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