Sanguinary Guard - Part II

 

The return of nipples.

Some progress on the Sanguinary Guard kitbashing, although only one so far is actually painted to this stage. I wanted to test out some ideas with painting metallics through the airbrush, having learned how not to do things with the start of Dante. I also wasn't keen on spending quite as much time on these models, so the hope was that the airbrush would give me a solid start to the armour and I could more easily work from there; with many more golden armoured warriors to paint, doing it all by brush wasn't the most appealing.

I think I've come up with a good compromise, and in the process learned that metallics can given an amazingly smooth finish through an airbrush. It's actually far less smooth than it might first appear, but more on that in a moment.

The base coat is actually Dryad Bark. It's quite a dark brown to begin with, so multiple thin coats over the black primer were required to actually show anything, but it's worth the effort to do so as this will ultimately become the shadow colour.

Next up through the airbrush was Balthasar Gold, with a bare minimum of cleaning out the prior colour. Four drops of this along with three drops of thinner and three drops of flow improver, to make what is essentially a glaze consistency. Multiple thin coats are required to build up the opaqueness desired in places, but it also means no large mistakes can cover up the shadowed areas and it's easier to transition from them.

Normally I would want something like Gehenna's Gold, however that doesn't exist in the Air range and so I chose to go with Thallax Gold instead. Once more the previous colours received the bare minimum of a clean out: thinning down the paints reduces tip dry and makes it easier to flush the previous paint out, but a little mixed in won't hurt. Thallax Gold was mostly a Zenithal at this stage, highlighting various volumes as I saw fit and trying to leave previous coats visible. As before it was four drops of Thallax Gold, three drops of thinner, and three drops of flow improver, to create an almost glaze and using multiple thin coats to build up the highlights.

At this point the result was ultra smooth and gave an almost mirror shine to the whole model. Metallic paints are very forgiving when blending from one colour to another: the gloss hides much of the effort while the pigments and reflective material used naturally gives a kind of grain or noise to hide any speckle from the airbrush. The effect was so astoundingly smooth that I wonder why I didn't try this before - it's a great time saver compared to using a normal brush. It's only on (very) closer inspection that some of the "noise" is still clearly visible. This makes sense - the colour pigments and other materials will kind of float and spread out more when the metallics are thinned down, disassociating from each other and producing that result, however with multiple thin coats the effect is evened out substantially and the gloss finish hides much of the rest. The result is still superb when viewed from any kind of distance and so I'll continue with it, and besides when looking close enough the layer lines of the 3d printed parts are easily visible anyway.

One of the problems in the past with the metallic paints through an airbrush is that they rub off far too easily. To counter this I like to use a gloss shade over the top. A matt varnish can't be used because that ruins the shine of course, but a shade can still serve to lock the airbrushed stages down. I don't use it as a wash, but instead more of a glazed shade colour. Reikland Fleshshade (Gloss) It was used to give more warmth to the golds and help outline some areas. I'm still debating if I should go back in with Agrax Earthshade in key areas to further outline them, which is a decision I'll leave for later down the line.

Auric Armour Gold and Canoptek Alloy were used to apply further highlights, either as volumetric or edge highlighting where necessary. I generally use pure Auric Armour Gold (thinned to more than a layer paint, but slight less than a glaze) for building up some volumes or edge highlighting lower areas, with a mix of that and Canoptek Alloy (roughly 2:1 or perhaps 3:1, no hard & fast rules) for extreme edges or more focal points such as the "face", and some filigree.

Iron Hands Steel glazed into some areas allows for a silver colour, while keeping the golden reflection apparent. This is most easily seen on the spherical points on top of the jump pack.

Not shown because I forgot to get a photo is that testing a very small amount of Khorne Red mixed with Auric Armour Gold (really about 1:10, or 1:15) and glazed can give excellent contrast in areas - I've used it to outline and shadow some filigree on the back of the jump pack and it really adds to the depth of the model. I might consider doing more of this, but I think I'll leave it for for artistic details to help them stand out more.

And there we are. I'm continually pleased with how these models are turning out and looking forward to adding in more details. I won't paint all three to the same level at the same time, but just see how I go on individual models and paint as and when I feel like it. The wings I might try to make darker further down, getting more bright towards the top of the jump pack just because I like how that's framing the model so far. It might have been better to try and airbrush that effect, but it's too late to try on this model on account of that jump pack being already glued in place. A normal brush will have to tried one way or another.

-- silly painter