Boarding Actions Terrain - Part II

 

...and behind door number one...

It's been quite some time since I last worked on the boarding actions terrain, and honestly there's not a whole lot done quite yet. It's been staring at me for quite some time, but I've never been able to figure out the style I want to go for.

Since the last time I went over just about all of it with a black ink (tending towards brown) mixed with copies amounts of flow improver to turn it into a wash of sorts, and then used a damp brush to clean up some of the surfaces. The inks I'm using reactivate with water sometimes, so this method is almost like an oil wash in some regards. The general idea was to add some definition to places but to allow the base to be dirtied up a bit more in general. I should have done a drybrush to highlight before then, or even some simple edge highlights - might need to go back in and do that later. The ink can leave behind tide marks if too much water is used, so I leaned into that for scratches, dirt, and general wear & tear lines by using Nuln Oil later.

The cabling took a long time to figure out that a base coat of Corvus Black is enough for most of it. Mixing in either Stegadon Scale Green, or even better Incubi Darkness, gives them a little more colour for highlights without making them too similar to the base colour.

Recently I've been finding uses for the Two Thin Coats range, notably Doom Metal, and that's now my go-to for junction boxes, access terminals, and the like. I'll highlight with something later (likely Iron Warriors), reserving final highlights after I varnish everything.

Most of the brass looking areas are so far Castellax Bronze (a layer paint but with good enough coverage to be a base paint) followed by Runelord Brass (the old layer paint version). Retributor Armour for some of the buttons on the terminal just for visual interest, and all of the above for the lettering on the panels. I might yet put a shade around the lettering to increase contrast there and make them stand out more.

Still plenty to go - the skulls, the lighting, the terminal screen, and rust in a few places would be suitable. I'm tempted to try a couple of things with the airbrush for the terminal screen for a cheap OSL effect, which will need to wait until I have the painting space setup again for that. Same again for the lights above the door maybe (one will be red, the other green, imagining it would show door status, pressurisation, or some such information) however I don't know if I want the OSL on the door itself. That door opens, and it would look weird if it kept some of the OSL when that was the case. I'll need to think some more about that.

-- silly painter.

Devastator Squad - Part IX (Showcase of a Cherub)

 

Not what you imagined for drone delivery services.

Rounding out the squad is the little cherub familiar, delivering a canister of prometheum presumably. If I remember the lore correctly, these are vat grown flesh heavily augmented to fulfil whatever role - more akin to lab meat than anything else. While the appearance fits within the religious overtones of the setting, a "normal" servitor that could carry more and be outfitted with a greater array of sensors would be far more fitting on a battlefield - but hey, creepy flying baby.

In painting this up I based the entire scheme on a triad of Two Thin Coats colours picked up from recent model show: Barbarian Brawn, Dwarven Skin, and Elven Skin. These were used for all the skin areas by layering, glazing, and mixing on the palette. Obviously quite a matt finish and I probably should put varnish over it, but as quick free style piece I didn't really care that much for this model.

Robes are far too long.

The robes (or whatever) are built up as mixtures of Barbarian Brawn (to tie everything together), Mechanicus Standard Grey, Celestra Grey, (both of those Citadel of course) and Trooper White from Two Thin Coats. I have a bottle of White Star but haven't opened it yet - Trooper White is similar enough on small details and mixes ever so slightly better into other paints because it's an off-white.

The wings are Mechanicus Standard Grey, then mixed with Celestra Grey, and finally mixed again with Trooper White. Different mixture ratios and the extra skin tone in the robes make them and the wings look very distinct, even if mostly the same paints were used.

Silver metal is Doom Metal (from TTC), and then the usual culprits from Citadel. I have a preference for this approach rather than sticking to washes between metallics because I can just put everything on the palette and don't really need to wait for a wash to dry before I can continue on that area.

The canister is again Doom Metal, then Warplock Bronze (Citadel) mixed in to highlight up, then I think it was Sycorax Bronze afterwards to add highlights in a more NMM style, particularly along the rounded ends. It took a few successive layers to built up enough metallic contrast that wasn't completely overpowered by the gloss finish, but I think it worked rather well in the end - so long as you pay attention to the various angles the model can be viewed from and place highlights accordingly.

The gold details are nothing very different except I used Warplock Bronze to glaze into some shadowed areas or where I wanted more contrast. The rest of the smaller details are just whatever I felt like at the time - put one paint down and mix with what's already on the palette to build up highlights and shadows. This isn't entirely haphazard because I'm getting an idea of how various paints will mix and can use that experience to minimise the number of different paints I'm using, but also it's sometimes worth not writing it down because the key idea is experimentation. If something works very well then I'll make notes if I think it should be replicated on future models. In this case though, I really was just playing around.

Fun little model in the end, quickly painted up (by my standards anyway) and now I can look at what else is pending to be done.

-- silly painter.

Devastator Squad - Part VIII

 

Never enough helmet lenses.

No, the squad still isn't finished. The Marines are, but not the squad. Turns out I had been leaving out a small familiar that needs to be quickly painted up, but more on that soon.

One of the things I've been still steering away from is bright edge highlighting. I went for something intense here, but not bright, so it's not as apparent in the final photos. This is partially a matter of taste, but also partially a matter of colour: as I've been trying different approaches to painting red armour, the orange tones of Wild Rider Red (my normal edge highlight colour) aren't quite matching anymore and I end up glazing back over them with Evil Sunz Scarlet. I may have gone too far on these models however, and I think the edge highlights are too little now.

I have a floating skull pet. Your argument is invalid.

The volumetric highlights have turned out well enough and are compensating to a degree for the underwhelming edge highlights. The airbrush stage setup a good sketch, but I still went back in with a brush after the final matt varnish to touch it up, which lead to a surprising development. First of all, the matt varnish did make some of the airbrushing noise fade - it's still there, but barely visible now. Trust the process I suppose. Second, a matt varnish will actually help dissipate surface cohesion of fluids on top (due to the roughed surface I suppose), which helps to feather out glazing. A little flow improver instead of water, and I was building up very smooth gradients very quickly. Using this helping hand I was able to reinforce volumetric highlights where they were lack, or create them if they were missing, to help tie the entire assembled model together.

Eat this.

For the missile launcher I tried just yellow and red that was on the palette to first build up a missile exhaust and then afterwards built up greys and black over the top to simulate smoke. In reality this would light up the rest of the model too (even in broad daylight) but sometimes a bit of artistic license is required. I didn't spend that long on the effect and it works ok - nothing too special, but the basic approach is sound and could be improved on with a little practice.

Let your worries just melt(a) away.

Reinforcing metallic paints with the mid-tone and then edge highlights all after the matt varnish works as expected still. I much prefer this way for metallic surfaces as opposed to pure NMM, but I am starting to take to a kind of hybrid approach: I've been starting to try and paint TMM but using NMM highlighting theory. One of the problems I personally see with NMM is that most will matt varnish afterwards, which makes the end result slightly dull and creates this dissonance of perception (the colours say metallic, but the lack of shine says paper). Using TMM gives the colours, shine, and while encourages a particular viewing angle it still works from others. The barrels of the multi-melta worked particularly nice with this approach so I'll continue to refine it.

That's not a laser pointer, this is a laser pointer.

I had a good deal of fun painting these models, even if they're considered older. They just have so much more character about them compared to more recent releases. I did buy Infernus Marines (for their poses) to kitbash with spare heavy weapons but unless I speed up my painting then don't expect to see that for a while. It was a slog to get through the Devastators but that wasn't the fault of the models, that was just "stuff going on". As mentioned before there is still the familiar to go, which I'll be using as a palette cleanser before figuring what I should tackle next.

-- silly painter.

Fen Model Show 2025

 This is a followup to the previous post but focused on the Fen Model Show, which I had a chance to attend recently (and where I saw Two Thin Coats on display). I have yet to pull photos from my camera, so this will be another text-only post.

Overall I quite liked the event. I guess it needs to be compared to Kontrast Festival, even if that's not entirely an apples-to-apples comparison. Before anything else, however, there was one major issue when attending - and it was nothing to do with the event directly, but more some of the people there. Display areas are always crowded as people shuffle along to look at all the models and appreciate the effort put into items on display, but as a result there's also a continuous pressure to look and move along so the next person can see them. I tried to go through with my camera as fast as possible and get snaps of anything that jumped out at me, and tried to arrive early to beat the crowds (spoiler: that didn't work). A group of about 3 or 4 people however were _constantly_ in the way of everywhere I tried to turn. They just stood chatting and blocking access to everything. I believe one of them was an organiser too, who should know better. The polite and sensible thing to do would be to stand back slightly and let others pass by, but nope: they stood in the display area, they stood at the entrance, they stood at the stalls, and in two cases just pushed in front of myself. Rude little buggers. I held my tongue for my own sake (I didn't have anything on display personally and wasn't in a rush, I just don't like being blocked when I want to move) but someone else did tell them to step out of the way. It still left a poor impression and honestly is a deal breaker: I won't be in any hurry to go back if I'm not entering anything personally.

It wasn't poorly laid out, but anyone running such an event by now should recognise this is going to happen. Even a sign to remind me to basically keep it moving and allow others to have a look would be enough. You can't force people to file past, but you can hint at people to stop being pricks.

Actually this is something kind of important - I was so put off from dealing with the above that I purposefully tried to avoid looking at the models....when at a model show. It defeats the whole point of going there really, so it would be nice to see the problem being addressed in future. It's extra annoying because it's a paid event.

There was a good range of vendors with product to display. Not many, but a good range. Plinths, 3d prints, resin prints, brushes, paints, accessories, sci-fi, fantasy, historical, movie (I _really_ wanted Vasquez), etc. Even Element Games was there (with a bust by Angel Giraldez tucked away in a corner, so I picked that up). When I was at Kontrast Festival last time I had found the models to be much the same: mostly female, mostly sexualised, nothing particularly jumping out as different. Maybe that changed this year, don't know as I didn't go, but there was a wide variety at the Fen Model Show. Male, female, human, animal, robot, it was really all there.

This expression of diverse possibilities extended into the models on show as well. The competition wasn't about winning first, second, third, so much as about showing off models. Everything was welcome, there was no particular requirement - and I even saw someone showing off his daughter's models next to his own. I think I enjoyed that so much more than everyone trying to be the best to win and it naturally encouraged people to enter models that were just plain different. It wasn't really same-y for 90%, which is what I was feeling from Kontrast Festival. There were "frogs of the world" on display (that was really cool), a Weta (I think) Abaddon, scale model cars, creepy boats, goblins, tanks, floral shops, embossed cards, dioramas, pugs, and more besides. I could happily have strolled around the display area a few times if it were more comfortable to do so, but as it is I'll just have to go back over photos.

If I do start to enter competition then I'll go back to these places, but without that I'll probably avoid them in future. The stalls were good to browse, but I shouldn't be spending so much right now. Highlights were Two Thin Coats (the guys there were friendly and really knew their paints, shout out to one of them for pointing me in the direction of Major Brushes for a cheap synthetic that looks very promising to use for day-to-day painting), Element Games (can the event runners next time fix the accessibility so everyone can go to that area too please?), and Fantasy Wood Works (miniatureplinths.com, some very nice wooden plinths, also friendly people and I'm trying to get a custom size arranged from them).

-- silly painter.

TTC - Two Thin Coats

 No pictures here because why bother?

I finally attended a model show (more on that in another post) where the Two Thin Coats range was displayed. I've been keeping an eye on this paint range for a while, wondering what sets it apart from others. There's the obvious youtube ravings, but I don't trust them at the best of times because even if it's not a commercial then their perspectives on the matter are almost certain to differ from mine.

Let's back up though and start from the beginning.

Citadel paints are great. That's my opinion on the matter of course, but they get the job done, are widely available, flexible enough (with water or flow improver), and have a very large range. I even prefer their bottles for their own range of base and layer paints. They're also not paints that are aimed at a youtuber - they're aimed at essentially young teenagers, or parents of teenagers, or people who dabble in the hobby without getting too serious about it. That is the target audience, and the Citadel paint range fit that audience very well - but can also be used by people who are a little more into the hobby. Citadel also came out with the Contrast range of paints that everyone else has tried to copy (with varying degrees of success).

To anyone young and starting out in the hobby, I would absolutely say go pick up a starter set from Citadel.

I don't think Two Thin Coats are aimed at that audience. They can be used, sure, but the audience I think is the slightly more experienced painter. There's going to be a lot of overlap with Citadel paints in levels of experience of course, but the point is that the ranges are not in direct competition and to me instead can complement each other. More on how that will work (for me) in a moment.

At the show I approached the testing area to try out the white (White Star). I have no particular problem with White Scar (from Citadel) other than it dries very fast and can be a little difficult to thin properly and work with it when the weather isn't particularly friendly. I had heard that Two Thin Coats' white was very nice, so I thought I'd see for myself. Yes - it is very nice. It's definitely more translucent than the Citadel equivalent and as the name suggests it's best applied in two (or more) thin coats, depending on what is being covered. It also flows more smoothly across the surface - which is hard to describe without trying it for yourself. It has lower viscosity than most from Citadel, but good surface tension.

If I had to guess, slightly more pigment and flow improver in the Two Thin Coats range. The latter also means the working time is longer than what I'm used to, making wet blending almost trivial for me. I became rather experienced with glazing to combat the fast drying time of the Citadel range (which is generally going to be better for beginners) but now I'm at the level where some of what I would like to do is better achieved with a longer working time and being able to blend together on the model.

Here is where the paint ranges starting to complement each other comes into play. I think I will prefer base coating with Citadel paints because of the faster drying time - I can apply multiple coats more quickly, and depending on the paint it might need fewer coats for complete coverage. Using Citadel to sketch out initial highlights, then I can come in with the Two Thin Coats paints and smooth everything out. At least that's the idea - I'll need to build up a selection of paints first, which I'll only do as I need to replace my existing ones - everything I have works fine, but now I have further options when needed.

Finally, I tried Doom Metal. It's a nearly black metallic which is exactly what I've been after for a while. I was getting annoyed at everything metal being bright silver or steel, and wanted a darker look for e.g gun barrels. Doom Metal fits the bill nicely. The Citadel metallics work mostly just fine for me, but there are a few gaps and I think the Two Thin Coats range will fill that niche without me constantly trying to mix up something.

Finally: TTC are a much more matt finish, but this doesn't bother me because I always varnish my models anyway.

I've yet to try them through an airbrush, but I think the TTC range is impressive and what I need to continue to improve my painting at this stage of the journey. Right tool for the job and all that.

-- silly painter.

Devastator Squad - Part VII

 

Oh....yeah.

Slow and steady as the saying goes, and finally the Devastator squad is fully assembled. That doesn't mean they're complete - just that I can finally finish painting everything without needing to access otherwise difficult to reach areas.

There's simultaneously not a whole lot left, and yet it feels like an overwhelming amount. The armour needs edge highlighting and probably some of the volumetric highlights given another pass. While I was considering that last point I realised that perhaps the airbrushing could be simplified if I knew I was going to highlight again later anyway: rough sketch with the airbrush, fine tune with the brush later, edge highlight at the end. Worth thinking about. 

The right knee pad for Blood Angels shows which squad they belong to, and I picked blue with white cross this time around. I knew it would clash with the rest of the model and so I never used white (it's actually Grey Seer) but I think it's still too bright. Going still darker with the blue (near black then volumetric highlights with Night Lords Blue maybe) and a darker grey as "white" is probably the way to go. I'll bear that in mind next time.

Most of the rest is just filling out colours. I am painting them now one at a time, moving on when I get a bit bored, switching around for the last details. This is part of what I do like about the finished models - they're all a little unique - but it's also a nightmare for batch painting. I knew that going in, and now I just need to push through and get them done.

There is one final piece that's new though, and on all of them. The base. My usual drybrush paints are Underhive Ash followed by Terminatus Stone. Both of those are basically congealed pigment now and unusable (unless I get a mortar and pestle) so I needed a replacement. To that end:

• Nurgling Green / Ionrach Skin (1:1) which gives the desaturated yellow-green of Underhive Ash.
• Wraithbone, which is a close enough approximation for Terminatus Stone as it is.

They don't need to be calibrated and colour matched exactly, just close enough for the drybrushing to look the same, and I think the end result is most acceptable. Now I just need time to get through everything else so I can call these models done - time that should be on the way soon.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Legion Terminator Praetor - Part IV

 

Not afraid to get that cape dirty.

It's been a few weeks since the last post, but I've not actually been idle - just haven't had time to take photos. One of the more recent tests has been the cape for the Praetor. I considered for a long while of how I wanted to show this, if it should be white, cream, or some other colour. Ultimately I wanted white to show purity and to help frame an otherwise darker model while still providing something to harmonise the brighter values of red on top and serve as a visual line to draw the eye upwards.

So the cape would be white, but white itself is never pure. There needs to be shadows, highlights, reflections from other colours, and so on. I ended up going for blue tints to continue the purity and angelic theme. Cream or beige is often associated with coarser material suitable for more rigorous endeavours, where as the blue is finery and status for the administrative halls of Terra. A high ranking Blood Angel seems to fit with status, purity, and the ornate armour already suggests artisan finery.

So far at least, the cape is just the basic outline and was entirely done with an airbrush. A few edge highlights will likely be added in, and then there's patterning to be added as well to break up the large surface (I'm thinking bright gold trim). I've struggled with capes in the past when using a brush, so this was mostly an attempt to gain experience with an airbrush to see what I could do.

The initial base colour is Night Lords Blue. This gives the deeper shadow colours, but it's not really too visible at the end - it will be entirely covered by the end, but covered with translucent layers. Next I mixed in Chemos Purple and used that to highlight some of the inner cape areas to act as a kind of reflection from the red armour. The end effect is subtle, but it's there.

Moving onwards through the paints I generally just remixed into an emptied but not thoroughly cleaned airbrush cup. The idea is to subtly influence each layer and help it blend into the one before - not sure it works too much, but it saves on having to deep clean between switching out paints. The next step up in blue was Macragge Blue, followed by Calgar Blue. These I started to add as highlights, but painting in thin layers and allowing them to over-spray into the folds.

One of the keys to cloth is that it's less about highlights and more about shadows: the mid-tones are the most important, deeper shadows away from the angle of the light source (_not_ just recessed areas, which might actually get direct light) and very soft highlights. The airbrush helps here: just angle the model and hit the sides or "walls" of the folds from one direction, adjusting the angle to reach recessed areas too as necessary.

Next up was White Scar, which was mixed with Calgar Blue in different ratios for multiple passes. Keep it thinned to almost glaze consistency here, and focus on raised areas the most. This was generally a filter to whiten the cape more than anything else.

After all of that I noticed some of the shading had been lost and so I went back with incredibly thinned Macragge Blue and deepened them again. I didn't want to go too much darker, again just filtering the colour is enough as that will naturally darken compared to white anyway. If I were to do this more then I would need to start adjusting air pressure, but as it was I played with trigger control and distance from the model for more or less the same effect (kind of, not really).

As always, the airbrush works best if the paints are thinned. Do not use them straight out of the bottle (at least not Citadel paints). Work in multiple layers, change colours gradually instead of going for large value jumps, and the end result can be very smooth without any speckling or "noise".

The cape is currently a little too contrasting to the rest of the model, however this will be sorted once edge highlights are applied on the armour (including the gold) and other details are added to the cape.

-- silly painter.

Devastator Squad - Part VI

 

The most high powered laser pointer.

Not a long post, mostly just a whole bunch of words to say that another of the squad is fully assembled. Fully assembled does not mean complete - it just means that all the sub-assemblies are entirely glued together and I can finally see how the model will be.

The colours used are almost entirely:

• Iron Warriors
• Iron Hands Steel
• Black Legion (mostly to base over the varnish stage)
• Abaddon Black
• Corvus Black
• Eshin Grey
• Dawnstone

By and large that's it. I did use Warplock Bronze with Castellax Bronze for the (charging coil?) and also for some smaller details - yes, only those colours, but what a difference it makes to change the ratio when painting components.

This might seem like an overly zealous selection for what amounts to black and silver, but they aren't used all at the same time and this does include all the highlights and shading. I'm not entirely done (that silver cable needs perhaps Basilicanum Grey on it) but having a smaller selection on the palette for just e.g the black casing is quite manageable and I have ended up putting paint to more than just the lascannon. For the result I do consider the palette limits, but I could remove a couple of the blacks: the Black Legion is an effective glaze when thinned, but it's also not something which interacts with the other acrylics in the same way. There is a tradeoff occasionally, and black is especially difficult to highlight, so I think the count isn't so bad in the end.

There's still two more of the squad to fully assemble, and I hope they won't be too far behind. Work is kind of crazy still though, so I guess another couple of weeks before I get that far. I really do hope the pace will pick up again in a few weeks and I can complete all of this.

-- silly painter.

Devastator Squad - Part V

 

monocle, binoculars, trioculars?

This long running series will no doubt make it to ten posts, but that's mostly because updates are shorter and I'm trying to keep them running for motivation to actually get a little done every day. Except today, while I write this out.

The first of the Devastators has finally been fully assembled. Focusing purely on the one model has definitely helped keep me moving forwards and I've still managed to paint little extras on the rest as well. The sergeant is almost ready for full assembly too, just a few little details that are easier to reach for now, but actually the next I'm likely to focus on will be a lascannon wielding marine. Before I get that far however, I have realised one mistake in full assembly: the right knee pad. I kind of forgot to put a squad marking on there. I've lost where I keep track of what I've already used so I'll need to go back over all my painted models and figure it out.

That out of the way, I decided to try and make the grav weapon have a green glow, or energy indicator, to it. Hexwraith Flame in the recesses is all that is - I might have used one of the brighter Contrast range, but Hexwraith Flame is sufficient and already in my paint collection. I tried not to go overboard but I'll still need to add highlights again later to brighten up a few edges - and that can wait until after the varnish stage if I decide to mix in metallics.

Iron Warriors with Black Templar (mixed with flow improver) is looking to be my go-to for darkened metal. My painting style is not exactly bright, saturated colours and so going darker is necessary to keep a value range. It's been working well enough so far but I'm still stopping at Iron Hands Steel before the varnish stage.

To simplify everything I ended up just painting all the helmet lenses green. I could have used varying colours except that would then have needed more decisions on which basic colours and an awful lot more time to pick out the right paint pots; far better to just use what was already on the palette. I also have come to appreciate once more the fine tip of a good sable brush. I've been using a synthetic brush for a while now that allows me to base coat smaller details, but for eyes, lenses, etc, the equivalent of an artificer brush can't be beaten. Considering I really only intended the synthetic to last for metallics on the Sanguinary Guard, then it's been lasting surprisingly well.

The last little update to how I paint things is actually the cabling. Colourful cables suit some of the of saturated schemes from 2nd edition, but I go for a utilitarian approach these days. The outer layer of cables is probably hardened for protection while colour codes are on the ends or inner sheaths. As a flexible material though I want that cabling to have less stark highlights but also shadows that aren't as deep. For that I've been experimenting with:

• Corvus Black base latyer.
• Corvus Black / Stegadon Scale Green (1:2) over most of the cable to help define volume.
• Stegadon Scale Green / Dark Reaper (1:1) for highlights.

The end result is fairly subtle with the highlights and is more about giving some colour to make it distinct from the black of weapon casings and armour. I like it so far, but only because it's contrasting against the red of the armour. I'm not sure it would be suitable with, say, Raven Guard. I'd want perhaps some Thunderhawk Blue in such a case. Something to think about anyway.

-- silly painter.

Devastator Squad - Part IV

 

This is really heavy.

Well. A few things have prevented me doing much for some weeks, and it's not likely to let up anytime soon. This means something has to change if I'm going to get any painting done and models actually finished. These stalled Devastator Marines are going to serve as a bit of practice in that regard.

The number one thing that stops me is not knowing how to paint various bits & pieces. What colours to use, what material I'm trying to represent, that sort of thing. I'm slowly solving that with references to models already painted, but also going by box art to decide. The latter doesn't show everything though, notably it only typically has a single view point and rarely shows the backpack - so even with box art I still need to spend time deciding what colours go where.

Related to that is the number of paints to apply: switching paints out all the time is very demotivating, especially with my current setup where the paints are actually in another room. I generally need to know which ones in advance, get them all, lay them all out on my (small) wet palette, and make sure to stretch that as far as it will go before starting all over again. It suits my painting style of focusing on details, but it's very slow to make obvious progress.

Slow painting is its own demotivator - the less I paint, the less I want to paint. It's very hard to break that cycle, which is why tackling something that makes a bit visual change is always a good idea - but I'm running out of that on these models.

So what to do? I think I've come up with a plan to tackle the above problems and get back to painting, to a degree. First I'm going to focus on a single model at a time for the Devastators. That's not to say I won't batch paint where possible: all purity seals for example can be done at the same time, it's just that other models will be done as more of an afterthought against the primary. This will keep visual changes more frequent, and fits in with these particular models all being that little bit different (a hallmark of Blood Angels as they used to be designed).

The next idea is to simply reduce the number of paints used and rely on "good enough". I've been using metallics for skull icons recently for example - only three or four paints for all the little details across the whole model. The idea is to break up monotonous surfaces rather than show off as many paints as possible. The weapons are going to be black, metallic, and some minor details. Edge higlighting I'll try make more apparent to show off the shapes, otherwise just keeping the colour palette very simplistic.

Finally I'm trying to paint smarter by using paints to their strengths. In this example I make sure to paint most details with a layer of Black Legion for the simple reason that it helps later layers adhere and cover better. The varnish layer normally takes many coats of paint before everything covers properly - but even a single thin layer of high pigment Contrast acts as both primer of sorts and pull back excessive red in areas. Black Templar mixed with some acrylic flow improver turns into a sort of Nuln Oil, and flows nicely into the joints.

All the above I've started to do on the weapon and shoulder pad trim. It was a marked improvement in speed and let me actually assemble everything. Of course the arms didn't quite line up properly and I had to use putty to  help them stick (it looks really ugly from the rear), but I was expecting that to happen on at least one model. The price I pay for sub-assemblies. From here I'll start to fill in some details and try get this one model done, moving on afterwards to the rest of the squad.

-- silly painter.

Legions Imperialis - Sicaran Battle Tanks (Part V - Showcase)

 

Glow-guns

For whatever reason it was an absolute slog to get these four tanks finished. Not much time to paint coupled with indecision over colours and a continual questioning of just how much detail I should go into really took its toll here. In some regards it might have been easier to paint a full sized version (that's for another day - I have a couple of the resin kits from a few years ago). What let me finish them in the end was a change of mindset to just simplify the colours: make the bulk of the weapon covers black and just use edge highlighting to pick out lines. Limit the palette and focus on overall appearance instead of getting lost in the close-up.

The colours work well enough, though I'm not entirely happy with the barrels of the plasma weapons. I'm still not really a fan of blue glowing plasma coils, but that's obviously luminosity from whatever hardened material is used to house all that energy, and it makes it immediately apparent on a tabletop what the weapon is for gameplay purposes. Think I do prefer the look of the other turrets though.

Now that the varnish is dry and the models are done, what would I do if I painted more? The base coats worked well. The main airbrush steps did their job, but I'm still getting used to Contrast paints through an airbrush. I might prefer a standard acrylic paint and multiple passes which will keep the end colour more consistent across each model rather than trying to ensure that last Contrast pass matches for them all. The shading is subtle enough by works, and using Black Legion (Contrast) mixed with flow improver and applied over a gloss varnish continues to provide an excellent way to panel line everything. Selected edge highlights accentuate the armour plates more and the end results is a very readable small scale tank. I also really like how the tracks turned out. Ratling Grime added just the right shading to give the look I was after.

I could do some weathering, battle damage, muzzle burn, etc, but these aren't intended as display pieces (although it's not like I've ever actually played a game with them). The viewports and sensor lenses are far too bright here, I probably could have darkened them with a shade, but again effort and it does give them a sinister look - psychological warfare that this horrifying tank is watching you.

Now I can put these away and see what's next on the list. Probably a dreadnought and devastators.

-- silly painter.

Legions Imperialis - Sicaran Battle Tanks (Part IV)

 

Hold up, how do my pauldrons fit through the hatch?

These models are taking an insanely long time to get finished. This is partially a lack of motivation because they're taking so long (circular reasoning), but also because I just have so little spare time right now. So I've cut a few corners and forced myself to get the Sicaran tanks nearly done - just the other set of turrets to go. I've also not added any decals - I figured paint scheme shows easily enough which army they're part of, and also there's really only one panel to put a decal on. That would require a white transfer, which would stick out like a sore thumb. The alternative is to paint symbols on by hand, which I just frankly can't be bothered with.

I painted the viewports and lenses with a simple mix of Mephiston Red covered in Troll Slayer Orange. Nothing special, no fancy effects, just dots of colour to break up the turquoise. The orange tint is a nod to the Eye of Horus.

Cabling is generically Khorne Red with some Mephiston Red highlighting. This is purely again to break up the monotony and add some visual interest.

Silver metals are Iron Warriors, Nuln Oil, Iron Hands highlights. All of this done before the varnish step. The brass is Balthasar Gold, Seraphim Sepia, Sycorax Bronze highlights. Absolutely nothing special, all of it very simple - just on a small scale and requiring a fine tipped brush that is just now starting to give. It's been an exceptional synthetic brush which I've leaned on heavily recently - I hope future purchases of the same are just as good. Da Vinci size 0, Nova Synthetics range.

Black areas are Corvus Black, Dawnstone (mixed on the palette), and Abaddon Black mixed with water to essentially shade back some areas.

That's pretty much all. The most time taken was in deciding what colours should go where, but once that was sorted then the next steps proceeded smoothly enough. The details make the painting a little slower than I'd like as well, but also because they're so small there is no sense is perfectly smooth blending - you really do want some contrast to pick out edges more than anything else.

And now it's on to the other turrets before I can classify these models as done. Next post however is likely to be about a change in painting approach that I'll be forced to make given the current circumstances - or else I simply won't get anything done all year.

-- silly painter.

Mermaid of Warsaw - Part III

 

Something fishy going on here.

The background project of the Mermaid of Warsaw received a little attention recently, which was mostly a combination of oils again, and then starting on acrylics over the top.

Originally I was trying to replicate some of the skin tones with oils, but it wasn't working. I didn't get the mix right, and I was necessarily short on time. While that was curing though I took at look at the spine and for no particular reason decided to mix up some reds and blues to pick out what is now seen. By all accounts it shouldn't fit, and yet somehow I like it. Some blending with the skin could still be done, but I'm not entirely sure I'll ever get that far.

The hair from the rear view I've not shown before, but again it's something that I think just sort of works. The blue/green shadows give it a seaweed appearance that I'd never have thought of with simple direct acrylic painting, and yet it really fits the overall theme of a mermaid. It's not complete by any means, but I think there's enough to work with going forwards.

The skin tones I have ultimately used Rakarth Flesh, Dark Reaper, and Ungor Flesh to fix up, once the oils could be painted over. Rakarth Flesh is a rather unhealthy tone, but fits in the shadowed areas, with Ungor Flesh bring some warmth in the areas I want to try attention to (the face and shoulders predominantly). There is still a good deal of work to be done on the skin tones, and a lot of glazing to fix up where it didn't quite work properly before. It will take some time.

Not much else to say right now really. Holidays and health problems, coupled with various other responsibilities, have painting a scare hobby right now. I'm still trying to finish off tiny tanks, which are both close to being done, and yet always seemingly far away from it too.

-- silly painter.

Legions Imperialis - Sicaran Battle Tanks (Part III)

 

brrrmm brrrmm

I can't seem to find time to get these tanks finished, but there has been some progress.

I'm also incredibly tired right now, so this will almost certainly be brief and to the point.

The metal is mostly Iron Warriors, then Iron Hands over that on the tracks. The tracks had Ratling Grime over the top for a bit of weathering, which is just enough to make the tracks look used without making them look caked in mud while the rest looks suspiciously clean. The weapons are just a base coat right now and need a shade and probably Iron Hands later as well.

Balthasar Gold rounds out the rest of the metallics so far - again, needs a shade and then a highlight with something else. The Omega Destroyer (or whatever it's called) variant has Balthasar Gold on the firing ports, and then Iron Warriors sort of glazed over the top. I intended to go back over that with a thinned black for scorching later on.

Lenses, viewports, and power cables are all base coated with Khorne Red. I'll differentiate viewports from cables with some other colour later on, but the small dots of red accents nicely against the turquoise which otherwise dominates the models.

I was also stalled for quite some time not knowing what colours to use on various components. In the end I'm "cheating" by using the reference photos / box art from GW on the larger version to inform the colours on the smaller scale. Except for the plasma glow - that's purely so the variant is instantly recognisable on the tabletop.

Still a lot of detail left to go, and now that I'm on a roll with them I have to push the pause button and go away for a couple of weeks. Not that I'll have much time when I'm back, but at least the main colours are blocked in - just detailing it (including edge highlights on black areas) and they'll be good enough to call done.

-- silly painter

Blood Angels Legion Terminator Praetor - Part III

 

Back to base-ics again.

With some brief moments between busy stretches, I finally painted up the base for the Praetor. The lighting is pretty bad on the photo, but it's the impression it gives that counts rather than perfect colour balance.

I originally had the idea of painting up another marble base, similar to the steps on which Horus stands, but replicating that needs a lore more attention, time, and most likely the airbrush to get the same colours. Instead I simply played fast and loose and then ended up liking the stone appearance so much that I skipped on the marble effect altogether. There's enough detail on the base that trying to add marbling could easily ruin the look, and besides which most of it will be hidden by the model on top anyway.

The first layer (or four) was Zandri Dust. My pot of that paint is less than stellar and I'll likely need to replace it soon (along with many of the other colours used here), but it's just workable enough that I can thin it with water and apply several coats to give proper coverage.

Next paint was actually Rakarth Flesh. It's almost useless, but a bit of stirring and I managed to get enough for a thin layer or two. Predictably this tinted everything towards a very unusual flesh tone, and so I mixed in Karak Stone (with a subtle amount of white from palette) to again build up a kind of sandstone colour. It's the mixing of these colours, along with random impurities from the palette, that give depth and subtle variation to the final result: don't try to be too perfect or it looks flat, dull, and uninteresting.

Agrax Earthshade around deeper recessed areas and across rubble, then Seraphim Sepia to bring some random colour onto the stone areas, and it's actually at that point when I decided completely to skip any sort of marbling. I pondered whether I should fill in the tile designs with something else, but the return on investment there just wasn't going to make it worthwhile. A final edge highlight and "dusting" with Ushabti Bone and the base is just about done. I still need to paint the rim, which I'm thinking to make a dark brown or ochre. Black just seems too stark of a contrast.

The base itself was made from green-stuff and a texture roller, with texture paint to fill in a few places that didn't turn out properly and give it a damaged look. The cracks in the stone are simple carving into the green-stuff for fun - although next time I should do that before the green-stuff has fully cured.

And there we have it, a simple but effective base with character and very little effort required to paint. It still needs magnetising before I glue the Praetor on top; I'm still deciding whether I should just glue the feet down, or pin the model in place. Pinning would certainly give more solid contact, but could interfere with the magnets.

-- silly painter.

Captain Karlaen Kitbash - Part III

 

Hope the bionics don't weigh that much.

Before anything else, the picture above is not correctly colour balanced. The real skin tones aren't quite so unhealthy looking.

With that out of the way, painting has been abysmally slow of late. There's virtually no time throughout each day for anything. I'm going to try and counter this by painting small details on random models - anything that only needs three or four paints that I can put onto the palette and get done in 15 minutes. This idea was tested recently by painting Karlaen's head, which was taken from the Blood Angels upgrade sprue. I didn't want a shouting expression and needed the bionic eye to be on the right, and this particular head seemed to fit perfectly.

I used the Zorn Palette again here, or close enough to it. Bestigor Flesh, Incubi Darkness, Mephiston Red / Rhinox Hide mix, and Ulthuan Grey for the eye. There was blue on the palette that I used to dot in the iris as well. This particular time around it didn't turn out quite as well as I was hoping, but I still think the general idea is worth continuing to experiment with.

The NMM on the bionics was just some playing around that turned out a lot better than I was expecting. It's simply Incubi Darkness and Ulthuan Grey in varying mixes and glazes. I think a small amount of black might help to punch the contrast even more, but even so I quite like the result. I have no intention to use metallics there: the contrast of metallics elsewhere and NMM on the face will help keep the face as a focal point.

The hair I followed from a Warhammer youtube video:

• Zandri Dust.
• Ushabti Bone highlight, mixed lightly with Zandri Dust.
• Seraphim Sepia wash.
• Pallid Wych Flesh final highlight, although this was mixed with prior colours to keep it from being too overpowering.

And that's really it, the head is done and glued into place. The model is obviously far from being done, but it's actually fully assembled now. There are a plethora of details left to go and I'm not entirely sure how I'll get to all the cape's surfaces, or even what colours to use for it, but now the fun part starts as I get to see every brush stroke contribute to the final piece. Even as it stands I think I've managed to portray Karlaen well with this kitbash and it's definitely been worth the effort.

-- silly painter.

Devastator Squad - Part III

 

I'm blue da ba dee

Not having had much time recently for a multitude of reasons, I've not managed to get a whole lot of painting done. I'm hoping that spell is over for now and am trying to do just a little each day again - and in this case it was the helmets for the devastator squad. Being Blood Angels, famous for their red armour, the helmets are are naturally blue.

The first comment to make here is that I spend so much time with red that I can forget how nice other colours can be to work with. It must be something with the pigments, but blue seems to blend and glaze much more easily than red. The photo doesn't show the brightness variation very well, but also it's not my most perfectionist work ever: I was trying for good enough rather than ultra smooth transitions in some kind of attempt to progress these models. I was also finding the flow improver and a good brush combined making short work of it all.

These helmets are not varnished yet. The recess shading was never going to be overly complicated so I didn't feel the need. They'll get a coat later on when the models are fully assembled. This also means that when I looked at the post-airbrushed helmets and decided they were too dark, it was far easier to highlight. Traditionally I would use Kantor Blue followed by Macragge Blue, with Drakenhof Nighshade in the recesses and a final highlight with Caledor Sky. After the first two steps though, it was far too dark - the highlight was too subtle. This is likely because I'm improving in some aspects with an airbrush and thinning the paints properly: the airbrushed coats were far more translucent than before and it impacts the value jump of the highlight. I suspect I'm encountering this with the reds as well. The solution here was to simply add more volume highlights with glazes of Caledor Sky before finishing with Teclis Blue for edge highlights. I may increase the brightness of each when I assemble the models fully, but equally I might just forget by then too.

That's really all for this post. Time to get the next paint out and progress that little bit on whatever takes my fancy.

-- silly painter

Devastator Squad - Part II

 

Sergeant Shiny Pants

Slow painting progress again from a complete lack of spare time, so there's little to show for this week. I did manage to block in the base colour (literally, the colour on the base) and recess shade the whole squad. This of course is always done after a coat of gloss varnish, so the model will look very different until the later matt varnish stage.

Comparing the model currently against the prior photo, it occurred to me that the varnishing itself may end up being one of the sources of my problems. Layers of varnish will almost certainly dull the final colours and mute the highlights, which will necessarily mean that if I want to bring them back to full then I'll need to glaze the highlights back again later. That kind of control I really only have with a brush, so I'm once again wondering if I should just switch up the armour approach again.

The gloss varnish has two purposes: to help when recess shading (and it really does help that a lot!) but also to seal the airbrushed paint and stop it wearing off so easily. I can't really glaze over the gloss varnish too easily, but maybe I could after the matt varnish stage - in which case it's not worth putting so much effort into the initial highlights as they'll just be corrected later anyway. Maybe that's the answer: simpler airbrushing, glazes later to push the vibrancy and contrast a little. That could end up making the gloss varnish step also of reduced value: mistakes on the recessed shading can be fixed easily later. All worth thinking about after this squad is finished, and it's probably worth looking at simpler test models later just to explore the different approaches.

For when a backpack needs more height.

The other members of the squad I tried to go up to Typhon Ash in full highlight, after which I airbrushed Blood Angels Red as usual. The increase in brightness is rather noticeable and will help show through later - but it also shows that particular "noise" common with airbrush spray. Multiple thin passes undoes too much of the previous work to the point where I might as well go back to non-Contrast paints if I'll keep doing that. This might not be such a bad idea now that I'm far more familiar with how to proper thin airbrush paints. In either case, the smaller models will almost certainly still need a glazing pass later to push the shadows and highlights again.

Black Legion continues to be useful over the gloss varnish to give a good black foundation to work from, so the next week will probably be spent using that to block in colours all over the models before moving onto enough details that I can glue the arms in place. Or I could work on the helmets. Or any of the other projects currently ongoing. Much to be done!

-- silly painter

Blood Angels Legion Terminator Praetor - Part II

 

Looks cool on the battlefield because he can.

A delay in posting because reasons, but I'm back at painting again. Not sure how regularly throughout the week, but I'm planning to do a little across a range of models in one step: painting with the one colour is much easier to keep on standby and get something done whenever there's five minutes spare.

The Praetor I've continued to base coat details without moving into any shading or highlights. The head was done before assembly, but I needed to wait for the proper time to remove the masking tack and see how it matches up against everything else. The first thing to notice is that the helmet is much brighter than the rest of the model. This was to be expected: I'm still having some trouble with getting the reds bright enough through the airbrush. The head also has final highlights applied and hasn't been gloss varnished, both of which alter how it shows up in a photo. I think it will match more at the end, and if it's still brighter then it's not too bad as it will just keep attention on the "face".

The helmet is slightly raised on a blob of putty compared to how it's normally assembled. I felt that it was too sunken inside the armour before and slightly raised seemed to fit the proportions better. I perhaps should've adjusted angle of where he's looking, but maybe he's still bringing the storm bolter to bear on a target or otherwise shifting the weapon out of his way to get a better view for a moment.

I've not readied a base yet, however the putty is currently curing. I'm intending to cut up some pieces to create something like cathedral flooring that's been damaged in the fighting. I'm not convinced that I'll do a great job of it, but it's all experience. If I wanted I could design the base around where he should stand, but that seems like effort.

While I'm copying the box art closely, I'm also simplifying it in places. The model is busy enough and I think I've achieved a good balance with the basic colours blocked in. The metallics will of course need to wait until after the matt varnish, but I think it gives a very good impression of how the final result will be. There's still a cape to go too: the model looks imposing as he is, and while I'm not always keen on them I think a cape would really add to the level of authority he should carry. A blue tinted grey that's near white is what I'm likely to go for, bringing out the airbrush to see how easy it will be.

Back to the helmet, I debated a while if the face-plate should be red, black, gold, and again what the rest of the helmet should be. I've seen just about all combinations, and they work well. I ended up going for a black faceplate to match the jetbike squadron, red on the rest, and framing it all in black. I also went for glowing eye lenses in a departure from my normal reflective dot look, and put a thin layer of OSL around them. I think it really sells the menacing look and I might try keep that for other Terminators from the 30k setting.

-- silly painter

Sanguinary Guard - Part V (Showcase)

 

Have to wonder if he sculpted his own armour.

Sanguinary Guard are now considered complete. The bases are very simple, I could do an awful lot more there, but they're not the focus. The skulls are there purely to put skulls on bases (the pack of skulls was a gift) and to basically mark a model as done.

There's not too much not already covered from a painting perspective, so I'll be brief about that: the swords. The hilts are a mix of Warplock Bronze, Balthasar Gold, and Screaming Bell. Nothing fancy, just mix and layer. The blades are another matter, and I'm still not sure they worked how I wanted - but I definitely feel like there's potential to be had. I wanted the blades to be darker; bright blades would clash with the reflective armour and break the framing of the core of the model by unbalancing it. I also couldn't just leave them black. NMM might work, but I'd need to keep it very dark, which doesn't sell that technique too well, and I also wanted something to give them a hint of energy or inner power. And red. Ultimately this went something along the lines of:

• Black along the length of the blade.
• Corvus Black / Mechanicus Standard Grey to highlight the end, but also the base of the blade.
• Mechanicus Standard Grey / Ulthuan Grey to edge highlight the end and tip of the blade.
• Flesh Tearer's Red (Contrast) in multiple thin coats at the base of the blade, feathering it out into the middle.
• Stormshield varnish for extra protection and to unify the finish.

The second last step gives red because Blood Angels, but also darkens the base of the blade again. This kind of colour transition is an idea I used on Nekima and Mephiston to give that semi-mystical energy feel to the sword without relying on traditional power weapon effects. Note that because I don't give a unifying matt varnish to these models on account of the heavy use of metallics, I gave the sword blade a standalone varnish. These are the parts likely to come into contact with other surfaces and chip or have paint rub off.

His temper isn't a problem. For him.

I tried to give lettering a glow on the third sword, but silly me went and tried it over white. That just made everything pink. I should have gone for white, then yellow, and then red. I did play around with darkening metallics with whatever blacks and greys were on my palette, and that worked to a degree - enough that it's viable when the hilt is silver and the blade shouldn't match.

Not a whole lot more to say about the painting - it's all quite apparent, already covered, or nearly inconsequential (e.g "just use whatever is on the palette to make it semi-interesting"). So instead I'll mention some reflection on how the kitbashing, custom parts, and sculpting turned out.

First point is the 3d printed parts. This was the most obvious choice to give the models wings. There are other options I could have explored, but none would have looked half as good and taken twice as long. They fit with the model well, are a nice design, and with that I'm generally pleased. The print quality however shows that more traditional approaches with plastic or cast resin still reign supreme. Plastic cement is pretty damned useful too. Tidy up from supports is still needed on 3d printed parts, layer lines are very obvious in multiple places, and a multitude of artefacts are all around the place. I've done my best to cover up some of this, but it could've used some putty and sanding to improve on it all. This is just something to consider: unless dialling in your own 3d printer and spending a long time getting everything just right, imperfections from third party sellers are going to happen. Most of the problems aren't visible at the distance seen on a tabletop, but I wouldn't approve in a painting competition.

Sculpting little pieces on worked great. I could seem myself improving the more I played with it, and it's a skill I think I could master very quickly if I wanted and had the time for. It's the latter which is a problem, but I do want to continue to customise models in this way. Blood drop gemstones ended up being one of the easier things to sculpt as it turns out, however trying to make an impression of a larger detail and later glue it to the model wasn't as effective. Better to just sculpt directly onto a surface. Also, roughening up the surface really helps the putty stick.

Helmet is in the workshop.

The kitbashing itself I think worked well enough. Obviously the poses don't quite fit a model in flight or attacking with a jump pack, but the official models don't do that well either. It's really hard to have a dynamic pose with a flight capable model, despite some obvious designer best efforts, and I obviously can't do any better - but let it be known that I think some of the models from GW do execute such poses very well. Despite all of that, kitbashing was necessary to bring back the feel of Sanguinary Guard, and I really like the great range of options available to do just that. Each model has a unique pose, an individual look, and a sense of personality. There's stories that each one can tell, hints that their armour is still a work in progress by each of them, and yet they're elite warriors upholding the history and legends of those that came before.

Sure, the results aren't perfect, but the kitbashing was a good choice, and ultimately a cheaper one for me given that I already had a lot of spare parts to work with.

Finally, the paper under the bases is there to help remove the models. I magnetise the bases and they're otherwise hard up against steel washers. That could damage the magnets, but also the strength of the magnet might be more than the glue holding them to the base, so the bit of paper is just there to help slide the model of the washer.

-- silly painter.

Wraithlord - Part II

 

Back in black.

Not exactly going to be a long post, but I wanted to record a small experiment with the Wraithlord. The basic summary is: highlighting black by undercoating with off-white.

I've been using Typhon Ash a lot recently, mostly because it's the closest I could get to wraithbone in an airbrush paint and I have two bottles of it and need to use it up now. After the airbrush mania a few weeks back, I had the inspiration to see what I could do about black.

Black is very difficult to to work with. It's an absence of colour, and so any colour added stands out in very stark contrast. Grey tones end up flat, but picking the wrong slightly-cool or slightly-warm tones can mess up the entire feel of it. I have trouble with volumetric highlights for some of these reasons: smooth gradients with black are extremely difficult, best done with glazes, and are very time consuming. My physical accurate black often has fewer such highlights in reality, or they're very subtle, but that doesn't help a miniature stand out and be readable by the viewer. Some liberties need to be taken, but they often just end up looking like stone.

The Wraithlord has shapes that lend itself naturally to an airbrush. It's larger, curved surfaces are ideal for building up gradients with an airbrush, and a less than perfect finish might be explained by the Aeldari material used for most of their construction (wraithbone). I'm improving with the airbrush a lot, particularly in getting smoother gradients out from multiple passes, and basically thought I'd give it a go. If I end up collecting any Eldar then it's likely I'd paint them up as Ulthwe.

Typhon Ash would give me a warmer tone to the finish, in theory. So I used that to build up where I wanted highlights and tried to keep the upper part of the model brighter. I had to correct myself while doing this step because it's easy to get lost in details and forget about the larger picture. Once happy with this step, I then used Black Templar (Contrast) to bring back a black finish, more heavily in the lower areas and surfaces facing downwards. The end result is that is looks kind of....grey, like darkened stone. This fits for a Wraithlord, but I chose Black Templar for a reason: Abaddon Black is darker still and I could use that to nudge the contrast where I wanted.

The left leg has some experimentation with colours from the palette where I wanted to get more of a feel about how this would turn out. Mechanicus Standard Grey, White Scar, Ulthuan Grey, and Abaddon Black in varying degrees to shade some areas more, and highlight others. Edges and tops of the "bumps" make them stand out more, defining the shapes without necessarily brightening things too much. Upper areas of the model I'd use brighter edge highlights. It's working well enough, but I'm not sure how motivated I am to continue. I can see how using very small and bright edge highlights can make it look reflective and smooth, where the dulled effect I'm going for definitely gives a rougher, matt finish impression. I would certainly like to explore the shiny side of things, but I'm not sure that fits theme of this model too well. Perhaps i can try that on the blade later.

Final note: I missed a lot of paint when stripping the original model, and again when priming it. Patches of red were showing up underneath, and actually it looked really cool, almost like there was some nightmare glow from below. I'll have to keep that in mind for future reference.

-- silly painter

Sanguinary Guard - Part IV

 

Teaches bifurcation.

Slow going with painting, but I've been poking away at the Sanguinary Guard as time permits. Most of the efforts have been going into metallics, which seems to have ended up being about ninety percent of the models. This poses a particular challenge: metallics are difficult to provide contrast with.

The gloss finish of metallics covers up a lot of mistakes, helps smooth out transitions, but so much so that it makes it difficult to build up volumetric and edge highlights. To that end, I went slightly heavier with the Canoptek Alloy on the edges just to give them a little something extra. Polished gold might give desaturated reflections, which normally I'd use a light silver for, however I just don't like how that typically looks. This approach still leaves me with some wriggle room to use pure Canoptek Alloy on detailing and tie everything together. The only other way around this would be to repeat the approach on Dante, which for the time constraints I'd already ruled out on these models.

I do have some silver detailing, which is quite straight forward:

• Iron Warriors
• Iron Hands Steel
• Runefang Steel

I'm also playing with the idea of using Corvus Black in places to give extra depth, so that I don't need to bother with a shade. If nothing else, the black is still serving as a foundation to build the metallics up from. In general though, the above combination gives a good amount of contrast that can be worked with to make the smaller details pop.

There's nothing unusual with the bases, other than perhaps I could add some skulls for a little visual interest.

Now I simply need to fill in all the remaining details - of which there are many. Pouches, gemstones, purity seals, some of the weapons, the eyes, etc. As far as experiments go, they've fulfilled all the goals I'd set out to achieve - and now I just want to finish them. I'll therefore likely focus on the Sanguinary Guard for the next week and see how close I can get to that. It would be nice to finish something before the end of the month.

-- silly painter

Devastator Squad - Part I

 

Vast targeting array, and still needs to point where to shoot.

In some kind of effort to try out the adjustments I've been making to painting up red armour, I've assembled (or mostly assembled) a Devastator squad. The helmets are of course blue and will be attached later, but the bodies give a few different details that could be used to adjust the result if it didn't turn out.

After the usual black primer and Dryad Bark / Mephiston Red (1:1) base coat, I then mixed up Averland Sunset and Typhon Ash in about a 3:4 ratio and layered up some highlights. I think I might have pushed it too much, but really tried to focus on the backpack, torso, arms, and lower legs. I was using the "workhorse" airbrush (the cheaper one that's much easier to clean out and that I allow myself to treat a little roughly) for this - the more expensive H&S gives a far smoother result, but I don't have a cap to properly perform backflow and clean it out. Given the cold temperatures, I opted for whichever took less time overall.

Following the Blood Angels Red coat, I realised that once again, not enough contrast between shadow and highlight. I'm still too heavy with the previous stage. I put a glaze of Dryad Bark back through the airbrush to darken some areas again: lower half of the knee pads, under the arms, lower chest-plate, that kind of thing. This helped bring things back to roughly how I wanted them, but I'd rather not have to do that all the time.

For the rest of the Devastators, which I haven't hit with the Contrast colour yet, I may use unmixed Typhon Ash to highlight a few key points on the upper areas just to push the brightness slightly more. I can always glaze back the colours later, but the whole point of the airbrush on squads is to get acceptable results without too many time consuming steps - I think this approach still has merit, but needs further fine-tuning.

In future I'll try again with Averland Sunset, mix in Typhon Ash again for smaller highlights, and then more Typhon Ash for highlights on the upper areas, all the while trying to keep from flooding the entire model with each step. In the meantime, I have Devastators to finish, and there's another project I'm starting while there's airbrushing time - but I suspect that will be all the works in progress until I can get some of them finished.

-- silly painter.