Assault Intercessor with Jump Pack - Part III

 

I'm about...this tall.

Painting has been extremely slow going still, and that won't be letting up anytime soon unfortunately, but I have managed to finish all ten of the helmets (bar the sergeant insignia) and all the holsters (bar some finishing touches after the matt varnish stage).

The helmets were much easier to airbrush this time around, although I did mess up in a few places with too much pressure too close to the surface - this leads to the paint running in thin liquid veins and pooling in places. This was too unsightly for me and I went back in with Flash Gitz Yellow and Phalanx Yellow to rebuilt the highlights. Rebuilding them too quite a good deal of patience, a good brush, and some flow improver to make a glaze out of each colour, but it smoothed everything out in the end.

The gloss varnish as ever let the washes settle into recesses far easier without staining the rest of the area, with the slight exception of shallow depths. If the recess is too shallow and curves gently into the surrounding surfaces then I find that the gloss varnish impedes a smooth transition and it might need a few touch-ups later on. This is most noticeable up close on the stripe (for lack of a better term) on top of the helmets. Just something to keep in mind.

The eye lenses were relatively simple to do this time around, even with the reflection dot. A combination of a very pointy brush, paint which takes slightly longer to dry (flow improver, or use an ink), and a magnifying headset really helped in this regard. A few minor mistakes, but nothing that wasn't quickly fixable (or as quickly as poor coverage of yellow paint will allow for).

This leads me back around to the colour yellow. As a primary colour, it's actually difficult to get a very pure yellow - paints will naturally tend slightly towards the red or green side of things. Normally I would try to keep base, midtones, and highlights on one side, but here a mix is actually used. Averland Sunset is more of a red shifted base colour, but for example Flash Gitz Yellow (or at least my pot of it) is slightly green shifted. Does this really matter too much? Not entirely, thin enough coats will balance it out enough, but it's made me start to consider what is really going on, and if perhaps I could use something similar to my advantage in the future.

By highlighting with a very slight green shifted yellow over a red shifted yellow base, it pulls the result into a more balanced midpoint, giving a rather vibrant highlight. This won't work if the shift from either is too great - it will probably just end up looking more brown - and the highlight will need to be higher up in value as well (not a problem, that's partially what makes a colour a highlight). It also gives a little more contrast between final edge highlight and shadows. This would really only work with primary colours because of how difficult it is to mix up a "pure" primary colour, but it explains why the red paints I use work so well - there's a subtle blue hint in Carroburg Crimson, and the final highlight of Wild Rider Red is more of an orange (sometimes excessively so, and I need to knock it back with Evil Sunz). I've not tried it too much with blue. There's no reason secondary colours can't follow this as well of course, it's just going to rely much more heavily on glazes to shift colours where wanted - partially why Lamenters Yellow is very good at highlighting greens.

None of the above is really anything new, and seems almost obvious. The key difference for me was not really any hidden colours in a colour wheel, but instead a new way of thinking about my selection of paints for a particular scheme. Normally I might be thinking "that one looks brighter, I'll go with that", but now I'll think much more along the lines of "that one looks brighter and shifted away enough that a glaze will pull it towards the colour I really want".

I guess I'll see what difference it makes with future models, however long it takes me to start on something more experimental again.

-- silly painter

Blood Angels Furioso Dreadnought - Part II

 

He can always headbutt - and win.

I was motivated to do a little more of the Furioso, so thought it about time to do an update. Some of it has actually been sitting a while and was done alongside the Librarian.

Firstly, the left shin name plate I'm particularly proud of. I didn't change how I paint it at all, but everything came together almost perfectly - it was the shadowed upper area that I noticed early on and leaned into, matching the highlighting elsewhere on the model. I can't really repeat this on every model - the sculpt itself is slightly concave and the painting simply accentuated the depth. Writing on that will certainly be done with a decal.

It's worth noting that this model was the last I had done with the three coats of reds to build up highlights. That's why they're not quite as bright of "punchy" as with the Librarian. I'll need to really sharpen up the edges later.

The sarcophagus will be the next item of focus now that basic torso colours are blocked in. The hope is that once I can make the sarcophagus either complete, or nearly so, then it will start to make the rest of the model look nearly finished, and that will motivate me to carry on more quickly. I fully intend to the follow the box art for basic colours. The arms I'll focus on once the core of the Dreadnought is finished.

The white wings on the torso (and again on the arms actually) is something I think I like, and was incredibly simple to do. Corax White as a base coat, and then a mix of Apothecary White / Basilicanum Grey / Contrast Medium (about 1:1:2) to give definition. Given the already white look, there was no point is trying to highlight anything further and I'm all for the softer shadows in this case. The one downside is that the medium used can dry a bit thick; it's fine as it is, but if I add anything more than paint will start to obscure detail. The intent is to try this same effect on the crossed bones, but given their lack of detail it might not turn out quite as nicely.

The metallics were applied with an airbrush, and poorly at that, but fortunately are dark enough that I can get away with simply highlights later. Metallic paint through an airbrush definitely needs thinning before use, but not too much or it really easily separates and pools weirdly. I do want to try a different approach at some point, which is to drybrush metallics over a black (or very dark) undercoat.

-- silly painter.

Assault Intercessor with Jump Pack - Part II

 

Not sure any pistol should be doing that.

It's been a while since my last post, and while I've trying to be doing anything hobby related, the reality is that I've been very busy and haven't done that much. I've not really touched the next Dreadnought, there's a fair bit waiting for airbrushing, and I have another particular model that has all of a foot done. So with everything going so slow, I've taken a kind of break and have been very (very) slowly assembling more of the Assault Intercessor troops.

The first test model doesn't have too much additional done: some colours blocked in, a couple of decals applied, and glued to a base. What is more interesting however is the plasma pistol, which I took some inspiration from Angel Giraldez for. I don't really recall the actual paints used, but that's relatively unimportant: just use reds, oranges, yellows, mix in white. I was looking at the model and noticed that the red overspray gave an interesting look to the pistol, almost like it was slightly glowing, and I recalled a painting of Mephiston that Giraldez had done. I also have recently been thinking of OSL effects, and it occurred to me that instead of painting this pistol in the "normal" way, I would try a little OSL and punch it some more by keeping the rest of the pistol very dark in comparison (no metallics). This works really well in the end, but the trick was to use Corvus Black to build up from (or layer down to), which gives a coal black that's a little more flexible with the lighting. At any rate, I'm happy with the result.

The base is nothing special, but actually I painted eleven of them in a batch, all magnetised, and waiting on other models. This particular model is missing a gun holster, and actually after gluing one to another model I've decided to paint them all separately and glue them later. It just makes getting at the armour panels and undersuit ribbing that much easier. I'm also painting all of the helmets in a line, and they're nearly ready now. With the jump packs already given initial airbrushing and shading, that really only leaves the bodies to be done.

The main bodies I very likely will still not batch paint in one go. I'll limit it to two or three at a time, if for no other reason than it keeps the airbrushing sessions shorter and more manageable with the free time I have. Assembly though, that I've been doing on occasion as a kind of chillout exercise: assembling models without any rush, small details one at a time, means that I'm still getting something done and can keep at it whenever I have a few spare minutes. Kind of like painting with only one paint over the course of two or three days, it's sometimes much easier to keep a small set of tools handy over multiple days, rather than a small number of models that need a large amount of tools and paints.

I will probably keep going like this for another week, maybe with some painting of the Furioso when I get to the right paints, but keeping things moving at a slow and steady pace.

-- silly painter.