Sons of Horus Rhino Transports - Part I

 

Tiny Tanks.

Naturally I have something from Legions Imperialis. The full release box I couldn't justify, but a squadron of Rhino transports? Now that's something to play with.

I've decided to paint up the Epic models as Sons of Horus, simply to avoid the truly massive amount of red that I already have for 40K models. It does mean that some of the titans might have to be alternative colours to what I've already been dealing with, but there's time enough to ponder on that.

One of the driving goals here is to not care quite so much about the details on these models. There's no way I'm going to ever finish them if I try to paint them to the standard of their larger counterparts, but equally I didn't want them to be too bland. I'm trying for a basic colour, simple highlights, then fill in basic details. Keep the colours to a minimum, keep edge highlights to a minimum - if they're going to be done at all. Recess shading can serve just as well to help define shapes, and it's here that oil washes can be useful.

Turret gunner has eye lenses on the helmet.

Of course there are some mold lines that exist when pictured up close, but they're almost invisible when first priming the models. I'll have to keep an eye out for a few usual suspects later - for now almost all the troublesome areas will be painted black which should hide them again. And naturally I need to paint in eye lenses, because I can.

To start with on these models I used a thinned white (White Scar) to sketch out the basic highlight areas. This doesn't impact the end result, but it does make the model easier to see. I may well avoid this step in future now that I know what I'm doing. After this I coated the entire model with Sons of Horus Green. This serves as the mid-tone, and a follow-up Lupercal Green (which is a darker colour) in shaded areas. The trick behind this with an airbrush is to really thin the paints with flow improver and thinner. It's almost wash or glaze consistency, just enough to tint the existing colours more than anything else.

Once here I wanted to try something else and used Typhon Ash (thinned of course) to apply a pre-highlight. This should serve to keep the next step brighter in highlighted areas, but not substantially change anything darker. Terradon Turquoise through the airbrush using either thinning, or preferably just a smaller nozzle. The smaller nozzle means a finer spray of the Contrast paint, which should stop it from overpowering the pre-highlight like happened that last time I tried this. And it mostly worked quite well this time around, although I needed to apply two coats in places when I'd thinned it too much as well. Not every single rhino looks exactly the same when doing it this way - there is some slight variation in tone, saturation, etc, but it's close enough and practice will improve on it more.

While I'm happy with how this turned out, it's also far too many steps. In future I intend to give a darker blue base coat, sketch highlights with Typhon Ash again, and then directly to Terradon Turquoise. The result should be very similar, but with 3 fewer steps - and possibly something that could be done in a single sitting. I'll eager to try that out, but don't have any spare models to test it on just yet.

Oil washes are still annoying for me. Mixing up the wash, keeping a mask on because the "odourless" spirits still smell, and dealing with drying time are all very frustrating. I pin washed a couple of Rhinos, then got annoyed at how long that was taking and drenched most of the rest. Wiping away the excess also took a while, but unfortunately the cotton pads I was using caught on edges far too easily and put small fibres everywhere. I am not taking that approach again. I had forgotten a single Rhino, and so I tried a different approach with that one: black acrylic with water and dish washing liquid to help break surface tension. That works almost as well as the oil wash, but only across a gloss surface. So I'll need to gloss varnish before that, but I think it will be the approach I use in future.

Acrylic pin washed.

The oils still give sharper definition, but I think with a bit of practice and experimentation (perhaps with a Contrast paint, which might need less dilution with water) then I can improve on things more, even if it's good enough already.

Next step is going to be blocking in metal areas in black, adding some basic hull stripes or patterns, and decals. The decals are a problem though: putting them on hatches is problematic because of the centre line, which will obscure the decal, but also be troublesome for a decal to kind of fold into. I may need to resort to getting very good at free-handing the Eye of Horus.

-- silly painter.