Terminator Chaplain - Part IV (Showcase)

Guidance counsel get serious.

Rather than spend any recent time with posts, I decided to simply finish this model instead. In what is becoming an annoying trend for the year, yet more health problems have made it take far longer than I'd like, but I'm calling it done now.

As an experiment in using Contrast through an airbrush it kind of worked. I wouldn't use the same approach for black again, at least not directly. I would probably prefer a very slight hint of blue were I to do this again, but whether that's mixing into the Contrast step or as part of the original volume highlights I'm not sure. I also would prefer some of the edges to be more sharply defined - and that's actually difficult to do with already desaturated colours. It ends up looking like the left hand, which doesn't look black then.

The lack of red on the pauldrons was a wiser choice I think. It fits within the overall theme much nicer, and ties in with the idea of leading Death Company, or someone close to joining them such as the storyline in Death of Integrity. The trim in gold was also a saner choice compared to trying to do everything black, which would only have worked had the black armour worked better.

The base was intended to be interpreted as either in a Space Hulk, industrial, or heavily constructed urban environment. It was initially too light and needed to be heavily toned down and given a small bit of interest to balance things out. It kind of works; I could do much more to it, but that's true of just about everything I paint up.

Faith is my shield!

The shield worked well enough in the end. The subtle red is nice, though next time I'd like to airbrush that first. That wasn't an option here as I didn't really know how I wanted it until much later. Although I did ruin one of the purity seals (the paint smudged out of place), the bones worked out nicely. I want to keep that in mind for skeletons in future:

• Wraithbone base coat.
• Druchii Violet in the shadows, recesses, and surfaces facing away from the light source.
• Skeleton Horde over the whole surface - not too heavily, but not exactly light either
• Wraithbone thinned and glazed to highlight again.

I'm convinced that a mix of primer, washes, and drybrushing could replicate the look closely enough for army painting. Even a base coat of violet and then zenithal of Wraithbone, then Contrast and drybrush should be efficient enough for painting, say, a Tomb Kings army.

Finally, decals and micro-pens make putting writing on scrolls incredibly simple. If I really wanted to take it a step further I would paint over the decals, but in this case it looks good enough as it is. The count is now at 4.5.

-- silly painter