Sons of Horus Contemptor Dreadnought - Part IV (Showcase)

 

Traitor with nothing but contempt.

A little later than I wanted, but I'm calling this model done. I could go a bit further with battle damage and chipping, particularly on the black areas, but if I did that then I'm not sure when I'd get the model done! I'm increasingly doing this to models, and it's not a bad thing so long I reserve that extra effort for the special sculpts. Such as Azrakh, which hasn't seen progress is some time and I really need to get to.

Ultimately a Contemptor is very similar to painting a big Space Marine. There's really not a whole lot different; even Terminators felt like they had more detail and troublesome areas to paint. The vast majority of work on this piece was done with airbrushing - but also I've left a lot of parts as "dirty", which meant they were never intended to get precision paint tip attention. On the whole I think the model came out well enough in the end, and as it was really only an initial experiment with slight conversion and re-posing, then perhaps that's more than could have been hoped for.

I did end up finding some chain on cheap store jewellery and used that to hang a couple of skulls on the left arm. That was not an enjoyable process: gluing chain together and in the right place involved dots of superglue and hanging the chain in the right spot, at the right angle, and making sure it remained undisturbed until the glue dried. It took a whole day just to put those skulls in place! It does add a lot of character, so I think the effort was worth it, but I'm not really wanting to repeat it anytime soon.

The skulls on the base kind of detract away from much of the rest of the model. A glaring bright point surrounded by dark, how could it not. I tried to tone them down with Nuln Oil, just to make them seem dirty as befitting their surroundings, but they still stand out too much. Not a whole lot to do about that now - I could add some marble, bricks, etc, to even out the colours and restore some balance with the base, but basically too much effort. I did some freehand where the right foot is sliding into a new stance. The smoother paving underneath gives a story to just how much rubble has built up over it, hinting at the destruction wrought across the battlefield.

In an attempt to draw attention back to the upper areas of the model I ended up with two red dots surrounding the head. I imagine these to be searchlights, but the contrast against the green helps to frame the head, creating an area to focus the viewers eyes on but without overwhelming everything else. The freehand symbols were actually chosen for similar reasons, and intentionally they are not visible from the front angle. This kind of three dimensional appreciation of the art is not actually something I've seen discussed much (or indeed at all), but I think I want to explore it a little more. Most of the time I guess people only consider one angle because that's how it will be photographed, but if at least the front, left, and right angles are planned out then I believe the overall visual impression would be greatly enhanced.

Tally is 11.5 and unlikely to budge for another month. Interruptions galore, and complex models on the go. I'm hoping to at least prepare a resin Contemptor, which I can use to get the pose right for another plastic dreadnought before I start cutting and converting it.

-- silly painter.