Cerastus Knight (Showcase)

 

Born to the purple.

Having recently completed one of the Cerastus Knights in the box, and having the other assembled, not much motivation was required to try and quickly get the other done. I was debating whether the entire force would belong to the same battle group, but that really only makes sense if I'm playing it against some opponent. I don't play the games so I decided a different colour scheme would be far more interesting - and besides which, having opposing forces would help if there was someone interested in playing but didn't have models of their own.

I've gone for a rendition of Legio Mortis in this case. Officially they're black and red, but I always felt like the artwork tended more towards dark purple and red (specifically on the very dark pink side of red). These colour invoke regal imagery, and yet keeps the model dark (one could almost say grim dark).

The purple is Naggaroth Night, shaded down to black and with no real highlights to speak of. 

The red is more complicated and I can't actually remember which base colour I started from. It was either Gal Vorbak Red or a 1:1 mix of Dryad Bark and Mephiston Red. Either way it was then highlighted with Mephiston Red, and edged with Wazdakka Red. This was heavily shaded down with a black oil wash.

The same oil wash was used everywhere else and then removed with a cotton bud dampened with odourless mineral spirits, exactly as was done on the previous model. I'm actually wonder now, despite the excellent result it gives, if similar would just be done with Nuln Oil (Gloss), or any shade that's given low surface tension. I varnish it later anyway, so any gloss appearance would be removed well before the Ironbreaker drybrushing step. I will consider this in future.

To balance out the dark reds and purples I opted for an almost fluorescent green on the "eyes". Dots of Dorn Yellow later covered with Hexwraith Flame is all that needed - and the latter being applied over a yellow works extremely well. If I paint Necrons again then that's probably the step that I'll use for at least some of the green glow on their weapons.

There's not too much else to really say other than intentionally I kept some areas less clean and crisp than my usual painting style. The model is dark, looks slightly unmaintained, and is quite possibly going mad - all of which fits the storyline for Legio Mortis. The downside is that while thematically it very much fits, it also feels like I've done a relatively messy job of the whole model. I'm trying very hard not to care however, as it's still another model finished.

The tally in total now stands at 14 models that I can buy. There are some things I definitely would like to get, but I'll hold off longer just to see if maybe I can get that number a little bit higher first.

-- silly painter.