Azrakh the Annihilator - Part II

 

Shiny Shoulder Skull

After some experimentation I've managed to come up with an approach that I think works well for my spin on the model. The sheer amount of trim means the NMM is going to take an extraordinarily long time to complete, but as it turns out the majority of the model is red, yellow tinted trim, and grey/silver areas. It's actually a more limited palette than I might have used coming up with my own scheme, which might help nudge progress along every now and then.

I don't intend to get it done in one go. Just work on little pieces here and there over time while getting other models done. The initial experiment is rather obviously on the shoulder pad, and from there I'll just work my way around the model.

The red I had planned before, but the mix of a brown to create shadows simply wasn't working and so I switched that out with black instead. The final mix is thus:

• Khorne Red base coat.
• Agrax Earthshade around all the recesses. This will create a fairly thick line around the edges which is just what is wanted.
• Khorne Red / Abaddon Black 1:1 and glazed into the shadows. Actually the mix can be worked with some more - 2:1 to start with, move to 1:1, 1:2, etc. Glazing or mixing paint on the palette is rarely so precise.
• Abaddon Black in the recesses, applied as a thin line around all the details to give extra definition.
• Khorne Red / Evil Sunz Scarlet 1:1 and glazed into highlights.
• Evil Sunz Scarlet glazed further into highlights.
• Evil Sunz Scarlet / Wild Rider Red 1:1 glazed very thinly onto extreme highlights just to give even more contrast.

There is a lot of back & forth between all those steps, and a lot of glazing involved to try and get smooth blends. Even now I might go back with Khorne Red in some areas to soften the transitions a little bit more. This approach is not for competitions, and definitely not for tabletop standard. For me, it's essentially for relaxation - I don't have to worry about all the steps to get the model done, it's just something small, limited palette so I'm not swapping paints out very often, and I can just take my time.

The brass trim I've shamelessly taken from Juan Hidalgo, specifically here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJiYKAZPswo

I've not repeated all the steps, and I'm leaning towards giving it a thin glaze of yellow for saturation, but otherwise I just followed the formula. In short:

• Baneblade Brown as a base coat.
• Ushabti Bone to sketch in higlights.
• Zamesi Desert / Ushabti Bone 1:1 to soften the transitions some.
• Baneblade Brown again, glazed to soften transitions more.
• Gorthor Brown glazed into shaded areas.
• Gorthor Brown / Abaddon Black / Lupercal Green in a 1:1:1 mix and glazed into deeper shadows.
• Zamesi Desert / Ushabti Bone 1:1 to highlight the edges.
• Ushabti Bone to highlight the brighter edges.
• Ushabti Bone / White Scar 1:1 for the brightest edges.
• White Scar for final point hightlights.

There is again an lot of mixing on the palette, and it helps to apply in very thin glazes. It takes time. Zoomed in with a camera it also looks horrible, but I suspect that's the lighting at work on the sensor - it looks far better in reality.

I intend to glaze Iyanden Yellow on the central icon to see how it goes. If I don't like it, then it can be fairly safely ignored and I can carry on without it for the rest of the trim. It's going to take months probably to finish, but it will look amazing when done.

No post next week, as I'll be travelling. And after that there's more travel, so posts will very likely become sporadic over the next two or three months.

-- silly painter.

P.S - Iyanden Yellow on the skull looked wrong, but Lamenters Yellow very thinly applied over the brighter highlights works well enough.

Operative Umbral-Six - Part II (Showcase)

 

You can't see me, I'm hiding.

I'm calling the model done, despite there being nothing added to the base, and despite it being a little more bland on the assassin then I'd normally be happy with. The motivation here wasn't Umbral-Six, but instead the statue they've setup camp inside of.

I was originally going to try some OSL from below, but decided against it because the statue looked too nice to be so easily ruined. Instead I concentrated highlighting from that direction in general, leaving much of the rear darker (happily also meaning I didn't have to spend as much time painting that). I could have spent more time pushing or dulling highlights, but again motivation was in the way and I'm happy enough with a tabletop standard here.

I unfortunately didn't keep much in the way of notes about which paints were used. That's just part & parcel of considerable disruptions right now - I take what opportunities to paint that I can, and anything that's taking time away from that I kind of just don't do. This is a bit of a shame, but also not terribly important in this case: I don't really have any inclination to replicate the model, and so no need to replicate how I painted it.

There is perhaps one exception: the gun casing. That started out with Stegadon Scale Green, and I thought to build it up as a very dark aqua of some kind. Mixing a little dark blue (Night Lords Blue) for shadows, and some Celestra Grey (just happened to be on the palette) for highlights, I later realised the casing looked far too blue. I was painting the assassin separately from the statue, and putting it together resulted in the gun clashing far too much with everything else. The contrast against the gold was inharmonious, and it was very confused against the green tones of the statue. It was simply wrong. In thinking of how to fix this, I remembered the old glaze paints - Waywatcher Green in particular. The glazes were great for shifting colours, and while the Contrast range can do the same thing, I didn't have an appropriate colour there. Two thin coats of the glaze shifted the casing colour into green nicely however, and made it much more coherent with the verdigris. The assassin no longer quite so confusing to the eye.

With this model done, I would normally consider the tally to be 11, however I've just bought Jain Zar and so the tally is back down to 10. The free Warhammer+ model recently is already factored into this, but I might take a double just be certain I haven't forgotten something, so I'll make the tally 9!

-- silly painter.

Azrakh the Annihilator - Part I

 

Giving someone the finger...with a chainsaw.

After some time away (and a nasty cold still ongoing) I'm finally back to some painting. I decided that I didn't have enough models on the go and started working on Azrakh the Annihilator, simply because it doesn't have much in the way of sub-assemblies, and it's something different. I doubt I'll finish this model very quickly, but it might be just a case of doing a little as I get motivation.

I decided not to use the airbrush here. The trim makes up half the armour anyway, so the airbrush would be of limited value in applying highlights, and the more precise nature of a normal brush would allow me a level of control that I like to use on more special characters. Even so, I perhaps should've done that one base coat of Khorne Red with an airbrush - it took about four thin layers to get a smooth finish, and took far too much time!

I've decided to go with the box art on this model, itself which is based on the original MG artwork. There are particular reasons for this: I want to try my hand at NMM again, and the box art provides an excellent reference point - I say reference, but I fully intend to just copy it. This raises a discussion point that I've seen before: is it ok to simply copy the box art? Yes. I'm not portraying this as my own original work, it's not being entered into any competitions, and it's solely for my own enjoyment. I'm not particularly interested in custom colours and all the colour theory effort behind that either - the model is based on (2D) artwork, and the whole appeal for purchasing this model is to bring that artwork into a 3D representation. The colour planning has been done, the mood of the model has been set, and examples are provided. I want to learn more NMM, and while determining where bright points go is part of that, there is also the topic of which paints to use, experience in blending properly for the effect, and even how to take photos to show it off. I'm still the one applying the paint at the end of the day, so copying the box art is, in this case, entirely ok - all the style hard work as been done and far better than I could do, so I'm going to use that work to more quickly paint up the model. Again, so long as I don't misrepresent it anywhere, it's all fine.

On such topics as which paints to use, the basic red on the armour I intend to shade with a brown, and possibly mix one of the browns with Khorne Red to glaze into shadowed areas. I normally highlight with Wazdakka Red initially, but not yet sure where I'll go from there. I don't want it to be the same red tones as Flesh Tearers, and instead might try to shift it more towards a saturated red rather than the pink that Khorne Red is actually closer to. Reds can be complicated.

Juan Hidalgo has a nice tutorial on NMM brass that I like the look of, and might well try that out on the trim. It's a little more involved than what I was originally hoping, and I might shift it slightly more to the yellow spectrum, but I could possibly also cut a few steps seeing as there aren't large surfaces for multiple gradients; armour trim will need value contrast, but might need fewer precise blends.

As a final note, it can be seen that the model is not stuck to a base for easy handling. This is because some of the areas are hard to reach with a brush, so it will be on some pins for a good long painting time, or at least until the legs are entirely done.

-- silly painter.