Terminator Squad - Part IV

 

The crux terminatus of the matter.

Free time to paint has been very rare recently, so I'm not getting a whole lot done. As a consequence, posts are becoming fewer and further between - and this one won't be very long at that.

I've managed to finish the bases on the Terminators. They do look much nicer all painted up, and while I haven't yet compared them next to anything else just yet, the paint slightly hides the "standing on a hill" effect from before and makes the older models seem just slightly larger than they are. Only slightly, but I'm hopeful it'll be enough to fit in with the rest of the army better.

I didn't put any effort into the skulls. Wraithbone, Skeleton Horde, highlight with Wraithbone again. I could do more, pick out edges, deepen shadows, and some variation, but really there's not much point. Defined enough, moving on!

Rocks I tried something new with:

• Mechanicus Standard Grey
• Agrax Earthshade, notably where rock meets sand.
• Stormvermin Fur (which ties it into the Zandri Dust of the sand more)
• Terminatus Stone (of course)

Actually the rocks came out rather well. I need to experiment with mixing other colours for variation - shifting the grey with greens, purples, browns, creams, reds, etc, instead of just monotonous grey.

Nothing else is yet new. I've been painting the blacks, eye lenses, Crux Terminatus icons, etc, all in a batched method. Relatively few paints are involved, and with the wet palette I can just do a little every so often throughout the day. I'm not going to be fancy with most of the smaller details, instead relying on metallics to give them some visual interest. I'm steadily headed into "just get them done" mode, and will get as far as I can with batched painting before switching to individual, unique details. I also want to buy a few new things, so need more models finished first.

Lastly, the armour still hasn't had final highlights applied. I'm holding out there until most other details are done, and I'm expecting it will make the armour "pop" that little bit more without the need to be so precise earlier on in the process.

All told, at least another couple of weeks before these are finished. If I had a couple of days with just a few hours of free painting time then a week easy, but I don't and so at least two weeks it is. That's also very probably going to be my next post, but we'll see.

-- silly painter.

Jain Zar - Part II (Showcase)

 

That's an impressive pony tail.

It's been a little while since I was last intending to post, but things keep getting in the way right now. I'm having to restructure routines a little bit, so I suspect for the rest of the year painting will be sporadic again, but it certainly won't stop. And despite not getting much else done, I have at least managed to complete Jain Zar.

(note: forgive many spelling and grammar mistakes that will no doubt exist - I need sleep!)

I'll admit that I lost some motivation part way through this model and it took a bit of a change of perspective to get that back and complete it. I basically decided not to care so much about painting precision (which is very much Golden Demon style) and care more about the "feel" of everything. That's not to say I'm unhappy with the model, quite the opposite, but it's not competition level.

Last time I had some trouble deciding on how to paint the various "red" material (cloth, streamers, grips, etc). One of the differences between materials that gives visual clues to how hard the surfaces is, comes from reflections: strong edge highlights, value contrast, bright points, all give an impression of a hardened surface reflecting light. Keeping midtones and shadows, but without much in the way of highlights, will give more of a cloth impression and is exactly what I did for the loincloth. Deepened the shadows with blue mixed with burgundy, increased some areas with Mephiston Red added instead, and that was about it. The hairband increases the light/shadow contrast and has a Druchii Violet wash to help give definition, but the extremes aren't like edge highlights on armour. The streamers are just glaze highlighted with Mephiston Red and not much else.

The handles I thought worked well enough that I might start to use something similar on future models:

• Barak-Nar Bugundy
• Druchii Violet
• Word Bearers Red, focusing more on surfaces facing any light source.
• Tuskgor Fur, and more prominent highlights.

The hair I like the least, mostly because black hair is difficult enough at the best of times and yet I wanted it distinct from some of the armour. I ended up with:

• Daemonette Hide lightly brushed over the upper areas.
• Night Lords Blue mixed in and the lightly brushed over lower areas that still received highlights.
• Mephiston Red / Dryad Bark (1:1) mixed in again and sparingly added to shaded areas.
• Nuln Oil to add some depth around where the hair meets other surfaces, e.g around the mask, hairband.

Black armour is semi-NMM heavily influenced from Juan Hidalgo's tutorials:

• Skavenblight Dinge to place some reflection points and highlights.
• Stormvermin Fur glazed to increase the value of those points.
• Administratum Grey for more extreme edges.
• White for dots of the brights points.
• Black glazed as appropriate to smooth transitions or darken areas.

The real difference is that the armour is more black than steel. The weapon uses the same colours as I use for Blood Angels black armour, while a little Dark Reaper and Thunderhawk Blue (glazed back where necessary) give the shaft minor visual interest.

The eyes are very simple: Ulthuan Grey, White Scar, and then Aethermatic Blue. It's not enough to really bring focus to the face too much (at least not from the angle the photo is taken), but I'm not entirely sure I want that - I want the miniature as a whole to be the focus, not one individual part of it; it's difficult to get an impression of fluid motion if all the attention is on the mask.

Spirit stones are Mephiston red and Yriel Yellow mixed in various proportions, with the usual black darkened area and a white spot highlight (and then gloss varnish at the very end).

The blades I tried some NMM with. Very similar to the black armour, but swap out Administratum Grey for Ulthuan Grey and shifting everything into the bright grey spectrum rather than black. I played with inks a fair bit as they're very useful for glazing: black for the black areas of course, but a little crimson to reflect the streamers, and green (with a blue tint) for the tri-blades. I also had some of the Night Lords Blue on the palette and so mixed that with Ulthuan Grey and very (very) lightly glazed that on top of the other weapon as a sky reflection. That glaze is really the keystone to it all. There are of course glazes and glazes and glazes to try get some blending going on, during which I realised that very shiny metal quite often doesn't have smooth blends because it's reflecting solid objects with defined borders.

Am I happy with the blade NMM? No, not really, but I can myself starting to understand it more and with practice I'll probably be semi-decent at it one day.

With Jain Zar done, the could should be at 13, however I bought some Assault Intercessors and old-school jump packs while the latter are still available. I just think that combination looks better than the newer design, personal preference. That effectively brings the count back down to just 3. This makes me want to finish the Terminators next while I look around for motivation to get back onto the Dreadnoughts.

-- silly painter.

Terminator Squad - Part III

 

Chainfist. For when you really want to cut something.

It's been a little while since the last post, what with travel, work, and a bunch of other hobby time intrusions, and sometimes it can be difficult to get moving again on projects. Which is actually something that "background projects" can sometimes help with (at least for me).

I've lost a little steam on the Dreadnoughts and Jain Zar, and the latter in particular is very difficult because I simply don't have the motivation and inspiration to figure out what or how to paint next. The one thing that does help me get over this is to finish a model - a catch 22 when it's the lack of motivation stopping me from progressing. Switching to a background project, such as these Terminators, is what helps get me back on track: there are no surprises in what or how to paint everything. I just need to get it done - and there's the second problem. Getting started again, even without blockers, is sometimes difficult by virtue of not knowing where to start; I want the models done, but don't feel like grinding through it all.

To get some level of progress there visually needs to be a relatively high level of change from minimal painting effort. Metallic details (here I'm trying Iron Hands Steel, though perhaps it's a little too bright - I'll know after the matt varnish stage) are a good way to start - just load some on the palette and work away at each model. I don't need to swap paints around, and each "session" can be just five or ten minutes. I don't need to sit for hours to paint models - quite frequently I only do a small bit over a handful of minutes, then come back later for a few minutes more. That one colour on the palette all setup and ready means I can just go at it the moment I feel motivated.

After the metallics are in place, black paint on any chest Imperial Aquila, chapter symbols, gun casings, just setting the base colour for next steps. I can later go back over again with only a small selection of paints to fill in the highlights and shading - and suddenly the models are starting to look a lot more completed (even if they're not really), and I'm starting to get motivated to do more.

I still need to apply black shading to some recesses on the Terminators, and the I'll likely get one of the most troublesome bits out of the way: black weapon casing highlights. They take a while for me to do properly, and I will really try next time to mask off some of the areas and hit it with the airbrush (or rather hit it with paint sprayed out of the airbrush) to see if that will be more efficient. Still, I'll work at it over the next day or two, and then get started on the Crux Terminatus of each, followed by the eye lenses. Somewhere in there I'll very likely start to pick out pieces on other models and get those projects moving forwards as well.

That's the plan anyway, so I'll see how it pans out in a week.

-- silly painter