Sons of Horus MkII Assault Squad - Part IV (Semi-Showcase)

 

Before he was shiny, now he's feeling dull.

This is a semi-showcase on account of one model being done (others aren't even primed yet) which acts as the recipe for the rest of the squad. It's also missing the jump-pack exhaust being coloured in, which I intend to do with an airbrush once all the models are ready for that.

The base was very much whatever was on the palette at the time and looking for sepia tones, browns, yellow tints to mix into greys for highlights, your basic urban rubble. I still prefer Basilicanum Grey to add depth to the base and then layer over the top with scratches and markings for visual interest. Not much to be said really.

The bulk of the rest of the model was varnishing and then metallics to highlight, Sons of Horus Green to highlight, and slight mix of Gauss Blaster Green for extreme edge highlights on the topmost areas.

The turquoise armour highlights are mostly to restore a slightly satin finish more than anything else. I probably went too heavy with the matt varnish and it dulled down the model considerably. I'm also still adjusting to not-red for this kind of thing. The finish makes quite the difference when viewing the model in person. In a photo it might be more useful not to have environmental lighting shining off the model, but in in hand it just looks off - people are used to the shine of different surfaces, and unifying it entirely seems (to me) kind of wrong. For armour at any rate, the satin surface for highlights is what I will continue to aim for.

The varnish also made a few metallic areas quite grainy. The lighting interaction with the Vallejo TMM after that varnish was particularly annoying - I should simply paint them after varnishing in future, but locking the colours in place first is far more motivational. It will come down to how I feel at the time probably, but I definitely liked the look of the metallics before varnishing, and not as much after, even with the additional highlight steps.

In general though I quite enjoyed painting a not-red model and I hope to start airbrushing the base layers of the rest soon. I'd really like to finish up some squads and keep the flow going, but I know very well how bad it is with work right now. Darn.

-- silly painter.