Works in Progress

Today is mostly some photos of work in progress.

Lemartes is definitely starting to look much more impressive. Final armour highlights with Dawnstone have been done, the Crozius Arcanum is just about finished, and various other components have been painted. Make no mistake: there's still a ways to go with him yet, and the jump pack hasn't been properly started yet either.

 The grip of the Crozius was one of those "let's see how this turns out" moments that started on the Terminator thunder hammers, and is basically:

• Base with XV-88 (Rhinox Hide works well too, but I find it difficult to pick out detail without really good lighting).
• Wash with Agrax Earthshade, just to tone down the base coat and bring out the detail a little more.
• Layer highlight with Tuskgor Fur. This last step just gives a nice leather bound feel to the grip.

The pommel, and above the hilt, are:

• Khorne Red (base).
• Drakenhof Nightshade (wash)
• Mephiston Red (base, thinned down highlight).

The blue shading just makes it look distinct from armour pieces. I'm still considering giving it a glaze to bring out the red a bit more, but I'm otherwise happy enough the Crozius as it is.

I was starting to use many layers of paint, building up slowly to give a desired effect, however this is both time consuming, and sometimes unnecessary. I'm very much now trying to reduce the number of layers applied to about three (a base, a wash, and a layer typically), although a notable exception is still the basic Blood Angel armour (spray, thin base, wash, layer blend, thin base to fix up, final highlight - six steps in total!). The armour, however, is quite reproducible and is such an important part of the model that it must be done right. For other parts, such as purity seals, there really is not need to go to such extremes.

The Terminators, shown below, still have yet to be properly based, but are otherwise finished. There's not too much to go over with them that hasn't already been posted, however one technique worth mentioning is the "metal" appearance of the thunder hammer heads. The basic grey colour was just a bit of fun, but turned out so well that I'll be using it much more later:
Celestra Grey (base).
Nuln Oil (wash, applied heavily in one or two coats).
That was it. The wash gives some natural shading, and tones down the colour, with everything remaining grey enough to have a slight metallic appearance. It's also distinct enough from proper metallic paints that it helps stand out from areas that use it, and gives the thunder hammer a little more colour variation.
Continuing with simple paint schemes, the shaft of the hammer is:

• Dark Reaper (layer).
• Nuln Oil (wash).

Note that not all of the shaft was given a Dark Reaper coat. Some was left as it was after the original Mephiston Red spray, and simply washed over with Nuln Oil.
The cabling attached to the hammer is:

• Incubi Darkness (base).
• Thunderhawk Blue (layer, highlight).

I've started on the rest of the tactical squad as well, along with some additional work with the original five models to give them company and squad markings.

-- silly painter