I can try that out: I'd like to varnish at least two models at once, which is what the SoH squad leader is waiting for now.

The shield I debated for a while and ended going with quite a simple scheme. Nothing too fancy, no extravagant detailing or hand painted filigree. This is MkII armour, earlier in the Great Crusade, and I wanted to depict a reflection of the Blood Angels still finding the balance of their souls. Working their armour into personalised art would take time. A simple red shield with the legion insignia is sufficient here, with Castellax Bronze edging as a neutral frame that breaks up the outline without overpowering it.

As a combat leader, and after a little digging through options of what I might like, I settled on black should pads with golden trim. This hearkens to the 40k colour scheme, but still offers something more ornate than simple yellow. The gold is actually Imperial Gold from Vallejo's TMM range, now that I've figured out how to use it more properly. I really like the warmth of that gold and think it fits the overall aesthetic quite nicely.

Obviously the left pauldron isn't the one with the kit. I might have preferred to keep the trim the same on both, but the sizes were a good enough match and I wondered if perhaps the armour was slowly being re-kitted from old Revenant Legion stock. At any rate I wasn't going to use decals were I could avoid them.

I need to block in metallics further next and sort out any smaller details. There is a feeling of fast progression, but I know I'll pay for that with the armour highlights at the end. If it works then I'll know I can trust the end result and maybe paint that little bit faster in future. When I have free time of any kind.

-- silly painter

Sons of Horus MkII Assault Squad - Part III

 

Now with candy floss gun.

I had originally planned to just block in the major colours but in all honesty the MkII armour looks really awesome and I kind of just continued. Another factor is that there's surprisingly little variation on everything: once the main armour panels are done, there's not that much left over.

The shoulder pad trim is just Ancient Gold from the TMM range, base and wash, although the final highlight is yet to be applied on account of waiting for the varnish step. I used spots of this on the weapons as well just to balance out the picture and to keep things interesting while limiting the palette. The weapon grip is exactly the same as the holster and a straight copy from the MkVI assault squad, which other than a base of Thondia Brown I can't recall right now.

All of the metals were covered first with Doom Metal (TTC) and then Iron Warriors, follow by spot highlights of Iron Hands Steel. There's a good deal of variation of this throughout, but that's the basic idea for the most of it. The exhaust of the jump pack is for now purely Iron Hands Steel. I may still add burn marks around it but that's definitely for later.

On the jump pack it's predominantly black, of course, but I messed around with the banding. I'll need to get a reference photo for later of what I made black and what I kept silver. There's a reinforcement band around the top of the turbines that I wasn't sure what to do with for a while. I wanted it distinct from the front of the turbine itself and tried Iron Warriors with Black Templar Contrast over the top. The latter was too strong and I needed to kind of glaze the metallic back over the top. Next time I'll use Contrast Medium to thin the black some. Most of the panels I tried to cover with a black ink, a particular one from the Daler-Rowney FW range. It has this oddly subtle brown hint to it that I think is extremely good for Sons of Horus, but it's not exactly made for miniature painting and I have trouble blending or glazing with it. So I mostly abandoned that idea and went with Corvus Black and Stormvermin Fur. Mixing some Twin Suns Yellow (TTC, or Dorn Yellow for the Citadel colours) gives a bright edge highlight spot colour to make the result look more like a hardened surface.

I should note that the turbine blades themselves are simply Doom Metal and Iron Warriors, with the latter just run along the high surfaces and leaving the former in the recessed areas. I haven't felt the need to do anything more as it's readable enough right now.

The weapon colour is white and Doomfire Magenta. That's quite a pigment heavy Contrast paint, which makes me wonder if it's a sort of pre-cursor to the upcoming Warhammer Tone Pro range. I like the colour now even if initially I might not have picked it, because it matches with the face rather well.

There's still some minor details to get done, the base needs to be done, the varnish stage, and then glazing back some the armour colours and metallic shine in places, but I'm happy with how the model is looking right now.

-- silly painter.

Sons of Horus MkII Assault Squad - Part II

 

My name is Bane.

The one test model has now been fully assembled, for better or worse. I couldn't get much else done during the week but decided that the focal point of the face would at least give some kind of sense of accomplishment.

I decided early on that I wanted pale complexion for the Sons of Horus, something decidedly unhealthy and representing their fall into corruption. To that end I originally was going to base the scheme on Idoneth Deepkin, but pivoted partway through for a more sinister look.

Base colour is Ionrach Skin, which is a pale almost blue/green tinged tone. This fits with the armour to harmonise the colours, but I went a step further and mixed in a hint of Lupercal Green and glazed it towards the back of the head and along recessed areas. The was followed up with a purple ink heavily thinned with acrylic flow improver. I particularly focused on the eyes with this, building it up with more concentration of pigment around there. Ionrach Skin glazed back over to smooth over transitions wrapped up the initial base.

Deepkin Flesh for highlight points was next, which I also tried to paint over the eyes. The eyes on this model are extremely small, and quite honestly it probably would've been better to simply wash over the area and be done with it. I could barely see where those eyes are even meant to be. Going further into madness I then used Iyanden Yellow to cover them and really make the model look insane. I even tried to put in a pupil on the left eye, but I messed it up and fell back to more of the ink to try make the whole face look aggravated.

And he does look aggravated. I think the ultimate win here is not trying to make the eyes themselves stand out, but to give contrast to that part of the face and the impression that this is not a sane individual.

With everything in place I really need to pick out the base colours next. This will serve as the reference for the rest of the squad when I start painting those, so it's important I try to get that "right".

-- silly painter.

Sons of Horus MkII Assault Squad - Part I

 

Sure hope the helmets have noise cancelling earphones installed.

I had wanted all of these models assembled, I had wanted them primed and basic airbrushing done, and on the way to getting them in a good state to be fairly quickly finished. Then work happened and most days I'm up to midnight on that, with zero time for painting. So for the moment this is the only Sons of Horus model painted up, and I have more to still even assemble. Kind of sucks.

On the bright side I picked up a lot of lessons from the last batch and have fed them into here. The major starting point was that I base coated the whole model in Night Lords Blue first. I thinned it overly much and it took several coats to get it right, but it wasn't all that bad: the airbrush didn't clog at all and was easier to clean out afterwards. Lupercal Green followed that up, but thinned properly so that again several passes were used to soften the transition and it was done from above and the sides for the most part. Sons of Horus Green afterwards, mostly from above, and you guessed it: several thinned coats.

The airbrush is very quick to use and multiple thin coats is extremely quick to do. It may seem longer but because it also lets colours more easily fade into one another then the overall time taken is typically far less: fewer hard transitions to correct, easier to clean the airbrush. I actually switched between airbrushes on this model, using my Harder & Steenbeck for the last layer because of the smaller needle size I keep with it and the greater trigger control I have.

Gloss varnish afterwards to seal the model and then an overall wash of Shyish Purple / Terradon Turquoise. I was originally trying a 1:4 ratio, but it ended up closer to 1:2 or even 1:1 by because it just wasn't dark enough. The flow improver might have been too much, but roughly equal parts of that are necessary to make it really slide off the more flat surfaces. This really works as well as I expect, but again I had to try remove some from areas it was pooling incorrectly, which leaves behind a bit of a mess. I think it was still worth while, but I'll need to look at using a different brush, maybe soaked in flow improver or Contrast Medium to soften it out some. Another trick to to slightly damp the area with water first too.

After all of that I went back in with Lupercal Green and Sons of Horus Green by brush to clean up a few places and put in some initial edge highlights. I used a better brush this time around and make sure to thin the paints with flow improver instead of just water. This saves a lot of time and effort for what is basically glazing. I'll very likely do another pass of this after the matt varnish stage later on.

Although all the above sounds like a lot of effort, there aren't many colours being used and each stage is more about refining the previous. I'm still careful along the way, but I'm less perfectionist in knowing that I will be adjusting things later on as necessary. For basically the same result it took about half the time, so I'm pretty happy about that.

I will have to start blocking in all the other colours soon, but first I'm probably actually going to focus on the head. If I can get enough done to glue that in place then the model will be fully assembled and I'll be much faster in completing it and having serve as a reference for the rest.

-- silly painter.

Crimson Paladin II - Part I

 

Making sure to step over the drain.

Just a fairly quick post because I managed to get a fair bit of airbrushing done in a single day and I'll be busy for the next week. I recently assembled the next of the Crimson Paladins and this time out I decided the arms should be fully attached from the start. It was to much hassle last time.

Painting-wise there isn't much to say. From the experience before I know that a wash stage will help define everything more, but that some manipulation as applying over the gloss varnish will increase shadows, and glazing later with Evil Sunz Scarlet is going to help make everything pop. The airbrushing was done with this in mind. I still used three passes (Dryad Bark / Mephiston Red, then plain Mephiston Red, then Evil Sunz Scarlet) but I didn't try to be very neat.

The first coat is to give the whole model a base colour to work from. This is also mostly the shadow colour, even if the wash will darken it more later anyway. I used my "new workhorse" airbrush with a 0.35mm needle here and made sure to apply many thin coats to get a smooth finish and to avoid clogging the nozzle.

Next was the first highlighting stage which again used the same airbrush, and mostly from a Zenithal angle. Basically I just sprayed from above and occasionally a little from the side, but not from underneath. It's similar in colour, but trust the process: the later wash will darken everything, and glazing will brighten again in select areas.

Finally I switched to the CRplus Infinity airbrush with a 0.2mm needle and build up the final layer more selectively. I know there's some good reviews about the workhorse type airbrush, and it's indeed perfectly fine, but once you're quite familiar and comfortable with airbrushing then that extra quality kit really comes into play. The trigger action is definitely better, the paint flows more smoothly, and it's easier to clean afterwards. I intend to buy a newer Infinity at some point, eyeing off the Giraldez model, as soon as there's some kind of spare money for such things.

At this point the reds don't give much contrast really. Shadows are there, highlights are there, but knowing that I'll be refining it later made the broader airbrush application now that much faster.

The base on this model is actually two thin layers of green-stuff. I was playing with a new texture roller which has a manhole cover I liked, which I then needed to turn into an actual base. With the slightly higher base these older kits are visually comparable to the new Cataphractii  models too, but there's still one more trick to make the Crimson Paladins seem taller. The previous one had this done, and it's the head. It sits too low in the torso normally. I'll try get all the helmets done in one go, but a little bit of green-stuff to extend the faceplate down and a little more on the base to make it sit ever so slightly higher and it makes all the difference.

That's about it for now. I did more airbrush of other models too, and I guess one of those will be for next week.

-- silly painter.