Sons of Horus MkII Assault Squad - Part III

 

Now with candy floss gun.

I had originally planned to just block in the major colours but in all honesty the MkII armour looks really awesome and I kind of just continued. Another factor is that there's surprisingly little variation on everything: once the main armour panels are done, there's not that much left over.

The shoulder pad trim is just Ancient Gold from the TMM range, base and wash, although the final highlight is yet to be applied on account of waiting for the varnish step. I used spots of this on the weapons as well just to balance out the picture and to keep things interesting while limiting the palette. The weapon grip is exactly the same as the holster and a straight copy from the MkVI assault squad, which other than a base of Thondia Brown I can't recall right now.

All of the metals were covered first with Doom Metal (TTC) and then Iron Warriors, follow by spot highlights of Iron Hands Steel. There's a good deal of variation of this throughout, but that's the basic idea for the most of it. The exhaust of the jump pack is for now purely Iron Hands Steel. I may still add burn marks around it but that's definitely for later.

On the jump pack it's predominantly black, of course, but I messed around with the banding. I'll need to get a reference photo for later of what I made black and what I kept silver. There's a reinforcement band around the top of the turbines that I wasn't sure what to do with for a while. I wanted it distinct from the front of the turbine itself and tried Iron Warriors with Black Templar Contrast over the top. The latter was too strong and I needed to kind of glaze the metallic back over the top. Next time I'll use Contrast Medium to thin the black some. Most of the panels I tried to cover with a black ink, a particular one from the Daler-Rowney FW range. It has this oddly subtle brown hint to it that I think is extremely good for Sons of Horus, but it's not exactly made for miniature painting and I have trouble blending or glazing with it. So I mostly abandoned that idea and went with Corvus Black and Stormvermin Fur. Mixing some Twin Suns Yellow (TTC, or Dorn Yellow for the Citadel colours) gives a bright edge highlight spot colour to make the result look more like a hardened surface.

I should note that the turbine blades themselves are simply Doom Metal and Iron Warriors, with the latter just run along the high surfaces and leaving the former in the recessed areas. I haven't felt the need to do anything more as it's readable enough right now.

The weapon colour is white and Doomfire Magenta. That's quite a pigment heavy Contrast paint, which makes me wonder if it's a sort of pre-cursor to the upcoming Warhammer Tone Pro range. I like the colour now even if initially I might not have picked it, because it matches with the face rather well.

There's still some minor details to get done, the base needs to be done, the varnish stage, and then glazing back some the armour colours and metallic shine in places, but I'm happy with how the model is looking right now.

-- silly painter.

Sons of Horus MkII Assault Squad - Part II

 

My name is Bane.

The one test model has now been fully assembled, for better or worse. I couldn't get much else done during the week but decided that the focal point of the face would at least give some kind of sense of accomplishment.

I decided early on that I wanted pale complexion for the Sons of Horus, something decidedly unhealthy and representing their fall into corruption. To that end I originally was going to base the scheme on Idoneth Deepkin, but pivoted partway through for a more sinister look.

Base colour is Ionrach Skin, which is a pale almost blue/green tinged tone. This fits with the armour to harmonise the colours, but I went a step further and mixed in a hint of Lupercal Green and glazed it towards the back of the head and along recessed areas. The was followed up with a purple ink heavily thinned with acrylic flow improver. I particularly focused on the eyes with this, building it up with more concentration of pigment around there. Ionrach Skin glazed back over to smooth over transitions wrapped up the initial base.

Deepkin Flesh for highlight points was next, which I also tried to paint over the eyes. The eyes on this model are extremely small, and quite honestly it probably would've been better to simply wash over the area and be done with it. I could barely see where those eyes are even meant to be. Going further into madness I then used Iyanden Yellow to cover them and really make the model look insane. I even tried to put in a pupil on the left eye, but I messed it up and fell back to more of the ink to try make the whole face look aggravated.

And he does look aggravated. I think the ultimate win here is not trying to make the eyes themselves stand out, but to give contrast to that part of the face and the impression that this is not a sane individual.

With everything in place I really need to pick out the base colours next. This will serve as the reference for the rest of the squad when I start painting those, so it's important I try to get that "right".

-- silly painter.

Sons of Horus MkII Assault Squad - Part I

 

Sure hope the helmets have noise cancelling earphones installed.

I had wanted all of these models assembled, I had wanted them primed and basic airbrushing done, and on the way to getting them in a good state to be fairly quickly finished. Then work happened and most days I'm up to midnight on that, with zero time for painting. So for the moment this is the only Sons of Horus model painted up, and I have more to still even assemble. Kind of sucks.

On the bright side I picked up a lot of lessons from the last batch and have fed them into here. The major starting point was that I base coated the whole model in Night Lords Blue first. I thinned it overly much and it took several coats to get it right, but it wasn't all that bad: the airbrush didn't clog at all and was easier to clean out afterwards. Lupercal Green followed that up, but thinned properly so that again several passes were used to soften the transition and it was done from above and the sides for the most part. Sons of Horus Green afterwards, mostly from above, and you guessed it: several thinned coats.

The airbrush is very quick to use and multiple thin coats is extremely quick to do. It may seem longer but because it also lets colours more easily fade into one another then the overall time taken is typically far less: fewer hard transitions to correct, easier to clean the airbrush. I actually switched between airbrushes on this model, using my Harder & Steenbeck for the last layer because of the smaller needle size I keep with it and the greater trigger control I have.

Gloss varnish afterwards to seal the model and then an overall wash of Shyish Purple / Terradon Turquoise. I was originally trying a 1:4 ratio, but it ended up closer to 1:2 or even 1:1 by because it just wasn't dark enough. The flow improver might have been too much, but roughly equal parts of that are necessary to make it really slide off the more flat surfaces. This really works as well as I expect, but again I had to try remove some from areas it was pooling incorrectly, which leaves behind a bit of a mess. I think it was still worth while, but I'll need to look at using a different brush, maybe soaked in flow improver or Contrast Medium to soften it out some. Another trick to to slightly damp the area with water first too.

After all of that I went back in with Lupercal Green and Sons of Horus Green by brush to clean up a few places and put in some initial edge highlights. I used a better brush this time around and make sure to thin the paints with flow improver instead of just water. This saves a lot of time and effort for what is basically glazing. I'll very likely do another pass of this after the matt varnish stage later on.

Although all the above sounds like a lot of effort, there aren't many colours being used and each stage is more about refining the previous. I'm still careful along the way, but I'm less perfectionist in knowing that I will be adjusting things later on as necessary. For basically the same result it took about half the time, so I'm pretty happy about that.

I will have to start blocking in all the other colours soon, but first I'm probably actually going to focus on the head. If I can get enough done to glue that in place then the model will be fully assembled and I'll be much faster in completing it and having serve as a reference for the rest.

-- silly painter.