Custodian Wardens - Part VI (Showcase)

 

Bodyguards looking for body oil.

Finally, done! It wasn't that there was an awful lot left to do, it's just that between work and horrible weather I've never had time or motivation to actually get them done. All finished at last though, standing tall and proud.

It's worth noting that these are large models, larger than Primaris possibly even the newer terminators. They're very imposing but it's really hard to get a feel for that without seeing them in person. A full squad in the middle of another force and you start to get a sense of how mean Custodian Guard can be.

In rounding out the weapons I fell back on my normal black weapon casing formula with with a slight twist:

• Corvus Black base coat over all the black details.
• Eshin Grey to build up initial highlights.
• Abaddon Black glazed into shadows.
• Ulthuan Grey / Eshin Grey (roughly 1:2, but depends) for edge highlights.

I played with the mixes of paint between stages and there was a good deal of back & forth before I had it just how I wanted. Generally the Ulthuan Grey was never used pure: it's too bright on its own and I wanted definition more than anything else.

Silver details are for the most part mixes of Doom Metal (TTC) and Iron Hands Silver. Everything else is covered fairly well in previous posts for the weapons.

The gemstones gave me pause for a while. I was originally going to paint them in a blue or teal colouration, but I decide that was going to stand out too much. One or two gemstones maybe, but all of them and the warmer tones of the armour will clash with the cooler blue too much. I then considered purple but again felt that I wanted more harmony and so went with basically red.

• Gal-Vorbak Red base coat.
• Wazdakka Red around most of the previous coat, but leave a small circular edge darker.
• Wild Rider Red as a crescent generally on the lower part.
• Fire Dragon Bright as a smaller crescent.
• Gal-Vorbak Red / Doom Death Black (TTC) in a circular shape opposite the crescent.
• Doom Death Black (TTC) glazed higher in the circular shape.
• White Star (TTC) reflection dots.
• 'Ardcoat over the gemstone to seal and make it gloss.

That's quite a lot for items to small. With everything on the wet palette it's much easier, and the TTC paints were chosen specifically for their thinning ability and slightly longer drying time. They have a matt finish but that gets pained with a gloss varnish anyway.

For the knuckles I decided they were simply far too small to bother going so far with and so I used Omega Blue (TTC) there and a few other places. That particular paint is quite vibrant and what else to say - it was a spur of the moment thing and I just went with it.

These are definitely worth the investment to paint them up to a high standard, and the marble basing suits them very well. I have a few more Adeptus Custodes in the backlog still, including Ixion Hale. I'm sorely tempted to start on his assembly. Maybe I'll just go find the box and see.

-- silly painter.

Custodian Wardens - Part V

 

So very shiny.

It's been a few weeks since the last post, which is an annoying consequence of incredibly busy work, alongside some other duties keeping free time at an absolute minimum. At last though I managed to finish up the armour on all models and fully assemble them. This makes them around ninety percent complete but for all the little details (gemstones in particular remain).

Since the last time, the remaining step has been to add a more extreme highlight to all the "gold" detailing. I wanted certain parts to stand out slightly more, such as the chest design in the picture above. This isn't about extreme edge highlights (which I can certainly still do) but a subtle brightness shift to pick them out more. Canoptek Alloy was the paint of choice here: thinned to an light glaze consistency because the paint has very good coverage and used to brighten specific areas. I mostly concentrated on "lines" of filigree and the chest.

I could go back and deepen recesses or add brighter highlight points, or more besides, but I figured enough is enough and they look about how I wanted. With everything being the same colour (more or less) then detailing isn't intended to stand out heavily. A conscious decision on my part to reveal more detail the longer you look rather than having it jump out straight away.

The silver components are just two colours in the end: Doom Metal (TTC) and Iron Hands Steel. The former for a base coat, followed by a mix of the two for initial highlights, and then the latter for final highlights. These areas are small and don't need many colours to make them work.

The top-knot is another three-colour scheme, which is chosen to ensure the gold isn't overshadowed by highlights elsewhere and also just to make it easier! Mephiston Red base coat, Shyish Purple (Contrast, thinned a little) as a wash concentrated underneat, and then thinly highlight with Evil Sunz Scarlet. This is brighter than the the lower parts of the model, but with a satin finish that contrasts against the armour to give it a different look.

The weapon has taken some thought. For now it's based coated with pick-your-black over most parts (the grip was painted previously so wasn't touched) and the blade left from airbrushing. I wanted a power weapon feel but without the lightning patterning commonly used (personal preference, I generally don't like it) so ultimately went with a combination of Doom Metal (TTC), Omega Blue (TTC), and Grey Knights Steel. The latter paint is darker than you might think so I was using that to shade more than anything else and pure Omega Blue for most of the edge highlights. Doom Metal mixes well with either and was used to help create shadowed parts or otherwise generally define the shape of the blade.

The blade additionally has wing designs which normally I've seen painted gold. I tried that and then glazed the blue metallics over the top to represent glow from the blade: this definitely works but still didn't seem to fit. Reasoning that the wing design is essentially the power node from other power weapons I simply base coated with Grey Knights Steel, highlighted to a pure Omega Blue on the tips, and used Drakenhoft Nightshade to add definition. The axe looks reasonable here but I'm not yet sold on the spears. I suspect I'll not be happy with anything and will end up leaving it as-is.

The gold on the weapons I've been playing around with a lot just to see if I could approximate the main armour but with far less effort. I think I've stumbled onto something acceptable: Balthasar Gold base, followed by Reikland Fleshshade (Seraphim Sepia normally but in this case I wanted a slight red tint to tie into the other reddish parts), then a mix of the base coat with Retributor Armour and finally mixing in Canoptek Alloy for the last highlights.

The weapon needs the black to be worked with some more yet, and aforementioned gemstones, some cabling and other sundry details, but they are definitely started to look like they'll be finished soon. Not that soon however because I'll be away for a couple of weeks again. I hope after I'm back I can find the time to sit down and complete these models so that I might then move onto the next project.

-- silly painter

Custodian Wardens - Part IV

 

No, the axe is not for chopping firewood.

It's taken some time to do not much visibly on account of very little time to paint, and what time there has been was spent getting every other model in the squad to the same level. Nearly. Unbelievably, I'm still not done with armour yet either.

Mostly highlighted as described before, I'm still going to pick out some areas with a heavily thinned Canoptek Alloy. This is a very strong paint normally and I don't want it to overpower what's there, but the detailing isn't standing out quite as much as I would like just yet. I will need to be very careful to not ruin everything.

The helmet lenses are really simple:

• Wazdakka Red
• Rust Orange (TTC) within the red.
• Fire Dragon Bright as a final highlight.

I did go back in with a black to outline where the red went outside the edges, but that wasn't always necessary. I didn't bother with white reflection dots - the lenses are barely visible as it is, anything more isn't really adding anything to the model.

The faceplate is simply Iron Warriors covered with Iron Hands Steel. I wanted a very polished look and didn't bother with any fancy gradients or shading. Other steel / silver areas have Doom Metal (TTC) for shading, but I'll reserve more extreme highlight points for the weapon most likely.

Finally (this is a short post) Flesh Tearers Red was used to fill in the gaps on the pauldrons and introduce more colour to break up the monotony there. I thinned it and used a couple of layers to build it up. I'm not sure it worked quite as nicely as if I'd used something else base and layer up highlight points, but I wanted to try something different and it fulfils the original purpose.

There are still a few details to go before I turn my attention to the weapons, but they are coming along nicely. I just hope everything else begins to calm down enough to let me finish these models without too much more delay.

-- silly painter

Custodian Wardens - Part III

 

Seen some shit.

This is a shorter post about more than just the Custodian Wardens, but concerns faces in general. There's only one model in the set that I've assembled without a helmet, and that was purely because I thought it suited the silhouette better.

To start with, the sculpt lends itself to older white haired look. It really does for some reason - it just has that grizzled veteran vibe. Obviously the Custodian Guard do age, so I would assume this guy has been at it for a very long time and has witnessed a lot. He's also very well groomed.

Painting the face actually used comparatively few paints. I started off with Night Lords Blue but didn't exactly go for complete coverage. A little patchy in areas is ok as it will give a more natural look in the end. Barak-Nar Burgundy was next, leaving the previous colour in the recessed areas and just kind of sketching out the shapes. These colours were chosen for no other reason than they were on the palette at the time, but that's again something that gives a more natural look: not every person has exactly the same skin tone, and it's the variation in models that make them look realistic.

Barbarian Brawn and Dwarven Flesh, both TTC paints, were then used to build up the skin tones by mixing in previous colours and highlighting up as I went along. The deeper recesses and lower parts of the face predominantly used Night Lords Blue mixed in to give colder shadows, while Barak-Nar Burgundy faded out from there and was also more apparent to the sides of the head. Final highlights are pure Dwarven Flesh, glazed into place: nose, upper cheeks, and the forehead. I made a conscious choice to keep the front of the face brighter and this really sells the look. It helps define the shape of the head and keep attention where it should be.

The beard and hair is Trooper White, another TTC paint, which is also the "whites" of the eyes. The iris is just Night Lords Blue, and I did not even try to put in a black pupil. I did mix in some of the blue and burgundy into the white for initial hair colouring, moving more to the blue later. I used very little pure Trooper White for the hair; (barely) a hint of another colour is sufficient to make it look more natural.

I stopped about there. I could make the skin tone brighter, but that might clash with the hair and the skin was looking sufficiently leathery by this stage. I just added eyebrows then blue tinted cabling around the head and glued it in place.

Guardian Spear with built-in boltgun, but still wants to use a knife.

This model is not really fully assembled quite yet. The pauldrons and cape are just resting in place right now so that I can easily access some of the still visible parts of the model, but I do get a good feel of how everything will look in the end - and I'm happy with how that's going. I still need to highlight the armour on this model (and most of the others). Next models I'm definitely not going to go quite this hardcore on.

-- silly painter.

Custodian Wardens - Part II

 

Wonder if he washes his own cloak.

While the armour still hasn't received final highlights, I have managed to figure out the other major piece of the model: the cape / cloak / whatever. It took me a while to come up with an idea for that, and actually I had something in mind when I saw something similar from Trovarion.

The idea is that while it can go vibrant, it shouldn't look reflective. The shadows are are cooler and tend towards blue or purple, where the highlights are the warmer tones of a red. This gives contrast and readability while still looking softer, possibly like velvet. I did not want to use simply darker red or black for shadows and nor did I think a wash was appropriate. In the end it was just three paints:

• Barak-Nar Burgundy base coat.
• Night Lords Blue / Barak-Nar Burgundy (1:1) in the shadowed areas, basically anything facing down. The ratios aren't exact: more blue in the deeper recesses, more burgundy glazed into lighter areas.
• Mephiston Red build up for the highlights. Mixing this with a hint of Barak-Nar Burgundy helps transition in places to the purer red which is mostly reserved for upwards facing surfaces higher up.

I'm not sure if a brighter red is suitable or not and so haven't added anything more quite yet. I can always do that later once the helmet is in place and the armour highlighted more.

Rather obviously the model is glued to a base now. I haven't pinned the model in place but something tells me I should have. I'll think about it if they ever come off. Ideally I should have aligned the legs and drilled holes before putting the topper in place but it was too late to do that by the time I'd thought of it. Maybe next time.

The leather braces I straight up stole from a Duncan Rhodes video:

• Doombull Brown
• Nuln Oil
• Doombull Brown glazed into some volume highlights again.
• Rust Orange TTC (or Squig Orange from Citadel, but mine had all dried up) to edge highlight.

Very simple and yet effective. The weapon grips were similar:

• Doombull Brown
• Carroburg Crimson
• Rust Orange to highlight
• Doombull Brown glazed over the highlights to knock them back slightly.

I still have the rest of the squad to complete all of these steps for and so I suspect the next update might take another week or two. Everything is just slow going right now. At least the hard part is over and I think I can just paint without thinking of how to do each little detail.

-- silly painter.

Custodian Wardens - Part I

 

Probably buried his head in the sand.

Rather unfortunately, I had assembled some Custodian Wardens earlier in the year and was always planning to paint them alongside some of the 30k models. Or maybe fortunately: I wouldn't be painting them at all with the crass bullshit being delivered in 30k Custodes.

I'll not go much into it other than: the way it was handled was pathetic, and the new designs with boob armour are again taking away choice. Give people head swap options, don't force specific ideologies onto everyone. I'll grab that dreadnought probably, heavily convert it, but the agenda driven troops have turned me right off the whole faction. On a side note, I'd been eyeing off Daughters of Khaine and now they're going the prude route and destroying the entire character of the faction.

Anyway, onto painting. There's not a whole lot done so I'll try be quick about it (note: glossy armour doesn't show up nicely in the photos I take, but the actual model does look much better). The first few layers use an airbrush:

• Dryad Bark Air to cover the entire model. This will serve as the basic shadow colour, but also helps give a richer gold tone rather than applying the gold direct over a black primer.
• Balthasar Gold Air over most of the model, leaving only the direct downward facing surfaces as Dryad Bark. The gold is best thinned and applied in multiple layers - which goes the same for everything following.
• Valdor Gold Air as a mostly Zenithal coat. This isn't entirely apparent, more or less makes the model a little more desaturated, but it still helps the next layers.
• Thallax Gold Air mostly covering the Zenithal, but letting it bleed into other areas if they were missed before. Thin coats is still the name of the game. This colour in particular really gives a rich golden colour to work with.
• Imperial Gold Shade (Vallejo TMM), applied with a brush. This paint helps give definition but does shift the colour very slightly. It works best when covering an entire surface but then encouraging the pigment towards recesses. It can be feathered off larger surfaces if necessary.
• Cryptek Armourshade Gloss, thinned at least 1:1 (if not more) with acrylic flow improver and then used to further define some of the shapes. I mostly guided this around recesses considered to be "underneath". Try not to let this pool too heavily because the gloss nature of the paint will be at odds for a shadow area. I may try to use Warplock Bronze for wing designs to give darker contrast to recessed parts without the extreme gloss of the shade, and then build that up through the gold layers. I'll think on that one.
• Thallax Gold Air / Liberator Gold mixed roughly 1:1 and glazed for initial highlights. I intend to work up to pure Liberator Gold at a later stage, but haven't done that yet.

The cloth is for the moment just Barak-Nar Burgundy, which will be the shadow colour and I'll highlight up to a red afterwards. Even this colour could perhaps be mixed with black to really deepen the folds - something to explore.

And that's really it. The shading and glazed highlight stages take quite a long time and so most of the rest of the squad are still waiting on those steps.

I played with feeding Omega Blue (TTC range metallic) through the airbrush with thinner and learned that while it does work, don't just use thinner. Use at least equal amounts of flow improver to stop it being so watery. While yes this did work and would be great for essentially airbrush glazing (I do have some ideas of where to take that), it took a few layers to build up a strong base colour. If doing that, just use a brush.

That's about all for now. For reasons, I won't be able to post for another two, possibly three weeks and then it'll be probably back to Sons of Horus assault troops.

-- silly painter.

Allarus Custodians - Part IV (Showcase)

Shoulder pads that are nigh Exterminatus-proof.

 Well I managed to get them finished a little bit quicker than I originally anticipated, if later then I wanted. They were both easier and more difficult to paint than I was thinking when I started, with the difficulty ultimately coming down to subtle decisions about precisely which colours to use where, and what scheme to go with. Ultimately I'm satisfied with the gold - it's different from how I paint Blood Angels, yet still golden armour and something that would hopefully transfer onto the rest of my Custodes (one day).

I'll begin with the base. Unusually for a photo, I decided to show how I was holding the models in place one I had glued them to the base - and yes, Blu-Tac, or whatever derivative/alternate name. During previous steps I had notice that the bases bent ever so slightly when clipped into the holder and was concerned that this might crack the superglue keeping everything in place. So I had to improvise. Not the best, but didn't have much further to go and so it was...alright.

I tried the now infamous "wet-wipe" approach to a marbling effect on the bases, first trying it out on some thick cardboard. Black undercoat, cover with a pulled wet-wipe, followed by Russ Grey and Wraithbone. At this point I'd decided it wouldn't work for me with the bases directly, but enough places on the cardboard seemed good enough that I could use it directly. I also didn't want single pieces, so cut it up into squares, superglued these onto the bases to form marble tiles, and then trimmed the edges to fit. I also thinned down some blacks on the wet palette to add some more distinct lines in places. Ultimately it's good enough, but in future I may well go back to just doing everything by hand. The wet-wipe approach does serve as a good reference to work from however, which is worth considering too.

Ropes are a muted white, and I decided this was good enough. I didn't want them too bright lest they start to look reflective:

• Base of Celestra Grey over all the ropes.
• Basilicanum Grey Contrast over that.
• Using a thin brush, highlight the ropes again with Celestra Grey.
• Ulthuan Grey applied with a fine tipped brush to complete the highlights.

Pteruges had an edge highlight of Doombull Brown mixed with Evil Sunz Scarlet and stippled / striped in key places. I never wrote down what was done before that unfortunately - some browns, highlighted with rust tones, before the final look. Not terribly impressed with how they all turned out so no great loss - I'll try again next time and come up with something else.

Leather straps are borrowed from a previous model:

Thondia Brown over the leather areas.

Gorthor Brown used for some highlighting.

Gorthor Brown / Celestra Grey (1:1) mixed and used for scratches and general wear and tear lines.

Thondia Brown / Abaddon Black (1:1) thinned heavily and added to recessed areas, just because I was too lazy to dig out the Agrax Earthshade for what would be the same effect.

The top knots were quite simple in the end:

• Mephiston Red over the entire top knot.
• Wild Rider Red to highlight some areas.
• Carroburg Crimson to shade the entire area.
• Wild Rider Red to highlight important areas more, if required.
• Flesh Tearers Red Contrast applied to generally darker areas, and then feathered out from there.

These are impressive models, no two ways about it. They each have a lot of character about them, and the armour is festooned with detail. Quite glad I'm finally able to add them to the "finished" collection, but there remain many more of their brethren to paint up yet.

-- silly painter.

Allarus Custodians - Part III

 

The Caped Custodian.

After a little bit of a getaway, I'm back and picking up the brushes again. So while not a whole lot of progress has been done since last time, there are enough little pieces to note down what has been done.

To start with, the armour has been highlighted on this model. It doesn't really look that way in the photo, and indeed it's subtle, but sometimes subtle stands out more. I toyed with a few things but ended up with:

• Canoptek Alloy / Liberator Gold (1:1) mix for an initial highlight, mostly along "feathers" of the various eagle designs, and edges. Liberator Gold alone has the wrong hue and doesn't match the gold armour, so here it's mostly used to saturate the Canoptek Alloy slightly.
• Canoptek Alloy for edge highlights, or anything that should stand out in particular.

For what I take to be either shield generators, or some kind of power reactor on the back:

• Warplock Bronze base coat.
• Castellax Bronze to highlight, with a fair amount of mixing with the previous colour to get the transitions just right.
• Canoptek Alloy for edges.

Obviously I'm enjoying Canoptek Alloy quite a bit here. It's a remarkably versatile paint and can be used for bright edges where a silver simply doesn't fit.

Gemstones I have to guess at. I wrote it down at the time, but have since lost the piece of paper. So this is a guess but should be close:

• Night Lords Blue across the gemstone.
• Sotek Green across about half the gemstone.
• Ahriman Blue as a sort of edge highlight.
• Abaddon Black, or Nuln Oil to darken the opposite side. This step isn't always necessary, especially for smaller gemstones.
  
• Corax White for a reflection dot.
• 'Ardcoat gloss varnish at the end.

The blues tending more towards aqua are a bit of a running theme for these models: I used Talassar Blue, Aethermatic Blue, a little Baharroth Blue, and some Guilliman Blue (the old glaze paint) for the power field effect on the weapon. I tend to give it more colour towards edges and points, and use stripe motions or drybrushing for a weapon in motion. The model shown here is not swinging his weapon, so it's a smoother appearance.

And the cape. I played around on another model to try get a feel for how to paint soft material, and initially tried stippling, dabbing with a drybrush, and glazing, but in the end most of that was simply wasted. Cloth does not highlight with smooth transitions like hard surfaces, so drybrushing works really well. It also doesn't desaturate from reflectivity, so the choice of highlight colour really matters too. In the end I'm going with:

• Dryad Bark / Mephiston Red (1:1) through the airbrush, all over the cape. Most of this is going to show through, so two coats to give an even finish might be needed.
• Word Bearer's Red, drybrushed very gradually and slowly built up in desired areas. Really take some time with this step: rushing will ruin it. Dabbing motions can also be used if the paint isn't quite so dry.
  
• Mix a very slight amount of Ulthuan Grey with Word Bearer's Red (and not much at all is needed - if in doubt, use less Grey) and drubrush this onto more prominent folds.
• Agrax Earthshade stippled, dabbed, and glazed into deeper recesses.
• Druchii Violet stippled, dabbed, and glazed across mid-tone areas to give some variation.

The capes will be matt varnished before being glued into place. In the photo above it's simply staying there, but isn't yet glued. The varnish step will help to differentiate the texture from metallic gloss that much more.

I'm not sure yet quite how to paint the top-knot. Red as a primary colour seems like it might be suitable, but too bright or saturated and it will take attention away from the rest of the model. There are still small details like the vents on the back that need finishing, the weapons, and various other items of interest. The base I will do as white marble.

In other words, still a lot to go on these models - at least two more blog posts, perhaps even three, but there is progress.

-- silly painter.

Allarus Custodians - Part II

 

This guy means business.

Progress on the Allarus Custodians, with some assembly having taken place. The above photo has the cape and left arm only temporarily held in place just for giving an impression of how the model is turning out, but all other components are glued in.

On the subject of glue, I used superglue for the head. This was a mistake. I should have masked out the attachment point and used plastic cement instead, because superglue can cause frosting in surrounding areas. I don't see it much, and it's probably something to do with the particular metallics used, but it gave the face a hefty amount of white stubble that I had to correct. More on the painting the face in a moment.

The armour was finished mostly as I intended before.

• Thallax Gold / Air Caste Thinner (1:1 ratio) applied through the airbrush. Even thinned, Thallax Gold is quite an intense colour, so I tried to be a little careful about how I applied it.
• Reikland Fleshshade (Gloss) added to recessed areas, and glazed into darker or shadowed areas. The gloss shades can be used as a glaze on metallic paints - they're thinner than normal shades, and are quite well suited to the surface created by metallics.
• Cryptek Armourshade (Gloss) added to deeper recessed, or used to outline details. I considered using Nuln Oil, but instead went for something quite dark without being black just to keep a slightly warmer tone overall.

One of the bonuses from the gloss shades is that they act similar to a varnish. The Thallax Gold was rubbing off rather easily when handling the model, but with the shades applied that seems to have fixed the problem. I was experimenting with varnishes on minor areas, using Stormshield in thin coats to see how much it would dull the look. That's an acceptable, if time consuming, alternative, but no need if the shades protect it enough.

The armour is not yet finished. I intend to keep painting enough until full assembly, and then do edge and spot highlights. It might take a little while before I get to that stage: the cloaks I'm not sure of and will have to experiment on a test model first.

The face I decided to do in a darker skin tone. There's no particular reason other than I haven't done that before and saw no reason not to try, but I'm very pleased with how it turned out and how much character the face now has. Never having done dark skin tones before, I used mostly what was on the palette:

• Eyes first, with Corax White and Abaddon Black. I find it much easier to paint the eyes before the skin tones, rather than trying to no get white outside the the lines later on.
  
• Rhinox Hide applied across all the face (except the eyes of course!).
• Barak-Nar Burgundy mixed with a little Rhinox Hide, added to the areas I wanted shaded. A little back and forth with the mixing here, just to blend it in, or pull it back if it was a little too purple for my liking.
• Mephiston Red mixed with Rhinox Hide, added along the lips. Using Mephiston Red is difficult - it's a very pure red - so some other colour in future might be a little easier to get the right tone with.
• Rhinox Hide mixed with Abaddon Black (being the black on the palette) and glazed over the top to give the impression of a shaved head. This took a little bit to get the tone just right, but I think it worked out well enough.
• Cadian Fleshtone mixed with Rhinox Hide and used to highlight the nose, cheeks, ears, chin, upper lip, temples, and brows. Glaze consistency and multiple coats worked best rather than trying to go bright all in one go. I could push the contrast a little more, but with decent lighting it's enough that I don't want to mess with it more.

I may have glued the head with a little too much turn to it, but I he is looking where he's pointing (or starting to point) so it's not so bad.

As a final little hidden tip: the cowling was glued in place with PVA glue before the head was done. This allowed priming and airbrushing to be done on it, and for it to be easily popped off and glued properly once the head was then more easily put in place.

 -- silly painter.

Allarus Custodians - Part I

 

Shiny armour to blind the enemy with.

Having multiple projects on the go at once will probably mean it will take some time to get any particular one finished, but it's also an opportunity to play with a lot of different colours. Also, the Allarus Custodians look really nice.

I decided to go for a golden armour, and generally stick to the reference colours, but with my own approach on getting there. Knowing I want golden armour gives me a chance to try out various airbrush paints, but it took a little thought on what I would try; I didn't want to simply repeat the formula I used on various Blood Angels, instead looking for a way to make an older looking armour, something of a burnished, earthen gold.

First step is, as usual, a black primer. Following that, although there's still at least one more airbrush step to go:

• Balthasar Gold (Air). This is an excellent starting colour, and a bit of care was taken to get good coverage. As a darker brown tone it serves well to keep it in the recessed areas.
• Valdor Gold (Air). An interesting colour. It's almost like a very heavily de-saturated version of the previous step. I'm still considering if it might be useful as a final highlight later - it's quite a thin paint naturally, and doesn't give the coverage over black, but is a little too de-saturated to use as a midtone. I intended it to serve as a lighter colour for helping highlight a later step (not yet done).
• Agrax Earthshade. Using an airbrush here because I wanted to put some colour back into shaded areas. This ends up almost a beaten brass in appearance, which is something to remember for future reference. It's this step that makes the photo above look a little strange with the highlighting, but a later step is intended to correct that.
• Nuln Oil (Gloss). By adding some black to deeper recessed areas, or used more for outlining, I'm hoping the later step won't entirely obscure those areas and keep definition and depth. Although I generally don't like gloss in recesses, in this case the paint simply flowed much easier without staining raised surfaces. Some areas may need to outlined again later anyway.

The missing step is a coat of Thallax Gold. This will shift the colour back into more yellow gold, for which reason I intend to thin it slightly before applying through the airbrush.

Paintbrush highlights are almost certainly going to be done with Liberator Gold, and maybe a few edge highlights with Stormhost Silver.

These are really fun models.

-- silly painter.