Imperialis Baneblades - Part I

 

Blingblade.

I picked up a couple of Baneblades for Legions Imperialis because tiny tanks. They are not going to plan.

To start with I intended to follow the ideas from the Rhino experimentation. White undercoat, some edge highlighting, and then Space Wolves (Contrast) over the top. The problem really is that the design of the Baneblade doesn't have a whole lot of flat surfaces, even if the basic shape is a box. The detailing doesn't lend itself well to the highlighting I was trying to do, and there was insufficient space to give enough of a gradient. Instead I should've simply stuck with highlighting with a drybrush.

With all those guns, must have a convoy of ammunition behind it.

I've been practising my drybrushing with relatively cheap army painter brushes, and I can see the potential. The trick really is in getting the consistency of the paint just right - not flowing like a wash, but not actually dry either. It will take a lot of practice to get "right", but for a model like this it's an ideal approach.

I'm also attempting a different approach to some of the metallic areas. Instead of base coating and then washing into recesses, using a Contrast to darken and then layer over the top with a metallic. This is basically drybrushing but in a far more controlled fashion.

The other trick I've been trying here involves gloss varnish, Black Templar, and acrylic flow improver (not Lahmian Medium, which has other components that make is unsuitable here). Basically mixing the flow improver with a Contrast paint gives it a similar behaviour to oil washes over a gloss varnish, and I used it to recess shade the model. Using Black Legion would probably work better owing to its more concentrated pigment count, but the idea looks to be sound. The result rubs off quite easily too, so a matt varnish later will almost certainly be required, but mistakes can also be easily corrected. I will be trying this a lot more going forward, but it only looks to work properly with Contrast paints - I couldn't get the same effect with regular acrylics.

Unfortunately I'm not convinced with the golden armour trim look. The gold is too bright in contrast to the rest, so I've not done it on the other model yet. I'm unsure what to do here: go with the trim, or go with a far more unified armour panelling look? There are still plenty of details to fill in, so perhaps I should just do those first and see how I feel at the end. The Blingblade can be some rich aristocrat's personal command vehicle or something.

-- silly painter.