Rhino Transport WIP#1

Paint first, assemble later.

It's time for a tank.
The Rhino troop transport offers an excellent vehicle for more airbrush practice, and to see how quickly it can be painted up. It's also not as complex as other models, and can be cut from the sprue quickly and easily enough.

The first step is to paint the inside compartment. The added bonus is that if things go a bit wrong, it really won't be seen that much, so I can afford a bit of experimentation to see what works, and what doesn't.

First step, as always, is a primer base spray. After thinking on the matter a good deal, I used black. This was with the trusty spray can, and provides a good surface for paint to stick to afterwards. Black, because I didn't want it to end up brighter than the troops it's meant to transport.

Getting out the airbrush next, a coat of Zandri Dust (air), evenly applied. Dryad Bark (air) in the corners and around objects next, followed by some Terminatus Stone (air) in an attempt to highlight a few areas. That last step turned out to be too bright, so back to Zandri Dust (air) to cover it all, and blend back over the Dryad Bark a little bit.
The results are quite acceptable, and very quick to do. Takes longer to tear down and clean the airbrush than to actually use it! Anyway, using an airbrush for initial base, shade, and highlights looks more feasible every time I try.

A few points of note:

• The airbrush blending is effective, but trying to replicate it with the normal paints is very, very difficult. So trying to correct mistakes is going to be very difficult - experience will help with that, but don't even plan on going back over large areas. Leave fix ups to smaller sections.
• The paint applies differently, blends differently, so painting over the top of it does look a little bit different. It's something to keep in mind. Not shown, but I did try the usual blend approach over the "boxes" (darker brown) in the compartment. It wasn't quite the same, took a few goes to get things right.
• Karak Stone provides a good edge highlight. Only on the very edges, but definitely helps give definition over everything.
• Decals of the Legion number, in honour of the Primarch.

On a final note, again not shown in the photo, the "boxes" ended up with:

• Dryad Bark (base)
• Gorthor Brown (layer) (bottom 2/3 of the boxes)
• Baneblade Brown (layer) (bottom 1/3 of the boxes)
• Agrax Earthshade (wash) (draw from bottom to top, let it dry so the wash settles in the same direction)

Still a good deal to go for the inside, but it's a start.

-- silly painter

Stormcast Eternal Liberators

Hammer hammer hammer hammer hammer...time!

Before anything else, ignore the join lines! These models were an exercise in relative speed painting, and the first group to receive airbrush attention. The painting standard was therefore intended to be less than perfect - I quite expected to make a few mistakes.

For the first time using an airbrush however, quite a bit was learned. Airbrushes do not work the same as a normal brush, and the same techniques cannot be applied. I wanted to see if highlighting could work; it can, but is necessarily different. Point of source lighting, or colour transitions across large areas, that sort of thing seem to be best suited: anything that doesn't require the fine control that a good brush affords. The speed of painting though is very much faster. Stay tuned for more airbrush soon....

Overall, the colour scheme for the Liberators made them fairly quick to paint as well. Lots of gold trimming, made easy with the gloss shades. Stock standard approach: Retributor Armour, Reikland Fleshshade (gloss), Liberator Gold. The only interesting part was the "clouds" on the bottom. Purely drybrushed approach this time of whatever was on hand: I believe it was Mechanicus Standard Grey, some Dawnstone (dry paint), just dabbed on with a drybrush. It's not a bad effect, and certainly quick, though it doesn't give as much depth as the original.


It's probably the most tabletop standard I can do. Acceptable for mass painting though, so i'll keep them as references for that.

-- silly painter

Lizardmen Cold One Cavalry (Complete)

Lemmings to the cliff.

Well it took a while, and the photo is (as usual) incredibly bad, but they're finally done. Nothing particularly special about the riders that hasn't been covered before, with the possible exception of the "banner". Decided that a pure gold banner would look too much, and be considered too heavy to hold aloft going into battle. Instead, it's mostly Dryad Bark with some gold edging in places to make it look fancy. Also decided that it was a fire snake of some kind, and the leaves would be dyed to reflect that, so they've been given a fire type look.

The bases are not the originals, but instead the Shattered Dominion oval bases done up to look like a swap overtaking some ancient ruins. Fairly easy in the end, and gave some opportunity to test out the airbrush a little (hint: if you have an airbrush and are using the Citadel Air range, get some squeeze bottles to put the paint into!).

• Black (air)
• Terminatus Stone (air)
• Lustrian Undergrowth (technical)
• Elysian Green (layer) (just on some plants)
• Niblet Green (dry)
• Hexos Palesun (dry)
• Dawnstone (dry) (just on the stone areas, funnily enough)
• Agrax Earthshade (shade)

The cracks in the bases were made to look like little streams running through the undergrowth, just by painting them a dark blue/green. This ended up being:

• Macragge Blue (base, watered down to shade consistency)
• Drakenhof Nightshade (shade)
• Colia Greenshade (shade)

 That's about it really. I'm not a huge fan of the detail (or lack thereof) with the Shattered Dominion bases, but they give something to work with at least. Just be nice for a bit more detail in them.

The airbrush adventures deserve their own post, but I'm still learning with that. The idea is to make the base colour and initial highlight steps much faster - something I can only really play with more on the next set of models.

-- silly painter.