Horus Lupercal - Part V

A couple of legs to stand on.

There's starting to be something resembling progress on Horus at long last. The main armour is just about filled in, and actually I could attach the model to its base now if I wanted. I will wait longer for that step however, just because painting Horus is somewhat easier in the current setup anyway.

No change to how the Warmaster is being painted, however I am overly familiar with some of the manufacturing flaws. They're fortunately hidden on the inside of the right leg, and really won't be seen, but annoying to have any such flaw on a Primarch model in the first place.

Some details are yet to be completed either because I just haven't got around to it yet, or because I'm still deciding on how to paint them. The latter point applies to the legion icon on the right knee-pad. It's supposedly the symbol for the Luna Wolves, white crescent moon, black for the rest of the circle, and an outlined white wolf head, or possibly outlined black wolf head (I've seen both). I'm leaning towards a white crescent, dark grey rest of the circle, and black wolf head with red eyes and silver engraved XVI (very small detail that's actually on the wolf head itself).

I'll have to start on the upper areas of armour soon too, before moving onto pteruges that fit below the waist, and of course the right arm.

-- silly painter.

Chief Librarian Mephiston (Primaris) - Part III

Gap filler.

This is only a very short post, showing after the gaps filled in my green stuff were smoothed out and painted over. The cabling was painted as well so that I could see if any more needs to be done there (no, looks fine).

There is one area on the rear of the psychic hood that was messed up a little from superglue, and I thought it would be fine once painted over, but it's still visible to me. I'm not going to sand it back now however, and instead just hope I can continue to try and conceal it under paint. Perhaps if I paint some circuitry, similar to the Grey Knight weapons, around the connector points (or whatever they are) it will help. Something to think about.

I've started to fill in more of the right arm, although I'll consider darkening it later. Depends how it looks; right now the arm area is just a little too bright compared to the chestpiece, but perhaps I can freehand some muscle lines around it as well, just to continue that effect and tie the armour together more. On a related note, I tried to highlight some of the raised areas and accentuate the muscle lines a little more on the chestpiece. There wasn't as much contrast as I'd liked - in hindsight, perhaps this is an area where contrast paints would have been really useful. Perhaps one day on another model.

On the cape can be seen a small scratch were I missed the mould line and used the mould line remover to flatten it out. Still intend to fix that with an airbrush.

-- silly painter.

Chief Librarian Mephiston (Primaris) - Part II

When duct tape isn't available, use green stuff instead.

This is only a short update on assembling Mephiston. Again, I've been running into problems.

As can be seen, green stuff was used to patch in a gap in the join of the cape to the main model. I hope it will be smooth enough once painted - it's kind of hard to tell at the moment, and I may have to paint, file back, and repaint if it's too out of place.
There's also a small amount there the right cabling joins the main cape component. I could have left that alone, but I'm not sure right now how well it will be covered by the arm and so decided to plug it a little as well. There won't be ribbing in that spot, but a little clever painting and that won't be noticeable.

The left cabling, however, was a massive pain. It simply didn't align correctly. I was almost going to just scrap the plastic component and make something entirely out of green stuff, but then decided to see what I could do to bend and refit the plastic. There was nothing to lose.
I filed back underneath the top area to make it fit a little more flush with the model, carefully bent the plastic (it's thin enough that it bent rather than snapped), and cut it in one place (sort of directly under the armpit, because that would be least visible later) to make it fit and align correctly. Using glue while fitting wasn't an option - it moves about too much, and needs a little time to get the piece to sit right. Instead, blu-tac to the rescue: use blu-tac to sit the piece in place, then apply a little glue in key areas to keep it there. Remove the blu-tac once the glue has dried, and add a little more glue if necessary to make sure the piece stays in place.
Once painted, the slight plastic butchery shouldn't be noticed, however I'm still a little annoyed that it was necessary in the first place.

I did paint the book at his left hip, although that's not visible in the photo. Just easier to do that before assembly. The same goes for the gun holster at his right hip. I'll be focusing on the left arm area next, and getting enough done to then glue the sword into place - which will later need more fixing of join seams. I will perhaps try place green stuff into the seam while attaching it, simply filing it back later to smooth it out before painting.

Lastly for this post, the head should really be done before the right arm. I've been reading that in the default fit, the arm I intend to use can look more like Mephiston is wiping his nose rather than his mouth. To counter that, position the head first, and adjust the fit of the arm so that he doesn't look like he's just encountered a soiled nappy.

-- silly painter.

Chief Librarian Mephiston (Primaris) - Part I

Mephiston. Mark Gibbons pose. Pure awesome.

Finally some more work on the Primaris version of Chief Librarian Mephiston. I've been preparing the model for a little bit, figuring out the best approach for painting and assembly, and making sure the colour scheme used on the finecast model would still match (it will).

Painting wise there's not much to say. I've dry assembled the model for a photo, but glue will have to wait a little longer. A few parts require painting first, before the back cape can be attached.

Instead, this post is a complaint about the fit of all the components. More precisely, the lack of fit. The robes were ok, but I can't help but wonder if some of the joins could have been better hidden. On the model's right, I had to use multiple coats of liquid green stuff (only because it was on hand, the proper green stuff might have worked much better), careful filing, some emery paper, and a coat of varnish to get a smooth finish filling in the join. The varnish was to help smooth the finish a little, but also to prevent the green stuff from coming loose. This worked very well, and once painted cannot be seen at all.

Other components, however, are a little more tricky. There's an obvious gap on the right torso where the cape is supposed to join to the main model area. I wanted to paint the cloak and cape separate with the airbrush, so that gap will have to be filled in later and painted over. There will be a similar problem on the left glove.

Cabling on the left torso is also to be added later, and it doesn't quite line up properly with the skull icon where it's supposed to attach. I'm actually contemplating making a custom piece from green stuff, although I might try first to bend and force the plastic into the right location.

The right leg was also a pain to glue into the correct position. I painted it first, the glued the cloak around it, but the attachment points were not as apparent as they could have been.

It's these little details that add up to a feeling of missed quality on the model. Almost as if it was rushed a little bit, and Games Workshop felt these little nuisances wouldn't matter. While the design of the finished model is very impressive, and the detail of the plastic moulding process gives finecast a run for its money (and without the associated problems), I can't help but be a little disappointed with the assembly issues.
At least I'm proficient enough by now that I can fix everything. It's a little extra work, but the final model won't show these nuisances.

-- silly painter.

Tyranid Warriors

The Three Tyranid Stooges.

Continuing the army of Tyranids being painted, three Tyranid Warriors are now complete. I could always do more on them, but reached a point where I simply thought they were good enough for tabletop and didn't want to do more.

The paint scheme is exactly as with previous models in the army. One difference is that some of the weapons here have what is perhaps meant to represent venom sacs. These were painted extremely simply with:

• Wraithbone base.
• Hexwraith Flame covering the desired area.
• Biel Tan Green shade to give some extra depth.

That's it. Nice and simple. The Hexwraith really is an excellent green for this, and is basically a precursor the Contrast range of paints.

I did use an artificer brush on the carapace this time around. There are fewer of these models, and with a larger carapace area, so I wanted the edging higlights to be more controlled. The highlights here are what really make the model, and the finer control paid off in the end.

Finally, the feet positions were difficult to get right, and they don't have a large surface area of attachment to the base. This is partially because I might have messed up a little owing to lack of assembly instructions in the box. I've tried to fix what I can, but if they fall off much then pinning will be required.

-- silly painter.

Captain Tycho - Part III

Say hello to my little friend.

And that is Captain Tycho done, in what must be record time for me. The whole remaining isolated and indoors helps of course, and I could always do more, but: done.

The base actually has a little more contrast than the photo shows, and again I'm not going to do anything more to it. If I start to add grass or shrubs, it would be far too easy to add too much and ruin the model. So as much as I think a little something extra would help, I'm leaving it as is.

Highlighting the armour last, after the varnish spray, worked well. It's not useful for photography, but I'm not going to go overboard on lighting conditions to try help that. The face mask in particular looks much better highlighted, with the cheekbones matching and giving more symmetry to the face.

I did paint some bronzes onto the meltagun cannister for a bit of variation. Too much silver otherwise.

As ever, because I'm bad at freehand on smooth surfaces let alone contoured ones, I'm leaving the loincloth without decoration. This is still ok - Blood Angels of all figures would have a plain one as a symbol of purity, and the robes Sanguinius is often depicted as wearing.

Onwards to the next model!

-- silly painter.