Crimson Paladin II - Part I

 

Making sure to step over the drain.

Just a fairly quick post because I managed to get a fair bit of airbrushing done in a single day and I'll be busy for the next week. I recently assembled the next of the Crimson Paladins and this time out I decided the arms should be fully attached from the start. It was to much hassle last time.

Painting-wise there isn't much to say. From the experience before I know that a wash stage will help define everything more, but that some manipulation as applying over the gloss varnish will increase shadows, and glazing later with Evil Sunz Scarlet is going to help make everything pop. The airbrushing was done with this in mind. I still used three passes (Dryad Bark / Mephiston Red, then plain Mephiston Red, then Evil Sunz Scarlet) but I didn't try to be very neat.

The first coat is to give the whole model a base colour to work from. This is also mostly the shadow colour, even if the wash will darken it more later anyway. I used my "new workhorse" airbrush with a 0.35mm needle here and made sure to apply many thin coats to get a smooth finish and to avoid clogging the nozzle.

Next was the first highlighting stage which again used the same airbrush, and mostly from a Zenithal angle. Basically I just sprayed from above and occasionally a little from the side, but not from underneath. It's similar in colour, but trust the process: the later wash will darken everything, and glazing will brighten again in select areas.

Finally I switched to the CRplus Infinity airbrush with a 0.2mm needle and build up the final layer more selectively. I know there's some good reviews about the workhorse type airbrush, and it's indeed perfectly fine, but once you're quite familiar and comfortable with airbrushing then that extra quality kit really comes into play. The trigger action is definitely better, the paint flows more smoothly, and it's easier to clean afterwards. I intend to buy a newer Infinity at some point, eyeing off the Giraldez model, as soon as there's some kind of spare money for such things.

At this point the reds don't give much contrast really. Shadows are there, highlights are there, but knowing that I'll be refining it later made the broader airbrush application now that much faster.

The base on this model is actually two thin layers of green-stuff. I was playing with a new texture roller which has a manhole cover I liked, which I then needed to turn into an actual base. With the slightly higher base these older kits are visually comparable to the new Cataphractii  models too, but there's still one more trick to make the Crimson Paladins seem taller. The previous one had this done, and it's the head. It sits too low in the torso normally. I'll try get all the helmets done in one go, but a little bit of green-stuff to extend the faceplate down and a little more on the base to make it sit ever so slightly higher and it makes all the difference.

That's about it for now. I did more airbrush of other models too, and I guess one of those will be for next week.

-- silly painter.

Crimson Paladin - Part V (Showcase)

 

That's not dakka. This, is dakka.

The first of the Crimson Paladins is now finished. It doesn't look as though a whole lot more was done since the last time, and in truth it's not much - but it's enough to make all the difference.

The usual matt varnish layer and then final metallic highlights, armour highlights, that kind of thing. The most interesting of the metallics is the trim, which was a 1:1 mix of Castellax Bronze and Runelord Brass. This leaves some room to add more spot highlights if necessary, however I was worried that this would overpower the red too much so I left things as they were. If I were to do more then it might be Canoptek Alloy as very thin edge and spot highlights, and nothing more. I think this bronze or brass metallic colour was definitely the wiser choice over gold for this particular model, and I will of course need to carry it on through the rest of the squad.

The sword has Omega Blue (TTC) in the middle, along with Talassar Blue, Doom Metal, Iron Warriors, Iron Hands Steel, and even some edge highlights with Ironbreaker. The photo doesn't show the angle of course, but it's certainly worth continuing down this road to see where it leads.

The black higlights worked well here and I still have a Death Company marine hanging around somewhere that could use airbrushing to get that effect across larger armour panels without quite so much effort. If only I had that little bit of extra time each day to get the models to that level.

The pauldrons turned out far better than I had hoped, and they really draw attention to the upper area. This compensates for some of the interesting proportions of the legs. The armour in general I spent some extra effort on at the end: it was at a stage where I thought "I could do more, but effort...." and then just decided this time I would put that effort in. The higher upper surfaces are intentionally much brighter, but the highlights on the lower half weren't as obvious before and so they were slowly glazed up to define the shapes better. I can always, always, do more, but it would run a high risk of ruining the look if I did so now.

The base I'm unhappy with. I should have sanded everything back to be more smooth, the melted rock sludge look of the casted base isn't very inspiring, and the colours are just kind of wrong. I will need to think about the next one in how I'm going to sculpt it. I'm still thinking about a filament 3d printer and seeing if that will be up to the task, but for now it's green-stuff and milliput.

Guess I need to assemble more, and also start to think how to convert the newer Cataphractii models.

-- silly painter.

Sanguinary Guard (Heresy Era) - Part V (Showcase)

 

"I can't hear you!"

There wasn't too much left from the last post on these models, but they're finished finally. It only took a couple of months, which for me is actually quite fast considering I get all of fifteen minutes most days.

The bulk of what was done was just the silver highlights, which used a combination of Doom Metal (Two Thin Coats), Iron Warriors, and Iron Hands Steel. I could go substantially brighter yet, but I rarely find the need to go to the level of extreme polished metal, particularly because the swords here need that darker tone to work with the blue energy effect.

It took a while to figure out what to do with the shield on the Sergeant. I toyed with various intricate design ideas but ultimately went with a simple white insignia on black background. There are colour theory reasons why this works, but suffice to say that it's the safer option (difficult to mess up) and therefore looks much nicer than any other plan I had.

Wonder if he uses that to put a pizza in the oven.

Most of the grenades have a very subtle shade to them. After the metallics I used Space Wolves Grey on what I think are intended to be krak grenades, and Athonian Camoshade on frag grenades. It's too subtle really so in future I might use two coats of each.

Charging headbutt.

The studs on the left pauldrons is exactly the same as the rest of the armour, but the red is more glossy than I would like. Normally I varnish over everything but in this case I didn't want to do that lest it dull the armour too much. I just need to deal with the shiny look of the red.

He's got a (m)ace up his sleeve.

While experimenting with Talassar Blue for the jump pack glow I had the idea to recess shade that paint around some of the power weapon energy effects. I was using Drakenhof Nightshade for this, but the more vibrant blue of Talassar Blue works better. It does need thinning slightly, and in future I should paint over the raised areas again, but I think it's worth exploring this path for power weapons further.

And my axe. Mine.

The jump pack glow was picked up from the 'net somewhere and is essentially a light blue, Talassar Blue with Contrast Medium, then Gauss Blaster Green followed by more thinned Talassar Blue. It's quick and easy, but I don't particularly like the look quite as much as my older formula. The one advantage though is that Talassar Blue is quite vibrant so perhaps I can incorporate it somewhere as a filter of some kind.

And that's it really. Moving onto the next models.

-- silly painter

Crimson Paladin - Part IV

 

This ground sure feels weird.

Having recently decided on the general base theme for 30k models, I tried to see if I could make the base for the Crimson Paladin fit.

The base for this model was originally created out of a green-stuff / Milliput mix pressed into a mould of an original resin base topper created by GW (long since out of production). It works well to add height to the model, but there are a good number of details that look, for lack of a better description, melted. I figured I could work with that, however there's also an awful lot of stones, rocks, smaller pieces of debris covering everything. It looks more like a generic dirt wasteland than an Imperial hab block, and therein lies the real problem: it doesn't fit with the other bases.

I attempted to paint it more or less the same as the simple dirt areas on the other models: Thondia Brown, highlight with Dawnstone, shade it back with Basilicanum Grey, and re-highlight with Dawnstone. Now it kind of looks like blasted slurry that's since hardened.

I've tried to paint in some of the details with whatever random colours I could, and that does help - but it's not enough. I will add a skull soon more as visual interest and to distract from everything else because it's obvious that this base is Not Working (tm).

I could try to re-base the model, but it's fairly well glued down. I would try to sand back areas to create flattened street surfaces, add some more scattered rubble, piping, that sort of thing, but that's an awful lot of effort. Instead I'll probably just leave it as a reminder. I guess I could explain it as somewhere that a particularly powerful plasma weapon recently interacted with and was later covered in ash or something. Part of a larger impact creator - which is actually an idea to add to other bases: impact craters. I could (and should) sculpt explosion damage into future bases, bullet holes, etc. So long as I learn something from it, then being dissatisfied with this particular base is well worth it.

-- silly painter.

Sanguinary Guard (Heresy Era) - Part IV

 

Mr Ethereal Eyes

Slowly but surely I'm getting these models done, but I need to take a step back and consider the original intent of trying to paint up models without being too exact. Blends and transitions aren't so exact, or using quite so many colours to build up extreme contrast over a gradient. Simple but effective techniques and colour schemes. Some of this is driven by just wanting to get the models painted, and some by the nature of the sculpts themselves.

The helmet eye lenses are one such detail that encourage painting them different to my usual approach. They're quite sunken into the helmet and so need to be bright to draw attention. I decided to borrow something recently used on the Crimson Paladin:

• White (any) concentrated in the middle, thinned and glazed slightly as edge highlights on the surrounding area.
• Hexwraith Flame across the lens and thinly applied around the surrounding area. The edge highlights make it brighter, but cover more area to let it fade out slightly.
• Coelia Greenshade on the inner lens for definition.

Simple, maybe even too bright, but effective standing out.

Moving on from the lenses I wanted to focus on the bases next. Normally I would leave these to the last, but I wanted to sort them out to make them seem more finished (and hopefully then motivate me to actually complete everything). There are several different materials on these bases, but before I get to that I was noticing damaged pavement in the surrounding area and there are a few noteworthy observations.

• When the surface of pavement is damaged and worn away, the edges of the damage are quite dark. A combination of shadows, possibly water depositing dirt, and the underlying material not being faded from sunlight. It's very noticeable once you look at it. Shades are very good at emulating this, but this can be exaggerated with highlights. The foundations underneath are generally darker and more rocky because it hasn't been purposefully smoothed over, which naturally gives more colour variation. 
• Cracks in pavement in a humid, cool (but not overly cold), diffused sunlight environment are noticeably green. This comes from moss and other plant-life growing in the cracks, and they tend to spread out. The point is that cracks can definitely offer an indication of the general environment: green for humid, red for sunburned dust, ochre for sandy desert, and so on.
• Pavements are often patched. The patches will offer colour variation. Pavement is not uniform grey - water damage, resurfacing, loose stones, general wear & tear, there's quite a lot going on.

All of that in mind, I was trying several approaches but ultimately took inspiration from the bases for Legions Imperialis. The "ferrocrete" ended up as:

• Dawnstone base.
• Grey Seer to add some higlights.
• Mix some random colours from the palette and dab around the area. This is likely too much, but some glazes of Dawnstone or Grey Seer will knock them back and desaturate to tie it all together.
• Basilicanum Grey / Contrast Medium (1:1) and applied over the whole area. Thinner is better if uncertain.
• Use any of the previous steps to add highlights as necessary.

Metal plating was originally going to be shifted towards blue, but that doesn't work for the Sons of Horus, and it wasn't really working for Sanguinary Guard. It works for Blood Angels as a complementary colour, but across multiple colour schemes a more neutral choice is better:

• Iron Warriors base.
• Space Wolves Grey (Contrast). This is a very translucent colour and won't cover well, which is exactly what is wanted here.
• Gore-Grunta Fur (Contrast) very watered down to simulate general rust and dirt.
• Iron Hands Silver as damage, chipping, worn clean raised surfaces, etc.

For dirt underneath I'm going for something very simple:

• Thondia Brown for dirt, then mix with whatever bright colour on the palette to highlight.
• Ratling Grime (Contrast).

Finally the Aquila deserves to stand out and add more visual interest to the base:

• Hashut Copper
• Gauss Blaster Green, mixed with a random blue on the palette for verdigris

That pretty much covers it. The picture above is at a poor angle to show off everything, but that's ok as it's supposed to enhance the model above rather than take the spotlight anyway.

There's both a lot left to do, but equally not much. I know how to finish the models now and basically just need to find time to get on with it. That's not quite as easy as it sounds right now.

-- silly painter

Blood Angels Champion - Part V (Showcase)

 

You're mine.

There's not too much to really say other than this model is now considered complete. I could, as always, do a lot more. Push the highlights more, particularly on the red armour and pauldron gold trimming. The armour, most notably, could be held up to the standard of the right leg but everywhere.

After the matt varnish, the final glazed highlights are, as usual, extremely simple and most effective. It takes me between twenty minutes to half an hour to complete it all, but the result is by far well worth it. It restores vibrancy and really helps to define the model as a whole. Spending more time on this step would no doubt help turn it into a competition winner - but only if I added a couple more colours on the palette to deepen shadows as well. Need to stop somewhere.

The centre chest detailing was highlighted with Castellax Bronze, and then an equal parts mix with Sycorax Bronze. It's a very neutral brown result that keeps the chest from drawing too much attention away from the golden helm, but there's enough value contrast to clearly define the shape. There's still room to push the highlights further if needed, which I can keep in mind when using something similar on other models.

The writing on the scroll (model's right pauldron) is simply a decal, but cut into three pieces and carefully aligned. I possibly could have aligned it better. I also could have painted over the top, but it was already well enough readable that I didn't bother. Look closely and the printing dots are visible, but I simply didn't fancy spending an hour to fix that up - not when I'm happy with the result as it stands, and besides I don't paint over other decals normally. Just as long as I don't pretend it's freehand then it's fine.

Everything else is fairly run of the mill. I think the whole model comes together well enough, and it's certainly unique. A mixture of kitbashing, third party parts, and even a little putty in key places, and there's a distinctly Blood Angel feel coming out of a "Bladeguard" veteran. Only four more of these models to go, but I'll do them one at a time. The next will undoubtedly have a shield handy.

-- silly painter.

Sanguinary Guard (Heresy Era) - Part III

 

You know he wants to play the axe like a guitar.

In the background there is slow progress on the stand-in Sanguinary Guard, but the main colours are at least blocked in and there's at least an idea of what they'll look like.

Ignore the dust on the model. I do have a soft makeup brush to clean that off.

The first thing to note is that if I do these sort of model again, I will leave the shoulder pads unglued until the very end. It would be much easier to paint the red with an airbrush, but I was concerned that this would demotivate me and thus left them on. Too late now I suppose. Glazing the highlights takes a very long time, so as can be seen here I am instead blocking in the main highlight points and I'll glaze the transition areas later. Doing this on five models will probably take me a full week. The airbrush would take half an hour (including cleanup). Next time!

I pondered on the weapon handles whether I should use a greener tone such as with Incubi Darkness, but in the end the Blood Angels are all about: "There is the blood, and there is nothing else." Red, and tones of red, are everything.

The eye lenses are being given a white undercoat and I'll go back in with Hexwraith Flame later to make them stand out. The slits in the helmet are too narrow, and the eye lenses too sunken, for the normal reflection effect to be tried, so I'm going for something which should make them stand out enough to draw attention to the head.

The blades of each weapon use the same effect as on the Champion: black metal, then build up a blue tint to act as the power field glow. Given that any gemstone on the weapons would be lit up from the surrounding energy glimmer, I painted Spiritstone Red over a bright silver and called it a day. This red is very saturated and glossy, so it stands out impressively even amongst the rest of the metallic shine on the model.

I'll keep plugging away at these guys, but the focus for now is on another model. That will be finished very soon, and I might then switch to get these finished next. There's a lot left to do, but none of it is particularly difficult. I just need the time to sit down and get them done.

-- silly painter.

Crimson Paladin - Part III

 

If it gets past that gun, not sure a sword will stop it.

I've finally managed to fully assemble the first of the Crimson Paladins. Still a ways to go to paint him, but at least assembly is done. There isn't a whole lot to say about the painting, so this post will instead focus on putting together the model.

The first thing to note is actually the last piece to be glued in place: the helmet. I really like the style of those helmets, and it really suits the aesthetic, but there's one small problem. The helmet sits too low compared to the arms, and the helmet-less head is larger than the helmets themselves. This gives them some weird proportions and so I made the decision to add some padding and lift the helmet just a little. This probably makes the head look oversized now, but it also makes the model look taller, and so I think on balance it was good enough choice. This wasn't difficult to do; extend under the helmet with green-stuff, pad the round connection point some more, and then file it back if it's too much. 

The arms were positioned almost exactly correctly because of pin holes I had originally drilled. Everything lined up and gluing was simple. I think the right arm was ever so slightly too high, only by about 1/3 of a millimetre, but at this scale that's enough to be noticeable. Not too much I can do about that now.

The pauldrons. They were never going to glue nicely into position with that design. It took a long time for me to think of something to try that might actually work, and the answer was: green-stuff. I tried to sculpt more surface for the pauldrons to sit on, and even in the end added a small blob to hold it in place while the glue dried. I'm still unhappy with the result. I think next time I need to extend the surface out with yet more green-stuff, sculpting it into the proper shape even before the model is primed.

The leather flaps under the pauldrons are painted with the same recipe as for the White Dwarf's gloves. Rhinox Hide and Squig Orange for the most part, some Nuln Oil in recesses. It could be a lighter tone. Maybe I can try that with the next one.

I still need to fill in a few details, and the pauldrons are only base coated (no highlights yet). The base itself is obviously in need of some work. Quite a bit to go. I started off the year strong, but unfortunately the (rather predictable) events of work, house, health, and all of that, is forcing me to slow down these last few weeks. I might need to focus on just one model now and get it done, then move to the next, and the next, and so on. Or just keep painting what I feel like, when I feel like. Let's see.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Champion - Part IV

 

Champion and Dedork.

Progress. Very slow, but progress.

The base has been done and now has an Ork skull with grass growing next to it. A special character model such as this probably deserves a more blinged-out base, but fitting him in with the rest of the models means I'm going for something a bit simpler. The skull rather than freshly hewn head means it wasn't this champion's work, but it seemed appropriate given the swords.

I'm trying something new with the swords here, and have actually already changed it up a bit, but the basic idea is: dark metal sword to make a blue metal "glow" appear brighter by contrast. I still don't like the look of generic everything-blue power swords, and so I keep experimenting. The tips being blue help define shape, but that's the part already adjusted in other models: using silvers instead. Steel swords in good condition should be very well polished and reflective, which works nicely with NMM techniques, but I figure power swords need different materials to help them work and so the darker metal colour of Doom Metal (TTC) shouldn't be too out of place but really makes the Omega Blue (TTC) seem that much more vibrant.

In this case the blue tips of the swords unbalanced everything too much and I need to draw attention back towards the torso and helmet. The small accents of green in the eye lenses isn't large enough to do that on its own, so I needed something close enough to blue to balance out the swords and lead the viewer on a path there. It's subtle, but the purple gems on the pauldrons is what I ended up going with. Just that little bit of colour variety that doesn't make the swords stand out quite so much, and draws a line towards the helmet. This also means the details on the shins shouldn't stand out too much, which is what lead me to using Grey Knight's Steel on the central blood drop symbol. It's not quite blue (actually more purple I think), but happened to be on my palette at the time. The symbol to the sides I'll paint up as red - it will add visual interest, but shouldn't draw attention away from the rest of the model.

I might try mixing Castellax Bronze with Sycorax Bronze to highlight the chest detailing. I haven't tried it yet but I'm hoping it'll be enough to highlight without going too bright - and I might need to leave it until after the matt varnish anyway.

I'll definitely try to get the smaller details filled in soon so that I might get to the final stages of this model. It's about time I finished it really. I have plenty of other models that have been painted in the background too, however keeping momentum up is difficult and actually finishing a project always helps.

-- silly painter.

Sanguinary Guard (Heresy Era) - Part II

 

Looking down at you

Moving fairly quickly along with these models, I wanted to try out some of the new "True Metallic Metal" paints from Vallejo. The main reason was some of the colour variation available; I have enough metallic paints from Citadel, but sometimes I want a subtle difference in tone than available from that range. I'm actually more interested Aged Metal, but here I used Imperial Gold to separate the 30k Sanguinary Guard from their 40k counterparts.

First off I undercoated the entire model with Dryad Bark. This is my standard for any golds now, and I typically try to introduce some of that with following paints when using the Citadel range, building up colours layer by layer (very easy to do with an airbrush). It didn't really work here. At all. The airbrush paint doesn't need any diluting, but it doesn't mix well with Citadel and trying to be thin with it just ended up with extremely poor coverage. It was so poor in fact that I needed to go back over the models with either a third coat, or with a brush and the base paint.

This is where I hit another snag with Imperial Gold. Two or three passes with the airbrush would be fine to build up complete coverage, but the base paint is ... different. It behaves almost like a gel crossed with a Contrast paint. Very poor coverage, and it needs to be applied in multiple thick layers. It does kind of auto-level to a degree, but it was extremely bad to work with. It might just be that particular paint however, as the light colour behaves much better.

I tried to mix the base and light colour to do some volumetric highlights and it kind of worked, but with limited success. I have a better experience here with the Citadel range, by orders of magnitude. I suspect again that it's the base paint which doesn't like being thinned, because the light version was perfectly fine for edge highlights on its own (but is too much of a jump in value to try glaze with).

The shade is almost like a mix between a normal shade, and a Contrast paint. It's quite dark, applies evenly, but also goes kind of tacky very quickly. Once that happens, any disturbance will tear it immediately and cause it to bunch up in a kind of messy film over the surface. If you're very quick you can drag the paint off before that happens, but you need to be fast to do that. It's a nice enough colour though and dries with the same finish as the metallics. I suspect I could do a lot better with some practice, but it doesn't lend itself too well to my preferred painting style.

My overall impression with Imperial Gold (and by extension the whole TMM range, knowing that it could differ for other colours) is that they're really nice if you paint in the "BSL" system. This is quite similar to how Games Workshop tutorials work, but more structured with the paint range. The problem is that I don't quite paint that way - I prefer to mix up gradients with tone and value variation, with thin layers and glazing as I go. I really rely on translucency of paints, thinning with different mediums (water mostly, but acrylic flow improver quite a lot too), and constant adjustment as I go. If the TMM colours fit with what I'm after, they'll be fine. If not, I'll struggle. If I were painting large numbers of troops in a metal finish (say, Thousand Suns) then I suspect the TMM range would be very useful.

I persevered and in the end came up with using Balthasar Gold mixed with Imperial Gold to get better coverage and then used that as a shadow colour in certain areas. That's not shown on the model in the photo - the shadow areas there are just the Dryad Bark showing through more than I intended. To highlight I loaded managed to work the Imperial Gold base as a kind of glaze filter to blend the overpowering Balthasar Gold into the mid-tones, and then added some of the light to keep going for highlights. It...works. I just prefer the Citadel range for doing that sort of thing.

Doom Metal (Two Thin Coats) shows where I want more steel / silver colours to go, which at this stage is just for blocking in parts to get a feel of how the model will go. Then we come to the pouches and pistol holster. That's a tricky bit, but I didn't want it too high in value, nor just a dark brown. I base coated with Wraithbone, then hit it with a coat of Gore-Grunta Fur. There's just a hint of orange there which I like, but it was too bright. I tried another with Wyldwood, but that was simply too dark and wooden. I tried mixing the two, which just kind of desaturated everything and was messy. In the end I'll likely stick to Gore-Grunta Fur, use Wyldwood for some straps just to break up the monotony, then go in with maybe Agrax Earthshade to darken things in a few places. Maybe Squig Orange can be used later to add scratches and brighter highlights, though perhaps it will need a hint of the Wraithbone in it to do that.

Gehenna's Gold is probably a fair approximation for the Imperial Gold base, while Liberator Gold is very similar to the light variant. The shade is possibly a close match to Ratling Grime.

-- silly painter.

Captain Karlaen Kitbash - Part VI (Showcase)

 

Back, bigger than ever.

I'm calling it done on the conversion / kitbash of Captain Karlaen. I absolutely could go all-out on highlighting the armour more, making it really pop, but that would take at least another two days and then I'd have to start fixing other little mistakes too. This model is not a competition piece, but I've learned enough that it could be.

Before anything else, a nice sable hair brush with paint at the right glaze consistency (preferably using flow improver) over the matt varnish really, truly does wonders for highlighting red armour. Synthetics don't quite have the same softness or "spring" to them, and the matt varnish evens out the brush strokes in a way that's difficult to describe. I may have to use this to really step it up a notch on another model before too long.

For learning NMM, this model has been both a success, and a failure. I learned a lot about light placement, shadow placement, and using contrast to bring out the shape of something. The hammer haft and the storm bolter worked particularly well. The tilting shield trim did not. The rest of the gold was hit and miss - I could probably make it work, but I don't think the formula for gold was quite right for this model. I also need to use more mid-tones with less yellow because it goes too bright too fast.

What really helped with NMM for me was not starting from the darkest colour. Start from the mid-tone. That's the "unlit" colour of the metall, everything else is just adding light and dark for reflections to sell the effect.

If I'm going to continue learning NMM then I may need to add some texturing to the mix to help differentiate NMM from something simply lighter in colour. The Crux Terminatus is too close to the NMM areas and might come across as an earlier experiment - but actually I want it to look more like stone. Weirdly I could probably make it work with NMM quite well, but I think that a stone look gives them more weight, makes the armour look heavier, more powerful, and more menacing. In the meantime though, I want to switch back to metallics - I like the end look of them more in most cases, but I can still apply some of the lessons learned here.

The inner cape is darker than I originally intended. There's no colour reason for this - it was just difficult to reach that area and it was getting annoying. It was a risk I took, but next time I'll paint the cape before gluing the model into position.

The hammer grip was a good choice to be something other than red. It makes the hammer more distinct, whereas something more red or brown might have looked like an extension of the arm.

I could spend ages pointing out defects, mistakes, and generally describing everything in minute detail, but there's not really a whole lot of point to that. Also I'm tired and just want to finish up. The model was, overall, a successful kitbash. I know what I could improve in future for kitbashing, I know more than before about the placement of light and shadow, and I have a nice looking miniature all painted up before the end of the year.

-- silly painter.

Sanguinary Guard (Heresy Era) - Part I

 

Stab. Stab stab stab!

I normally wouldn't be posting on these models at this stage, but the assembly was noteworthy enough to warrant it. I'll start with the picture above: I messed up the pose and from that camera angle he looks a little hunched over while putting a pizza in an oven. From a lower angle it looks like he's stabbing upwards into something. I don't like it, but it's well glued together now and there's no getting around it. This bring me to point one: posing.

Arms with multiple connection points are really, really hard to pose properly. Using blu-tac (or whichever equivalent) always puts a slight spacer between the connection points and it does matter at this scale. I much prefer when there are guides to get the arms in the proper position, which can always be trimmed if not wanted. Without this then in future I'll need to look at creating my own out of paperclips. This takes time and effort, and really degrades motivation. The extra problem on this model is the fact that the arms and hands were also separate and used ball joints. Anchoring just one arm once everything is dry-fit would be great - and if all the pieces were plastic that might be an option (just drop some extra-thin cement in there), but between plastic and resin? That needs superglue. In future I'll just take the time and pin it.

The base gave me pause for a little. I wasn't sure how I wanted to base the Heresy models - something industrial or hab block related seems more appropriate: it could be on any world, it could be on Terra, it could be within a ship. That's when I remembered what I'd done on previous models: I used Sector Imperialis bases. No need for much else, just glue on the models and done. Of course there's a lot of repetition if I just use those, so later I may need to add rubble, piping, concrete debris, that sort of thing, just to differentiate them. Adding a layer of randomness makes the visuals less uniform.

As I was assembling a squad I noticed that the backpacks have enough room behind that I could just glue them onto the torso, and so I did. Then when I tested the shoulder pads I saw there was just enough room to paint those whilst attached. The arms aren't really hiding much either, so they and the weapons are all glued in position. Then looked at the helmets, looked again, and looked for a third time. There would be some difficulty, but the majority of the helmets are accessible for painting. Everything is glue together - even accessories for each. The latter will probably be the worst for accessibility to various areas, but it's worth it for motivation; I'll paint a fully assembled model much quicker compared to sub-assemblies.

The helmet and head options are from older Forgeworld kits, and while Games Workshop has done a brilliant job at compatibility, they simply aren't designed for these newer models. They just didn't sit right - too much height on the neck, or not enough. In the end there was really only the one option: trim it down a lot and use a (very) small ball of putty to make up the difference. A bit of glue and squishing the putty into place makes sure it flattens out to take up the space while giving a large contact area for adhesion and even time to make minor adjustments to sit everything in the proper place. This is all hidden by the helmet itself and won't be visible in the end.

During assembly I've gone the extra mile with scraping off mould lines and sanding things back as smooth as I could with 1200 grit sand paper. Some plastic cement in a few areas helped to seal seams shut before sanding it all back, though doubtless some areas will still be visible later. The left pauldrons in particular seem to be troublesome for that, but that's the price for the better looking armour studs. I decided to go with them because they look cool, and signifies that though they are well equipped, they're still one with the others of their legion who may not be so fortunate in their offerings from the quartermaster.

Finally, I've been preparing these models specifically to test out some new paints, but also to see how well I go with models that don't have quite so much ornate detailing. I'm hoping this will help limit the palette and make me get through the models more quickly than usual. More on the reasoning for that later.

-- silly painter.

Crimson Paladin - Part II

 

Cleaning that sash must take some effort.

Originally I thought I could paint the Crimson Paladins relatively quickly, but this first model has proven me most incorrect in that matter. It's the sub-assemblies that annoy me, but even more it's that the shoulder armour doesn't have a proper mounting location and I can't glue them in place until the arms are done, and they need to be done separately from the torso to reach certain areas without hassle. One of those spots is the sash and rings on which it hangs.

The sash itself is fairly simplistic with building up from a dirty beige to an off-white:

• Steel Legion Drab
• Zandri Dust
• Skeleton Horde (TTC)
• Screaming Skull
• Pallid Wych Flesh

The issue I still have with cloth though is making it look like material. Trying to find references is difficult because photos are always with cheap costumes using nylon: thin, slightly shiny, overly smooth. I want something heavier looking, more durable. Ancient Roman togas is the closest I can find. Even then, the scale means it shouldn't be painted realistic, but instead painted more impressionistic: take the properties and exaggerate them. Durable, thick material will have large woven fibres that can be portrayed by painting always in the same direction to build up a kind of lined grain in appearance. It doesn't always work.

Another problem here is that I'm used to glazing and smoothing between layers, which is _very_ difficult with whiter and lighter coloured paints. It leaves everything looking blotchy and messy far too frequently. Using flow improver instead of water to thin the paint does help, but actually it's simply better to use slightly thicker layers and wet blend instead. Even then it was the Pallid Wych Flesh that brought everything together in the end - it was a total mess before that.

So I still need to find my rhythm for painting cloth.

The hanging straps could be leather, or just more heavy cloth. I painted them with Steel Legion Drab,  Barak-Nar Burgundy, mixed in Warpfiend Grey in some places and The Fang in others, then gave the whole thing a coat of Black Templar (Contrast) mixed with Contrast Medium (about 1:1). I played it fast and loose with the whole thing and may still go back and add scratches and edge highlights, but I'm starting to like using purple-greys with black leather.

As for the armour trim, that's still just Castellax Bronze with a thinned Canoptek Armourshade (1:1 with flow improver) right now. I may highlight after the matt varnish stage of the model, not sure yet.

-- silly painter.

Captain Karlaen Kitbash - Part V

Back to it.

I somehow managed to get a fair amount done on Captain Karlaen recently, although most of that will be revealed later on the front. I'm still focusing on NMM techniques, and learning quite a lot in the process; I haven't cracked cubes yet, but I'm improving on other shapes.

The gold didn't really sit with the vision of what I wanted (it's too yellow) and so I experimented with something else on the hammer. I tried more of a white-gold, but in all honesty it didn't turn out at all. I dislike it so much that I'm not even going to write down the paints used - it's simply too beige, too sandy, and so I'll go back to the prior gold colouring for the rest: the right shoulder obviously need completing, along with the Iron Halo, along with a few odds and ends. Still, when painting the wing shape on the hammer I tried to give more contrast with a darker red in the shadows. This might work if I nudged into more ochre colours, something between yellow and brown and only moving to beige on the brightest reflection points. One mistake I did correct on the fly was when I realised I was painting the red as normal volume highlights without taking into account the angle; the deeper shadows would come from ground bounce light, and given the angle of the hammer this means they spread into the outer areas of each "feather". It's an interesting effect in the end and worth that realisation even if I don't like the overall colouring.

Over the rest of the hammer I stuck mostly to an dark iron / steel, borrowing mostly from the recipe used on Azrakh, but swapping a few colours around as I felt like it. I even tried Barak-Nar Burgundy mixed with the black, but subtle as I tried, the warm colour stood out too much.

Cylindrical shapes are easy when it comes to reflection points. It's mostly a brighter line down the length of the cylinder, some brighter does on the edges at either end. Cubes though, they're harder to make interesting. If they're highly reflective they simply act as mirrors, but with the environment missing then it's hard to show that. I settled for some kind of banding, which actually works better on swords. In future I might simply paint it a single gradient for the most part, or perhaps be a lot more subtle in the gradients, with only contrasting value jumps for the edges and corners.

One of the other techniques I was trying was really to build up highlights from a mid-tone, and then shade down from that same mid-tone. This worked. NMM isn't just about where to highlight, but where to add shadow and darker areas too, and both of these are easier from the mid-tone rather than trying to build up from darkest to brightest. White dots help sell the effect too.

I still don't really like NMM in general for miniatures, but it does work if done properly. It's just very difficult to do properly such that it works from multiple viewing angles. The shoulders don't do this, which is why I stopped. The left one looks amazing from the top, but not as nice from the front or side. The haft actually takes this into account and I have multiple reflection lines with a darker area between, allowing for the effect to be seen from multiple angles. the storm bolter has this slightly, but that's only really of interest when viewed from a certain angle anyway. The shoulders I don't think will work as I originally intended, but at least I'm learning why. I understand the advice from Darren Latham when he remarked in a blog post somewhere to pretend there are four light sources, one in each corner of a square above the model. It's what makes his style work on 3d pieces.

Ultimately I understand that NMM offers contrast and definition, which are critically important for miniature painting, but I also think it's not quite as easy as that. It will look nice in photos - but this isn't a two dimensional medium and that needs to be taken into account. I also like to play with the finish, from matt, to satin, to gloss. I'm convinced that mastering metallics hasn't fully been realised yet, that contrast is still possible with them, and definition. On that note I have two sets of Vallejo's TMM range, so I'll see how that goes on another model.

-- silly painter

 

Blood Angels Champion - Part III

 

He slices, he dices...

Been a few weeks since any update because very good reasons, but I'm back at semi-regular painting again and decided to block in a few colours. There's not a whole lot of painting information really, this is just trying to get a sense of the final look of the model, which itself is often just as important.

The base is very bare right now and definitely will need some attention. Rocks, scrub, a skull or two, and it should be passable, but this kind of model normally deserves something a little better. This basing is chosen to fit with the rest of the army, but Astartes are unlikely to be found in that environment without something else to indicate fortifications, enemy troops, etc; Astartes would not fight across open terrain in such a fashion. They're a surgical strike force that targets the enemy directly and would be susceptible to enemy artillery when trying to combat in the open like that. They would instead be delivered close to the enemy and strike hard and fast, and thus the bases would show signs of something: bricks, pavement, discarded items, tracks, wires, sludge, etc. I'll need to consider it for the other models in the eventual squad as well.

The armour will almost certainly have a final glazing pass after the matt varnish to help it compete against all the metallics. That will be simple enough and I think so far the idea of the airbrush only being used as a foundation to build upon is working well.

The swords will see a splash of colour later, but I do want to keep them quite dark. The brighter colours surrounding the chest and head currently draw attention that way and I'd like to keep that intact if I can.

Steel Legion Drab and Zandri Dust are very similar, especially with the latter covered in Agrax Earthshade, which is good to note for future reference. The former could probably be highlighted with the latter. Too bad both paints are in bad shape for me and will need replacing before too long. They've each lasted some 13 years though, so all things considered I'm happy with them.

The model is shaping up nicely, but I need to keep an eye on the volumes. They will make all the difference between simply good from the details, and great.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Champion - Part II

 

The chest is watching you.

The "Bladeguard" without a shield is painted enough to be fully assembled. I really wanted this done for motivational purposes, but it also helps to better guide the colour scheme, which I haven't yet fully decided upon. The photo is colour adjusted slightly because the gloss varnish reflections washed the colours out too much: the reds are perhaps slightly deeper than in actuality, but it's not too far off.

Airbrushing this model I returned to the tried & true formula of:

• Mephiston Red / Dryad Bark (1:1) base coat.
• Mephiston Red initial highlight.
• Evil Sunz Scarlet second highlight.

Knowing how to thin the paints, build up layers, and control the airbrush more than I once did, the end result was pretty inspiring, but I didn't focus on that being the final steps. I would almost certainly adjust things later with a brush anyway, so I was focused on a foundation to build upon. I went back with a paint brush to add glazes in a few places, but it was relatively minor and didn't take long. With that in mind, it was gloss varnish and shading time.

The shading I did not bother with even trying to panel line. If I'm going to clean up later, why bother? Also there's so much detail that it would've been pointless anyway: just give an overall wash and fix up later if necessary. As it turns out, with one drop of flow improver to one drop of the shade paint (Crimson Carroburg, the more Contrast-like version) and everything just kind of worked. A few minor places weren't quite how I wanted, but even they weren't bad. Using the normal acrylic versions of the airbrush paints and I had everything fixed up, re-highlighted, and even basic edge highlighted in about 20 minutes (speed painting for me).

By this stage there are three rounds of working on the red armour highlights, and yet it's still faster than before. I'm mostly working with glazes and very soft reinforcement of what is already there, and even then the primary reason for not doing everything at the end is that I want to keep the visuals with me as I paint other areas. Painting it last would mean I lose track of the mental end picture and would be making far too mistakes from trying too hard. Lean into layering and glazing to keep the model looking nice, and each subsequent step will be shorter and easier.

I've decided on my normal gold recipe for armour trim, with Castellax Bronze for the filigree and detailing. This should provide colour variation and interest without clashing colours. Cryptek Armourshade mixed with flow improver in a 1:1 ratio gives shading without going too dark. I'm not sure what to do next with that - I don't want to go too bright or colourful, but it needs something to pick out highlights and for definition. Studs are Doom Metal (TTC) with silver initial highlights, but I need to go back in there and push the highlights more while also respecting the volume of the leg. That just means the studs closer to the middle will be highlighted more brightly.

There's obviously a lot of blocking in yet to do, the base needs some attention, and more besides, but I think the pose is striking and this will become one of my nicer models in the end.

-- silly painter.

Crimson Paladin - Part I

 

Fear the Filigree

While starting on the Champion, I also was inspired to assemble a test model for the Crimson Paladins, mostly because they look awesome and I'm convinced I could convert the new Cataphractii into something similar with a moderate amount of effort. I also want to paint up the older models before the new ones make them look out of scale, so there is some time pressure involved.

I originally decided to make the test model the one carrying an assault cannon. The idea here was to avoid sub-assemblies. That didn't exactly go according to plan. The arms do make some places much harder to reach, and it was with great difficulty that I decided it was going to make for a much better finished piece if I painted the arms separately. It got worse from there, because the upper pauldrons don't have anywhere to sit properly on the arms. I will need to use a small ball of putty to get proper surface area for glue to adhere to, but without somewhere to align them this can only be done after the main arm is attached to the body. This probably means I'll need to paint those pauldrons separately as well, and only glue them into place after the arms are, which is going to make aligning highlights a real pain.

After some reflection about the bases, I remembered old Citadel base toppers and how I had created a mould of one. Mixing green-stuff and Milliput because I wanted to see how that would perform, I cast directly on top of a base...and made it far too high! Oops. Maybe this guy is standing on a small mound. Next bases I might simply try to create textured rubble out of the putty mix, push in stones and small cabling for visual interest, along with pieces out of the bits box just to spice things up a little.

I used a very small strip of green-stuff under the feet to better secure the model to the base. Just like how I'll need to attach the pauldrons, this gives great surface area for glue and gives a much more solid connection without the need to pin it in place. Even so, I used too much green-stuff and then had to pad around the feet with texture paint to connect the model with the environment more. In future I might simply push feet into the curing putty for the same effect.

The green-stuff / Milliput mix worked quite well. It definitely gives sharper edges than pure green-stuff, but also a longer curing time and less "rubbery" finish. Sanding is obviously somewhere between the two, and while water can smooth it out the surface it's far less prone to simply liquefying by accident. Green-stuff is still my go-to for the underlying volume, but this mixture will be excellent to sculpt greater detail on top.

Moving on, I finally found time to get out the airbrush and rotate back to my old recipe for red armour, but with the benefit of knowing how to properly thin the paints and build up layers. This definitely shows. The photo absolutely does not properly display the saturation and vibrancy of the model. Even so, I still treated the airbrush as a foundation to build upon and went back over it with a brush to further refine the highlights. This didn't take too long and is better performed before I apply a varnish so that the glazes settle into the grain of the surface and blend more easily.

Next steps will be a gloss varnish and wash to define the shapes, and I'm considering a mix of flow improver and Contrast medium to make that happen, or simply Contrast medium and a damp brush to remove paint from where I don't want it. There's a lot of detail here and panel lining everything doesn't feel like the best approach - that might work for something with larger, clean surfaces, but not where there's very few unbroken panels. The trick will be to shade darker in lower areas, maybe with purple mixed into the usual colour, and then simply a thinner version of the original as I go up the model. I've made a conscious choice to try make the upper model brighter and it would be a shame to ruin that with the shading.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Champion - Part I

 

Looks this pissed without the Black Rage.

I've been assembling a couple of models in the background, having finally decided to get started on some of my "Bladeguard" stand-ins. I don't see the official models as particularly evoking the aesthetic taste of Blood Angels; the official models are simply too generic and lacking the detailing that Blood Angels would surely include on their armour. So I decided to look around for a way to improve upon that and stumbled across the Seraphim Knights from Kromlech. I also bought some shields from Kromlech as they also seemed more ornate than hunting down more official variants. The result is that I have five main bodies, but only three shields. I'd have to do something with a couple of them.

I struck upon the idea of a Champion, dual wielding power swords, striding forward to engage his next target. The body and shoulder pads are from Kromlech, with the left arm from a Primaris upgrade sprue. It has a vial attached with rope that was at the wrong angle for how I positioned the arm, so the vial needed to be removed and reattached, with a little green-stuff to blend it back into the model. It's not visible in the photo above.

The backpack is very plain for now, and I intend to hand paint some filigree there later. I could try sculpt more, but lacking time for such things right now I just wanted to get the model started. I did need to fill in the attachment point of the backpack just because the back of the Kromlech model is a smooth surface and there wouldn't otherwise be anywhere for glue to find purchase. I might need to pin things later anyway as superglue doesn't seem to stick very well to whatever resin Kromlech use.

The helmet in the photo is a stand-in. I'll be using a plain one instead, leaving the squad leader marking for another model.

The right arm ended up being a little more tricky than everything else combined. I found an arm from spares that had roughly the right angle and trimmed away the boltgun and hand. I then found a hand from another spare arm which was holding a knife, which is more suitable to the handling of a sword. There was a lot of careful cutting away to preserve that hand. I then took the power sword from a terminator arm on the Primaris upgrade sprue (which really took a lot of very careful cutting) and glued in place on the hand. Next the bottom of the sword was added, with a small amount of green-stuff to fill gaps and solidify the connection. Next the hand was pinned to the arm at a slight angle to better position the sword how I wanted, and some green-stuff ribbing used to fill the gap. More green-stuff was used together with super-glue to attach the arms to the torso.

The shoulder pads were also attached by using a small amount of green-stuff to give better surface contact for the glue. I was a little impatient in doing this so not everything is perfect, but it's good enough. While I was using green-stuff, I also padded under the feet ever so slightly to give room on the base for later adding texture paints. This avoids trying to keep the texture paint free of the feet to not "bury" them, while allowing for a better connection to the base and more stability on the painting handles. The downside is that I need to be more careful painting the bases themselves, but it will probably be worth the tradeoff.

Now that everything is primed, I'm probably going back to an airbrush soon with my old forumla of painting red (without Contrast) to build up the initial highlights. The photo above will serve as a reference for that, but I'm expecting to need a few manual tweaks later as well. The intent of the airbrushing before was to get the volume highlighting entirely done, but now I'm starting to see it as an initial basis to build upon. this should let me be more free with the airbrushing stage, but I'll want to match paints better so I'll stick to the normal and air ranges of Citadel for that.

-- silly painter

Blood Angels Legion Terminator Praetor - Part VI (Showcase)

 

Fighting in style.

This won't be a long post, mostly because there wasn't a whole lot extra after the last photo and the model is now "done". As always, there's more I could do. I could highlight some of the armour more, make certain edges more apparent, that sort of thing, but also that runs the risk of overdoing it. Enough is done to serve as the basis for other 30k Blood Angels characters.

The metallics I think turned out as I hoped. NMM can be overwhelming on occasion, particularly with gold, but the muted colours here don't overtake the red while still allowing me to add some contrast (see the gorget for example).

Focus is firmly on the head, but the eye can wander and appreciate some of the detail. I also like the power sword using Omega Blue (TTC) to edge highlight. I feel there's more to play around with that yet.

The base worked as intended, even if that particular photo angle doesn't show it. The extra highlighting on the "wings" makes them stand out more than just black, and the Retributor Armour over a golden decal on the right pauldron fits by use of a different golden tint to the rest of the armour.

The only real issue I have with the model is that the cast was so detailed that the layer lines from whatever milling machine was used (I doubt this came from a 3D print) are visible up close. It's really the only time I've seen it on Forgeworld resin. I suspect the model was rushed a bit, even if it's a nice design that really fits thematically with the Blood Angels.

Now I'm off for a little, and when back I need to decide what I'll be working on next. Unlikely to be a new model - I really should try clear my works in progress before I start too many more.

-- silly painter.

Captain Karlaen Kitbash - Part IV

 

Fear me, for I have a big hammer.

In the background I've been working on the Karlaen kitbash, just as I feel like it. I was originally going to paint metallics, but decided to try NMM on this model as well just for the fun of it.

The recipes are no different from more recent explanations, so I won't bother going over them again here. The gold is a little different on the actual model; colour balancing of the photo isn't quite right, and the reflection points are brighter and more white. Even so, the gold trim is probably a little too yellow. I use a base of Balthasar Gold with metallics for a reason: I like the darker gold it gives. I'll probably keep going with this for now though, at least on the armour. I may switch it up for the Thunder Hammer, to try replicate the colours of the metallics there.

I really should have left Karlaen off the base until at least the underside of the cape was painted. That's going to be a bit of a nightmare to get to now.

Obviously a lot to go on this model still. I'm not trying to paint it as my "primary" model, but may have to pick up the pace and get it finished by the end of the year, before I lose interest entirely. Better to have the model finished and be slightly unhappy with it, then sitting unfinished and be very unhappy with it.

-- silly painter.