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.