Chief Librarian Mephiston (finecast)

Face of the Black Rage.

 Now that there are two models for the Lord of Death, I thought it would be appropriate to have them both as models in the background. It's fair to say that the newer model is of a much more dominant presence on any shelf, with the older model showing its age from the tools used in its original design.
So despite the older model being nevertheless an impressive sculpt, I wanted to use it as the practice run for how I intend to paint the robes and cloak. The armour that has been painted is for now inconsequential - it will be repainted with a brush later on; I was merely testing my level of control of the airbrush.

The majority of the model has been so far done with an airbrush. More details on that in a moment, but first an explanation of the intent might be worthwhile. Mephiston is a powerful psyker, can carries a darkness within that should express itself in the colour scheme. I wanted the robes to impress a sense of artistic refinery, but still reflect a burden of terrible power. A burgundy velvet, growing darker towards the torso, to show the shadow of Mephiston's might. This will additionally help to later outline chest armour, with the highlighted hems balancing against what will be a pale face.
The same ideas for the robes is intended for the cloak, although the latter being based on black rather than the warmer burgundy.

The method for the robes is as follows:

• 1:1 mix of Dryad Bark / Mephiston Red, airbrush, applied all over. This is the same base as I'm now using for Blood Angels armour.
• Gal Vorbak Red, airbrush. I didn't have the air variant, so instead thinned some of the base paint. This was applied all over, but focused on raised areas to leave some of the previous step in recesses.
• Khorne Red, airbrush, applied over the lower half of the robe and again focusing mostly on raised areas. Some of the bend from a knee was also covered; an exact horizontal line across the lower half would look strange.
• Mephiston Red, airbrush, across the bottom quarter of the robe and again some of the knee. This was again only thin, and mostly used as an airbrushed glaze. The intention was to increase saturation of the red rather than tint the robe with further pink.
• Druchii Violet, normal brush, applied into the folds of the robe. This was slightly watered down, and more glazed than anything else to keep the transitions smooth.

Shiny cape.

The method for the cloak is much fewer steps:

• Corvus Black, airbrush, applied all over the cloak. Inner areas on the front are exempted because it would cover up some of the robe.
• Mechanicus Standard Grey, airbrush, over the edges of the cloak. This was done in several passes, building up the transition and focusing on raised areas of the folds in material. The dropper bottle I use was also pre-thinned, which helps this step, but the colour is an easy highlight against Corvus Black regardless.
• Deathshroud, airbrush, to darken some of the transition and to deepen the black towards middle of the back. I possibly had some cleaner still in the pot, as it's come out with a high degree of shine to it, but that will be fixed by a coat of Purity Seal at some later stage.
• Nuln Oil, normal brush, in the recessed areas of the folds, and applied in multiple thin passes to act as more of a glaze than a heavy wash.

Not shown, I've also started the backpack in the traditional method of Blood Angels armour. That will be glued on once it no longer impedes brush access to the surrounding areas.

A decent start, and encouraging results that hopefully will be replicated on the Primaris version when I get around to figuring out the painting and assembly order of that model.

-- silly painter.