Imperialis Baneblades - Part II (Showcase)

 

11 barrels of bling!

I'm calling the Baneblades here, if for no other reason than I've had enough of painting them. I messed up with them, and simply don't feel like investing the time to redo and recover them.

The main problem is the colour scheme: I don't like it at all. It doesn't work here. The models are simply too dark, which makes the Blingblade trim stick out too much, airbrushing didn't work, recess shading doesn't give enough contrast, the list goes on. The trim on the Blingblade I decided to cover up with Balthasar Gold because it was far too much of an eyesore, and I can tell why they have that trim on the Imperialis models: it outlines the shape. You can instantly see on the table what kind of tank it is, and I think it really works with the right colour scheme. In future I would probably do something like the Solar Auxilia with Contrast paints. I don't always like copying colour schemes, but I'm not sure what else I'd like to do here.

Drive me closer, I want to use flamers!

The second Baneblade I didn't paint the trim, and used Agrax Earthshade to dirty down some of the recesses, and I do like the end result much better, but it's still missing something. The shape isn't as well defined, so perhaps some more tone contrast on the edges could help with that. It's no good collecting more of the Imperial Guard tanks until I know how I want to paint them.

What did work was the barrels on the back. Warplock Bronze, and Screaming Bell over the top. I also mixed in Sycorax Bronze for additional highlights, and it ended up very close to how I wanted. I generally use this kind of look for canisters that might have a flammable liquid, or otherwise might need to deal with intense heat. It also gives much more visual interest to the models.

The viewports are basically Evil Sunz Scarlet. I tried a purple to shade them in places, and Fire Dragon Bright for highlights, but not much of anything other than the red shows up. The front headlights are Dorn Yellow covered with Talassar Blue, which gives a very bright, light, vibrant blue. Such points help to break up the plain colours and gives little hints of visual interest - it's not much, but it's critical to have.

Not much else to say. I should have started with drybrushing, then used contrast paints, and maybe a bit more drybrushing to highlight. Next time.

-- silly painter.

Imperialis Baneblades - Part I

 

Blingblade.

I picked up a couple of Baneblades for Legions Imperialis because tiny tanks. They are not going to plan.

To start with I intended to follow the ideas from the Rhino experimentation. White undercoat, some edge highlighting, and then Space Wolves (Contrast) over the top. The problem really is that the design of the Baneblade doesn't have a whole lot of flat surfaces, even if the basic shape is a box. The detailing doesn't lend itself well to the highlighting I was trying to do, and there was insufficient space to give enough of a gradient. Instead I should've simply stuck with highlighting with a drybrush.

With all those guns, must have a convoy of ammunition behind it.

I've been practising my drybrushing with relatively cheap army painter brushes, and I can see the potential. The trick really is in getting the consistency of the paint just right - not flowing like a wash, but not actually dry either. It will take a lot of practice to get "right", but for a model like this it's an ideal approach.

I'm also attempting a different approach to some of the metallic areas. Instead of base coating and then washing into recesses, using a Contrast to darken and then layer over the top with a metallic. This is basically drybrushing but in a far more controlled fashion.

The other trick I've been trying here involves gloss varnish, Black Templar, and acrylic flow improver (not Lahmian Medium, which has other components that make is unsuitable here). Basically mixing the flow improver with a Contrast paint gives it a similar behaviour to oil washes over a gloss varnish, and I used it to recess shade the model. Using Black Legion would probably work better owing to its more concentrated pigment count, but the idea looks to be sound. The result rubs off quite easily too, so a matt varnish later will almost certainly be required, but mistakes can also be easily corrected. I will be trying this a lot more going forward, but it only looks to work properly with Contrast paints - I couldn't get the same effect with regular acrylics.

Unfortunately I'm not convinced with the golden armour trim look. The gold is too bright in contrast to the rest, so I've not done it on the other model yet. I'm unsure what to do here: go with the trim, or go with a far more unified armour panelling look? There are still plenty of details to fill in, so perhaps I should just do those first and see how I feel at the end. The Blingblade can be some rich aristocrat's personal command vehicle or something.

-- silly painter.