Blood Angels Furioso Dreadnought - Part VI (Showcase)

 

"That one. I want to crush that one."

The last of the old school dreadnoughts in my collection is now done. I say that, but it's taking a lot of effort to not put some wear & tear on those power fists - but I'm concerned that if I start there then I won't know where to stop.

There's nothing new painting-wise. It's just edge highlighting over the matt varnish, some metallic highlights to bring back shine there, and a little gloss varnish in places. The edge highlights on the armour were not done with my good brushes and I needed to be more careful after some early mistakes. I've intentionally left the feet without much in the way of edge highlights to make sure most of the attention is drawn to the upper area, predominantly the torso.

Interestingly enough the one part I like the least is the searchlight on the right shoulder. It's just yellow and boring. I don't go back over these sorts of things and instead let them serve as a reminder of what to avoid for future models - really I should just use an orange contrast or something to darken that area and give it some depth.

Some of the decals didn't work as nicely as I would have liked. That's just cheap decals more than anything else. The older ones are susceptible to this kind of thing, and it would've taken a lot more effort to get rid of the translucent outline, so I'm just leaving it. My own printed decal however fits in perfect, and once painted over really does make up for poor free-hand writing skills. Only downside is that I actually need to print them out - and I didn't have "FURY" available, making that a rather poor effort. Maybe I was just wanting the model done my now instead of doing everything proper - there appear to be a lot of "this should have been better" in this reflection.

Some things did turn out rather nicely in the end. The white wings are white, and the contrast paints did their job perfectly. Whether or not it fits in the general aesthetic (generally in my opinion: yes), they turned out just as I wanted them. Scroll colouring was the best I've ever done on the left leg. Experimenting with metallics also worked out nicely - I still have some mastering to do there, but I think an overall improvement compared to just shiny and silver. I also think the colour and value of base balances nicely against the the dreadnought and still looks different enough compared to his brothers. Oh, and there's a little blue gemstone that turned out really well. It just about glows. I like that bit.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Furioso Dreadnought - Part V

 

Frag it.

This won't be a long post; mostly this is just to show the frag cannon.

The alternate arm has been painted in line with everything else, but I'm still not sure how to attach it. I could just leave it be: the arms fit snugly together as it is, but there's still that pesky matter of storage. The only real thing stopping me from adding magnets is that I'm not sure how to attach them reliably here; the arms don't have slots for magnets and I would need to build up something with putty - itself would have been more suitable during initial assembly.

There's nothing particularly out of the ordinary for painting the frag cannon arm. Reliable, trustworthy painting already achieved elsewhere, although I'm not sure about the targeting lens. It might look better after varnishing. The ammo feed was actually painted before assembly just to make it easier to reach the storage bin (even if it makes virtually no sense to externally feed the ammo to begin with). The arm is rather surprisingly far more simplistic than it otherwise might seem, and was much easier to paint then anything else. It doesn't hurt that I'm not trying to paint every little rivet a different colour.

This last of the Furioso series that I'm painting is not far off from being done now. There still needs to be a matt varnish over everything, followed by final metallic highlights to restore shine, and final armour edge highlights for definition. I'm sure a few minor details later too (gloss varnish across gemstones and lenses comes to mind). I just need to find the spare time to actually finish everything - and spare time is in very short supply right now.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Furioso Dreadnought - Part IV

 

"I am their doom."

Next on the list of models started long ago but not yet finished is the Furioso Dreadnought. There hasn't been a whole lot new on the legs and torso, so instead this will focus on the arms.

Even then there isn't much to really say. I'm painting the arms. I'm also trying to figure the best way for at least the right arm to be removable and a frag cannon used (the alternate arm that I'm also painting up). It will no doubt involve magnets, but the arms are hollow and I need to figure out the best way to secure them. Unless I simply stick with using the push-fit nature of the arm connectors to hold everything and not worry about ease of swapping things out. Much thought to be had.

Most of the metallics on the arms are so far:

• Doom Metal
• Iron Warriors
• Iron Hands

I think this works better than simply sticking to a wash for definition, but the blending can be hit & miss. I'll keep at it. Still undecided on what I'll do after varnishing - re-highlight with Iron Hands, or edge highlights with Ironbreaker.

The melta gun received the same yellow and white treatment prior to Blood Angels Red as was used on the boarding actions terrain. I was curious how it might look in a different setting - if it might look like the glow of a heat based weapon, or just like a bit of warning light. While I'm not sure I achieved the hot glow effect (a little more white in the middle perhaps - or yellow), it does look nice either way. Not that it makes sense for such a glow to be coming from the sides of the barrel. On the notes of barrels of meltaguns, flamers, and heat weapons: very thin layers (almost glazing) of any bronze or brass metallic separates them from grey metals while still leaning into the bronze/brass look I give fuel canisters for such weapons. Never underestimate glazing with metallics - it's surprisingly more useful that one might think.

I made a very small blue gemstone on the right arm to break the monotony of red everywhere. It's just a little visual interest. The surrounding ones I suppose I should do purple - but there still remains some others that I'll be painting up as red (again notably on the right arm).

Some of the cabling is Incubi Darkness with Black Templar over the top, using water on the brush to thin it ever so slightly and settle further off raised edges. Another way of giving subtle rubberised colour to "black" cables.

Some smaller details remain, the base needs a little more work (even if it's just a wash between stones), and then the varnish stage. How quickly I get it done depends on other matters, but I'm hoping it won't be too long before this dreadnought joins his brothers in the fight.

-- silly painter.

Legions Imperialis - Leviathan Siege Dreadnoughts

 

His name is "Plod".

These had been sitting in the prepared stage for a few weeks, and I finally got around to finishing them off. It didn't take long once I'd decided on a few colour choices.

These models I went with a simple black primer and then built up layers of Typhon Ash for highlights. Instead of immediately going for the next colour step, I decided to edge highlight with white first. The theory was that this would show through more than the Typhon Ash and give proper edge highlights without needing to colour match the Terradon Turquoise. It kind of worked, but I ended up cleaning a few placed with Lupercal Green anyway, so I'm not sure it was worth the effort. Gloss varnish and Black Legion with flow improver worked a treat as always for recess shading. I touched that up very slightly later with thinned black where necessary, but only where it was going to make a strong visual difference.

One of the major changes from previous attempts was to only edge highlight the black, without trying to perform any volumetric highlights. This saved a lot of effort and particularly with black isn't really noticeable compared to more detailed highlighting anyway. I do like how the green turned out, which for these dreadnoughts makes a difference because of the large, flat surfaces of the body - but even on the legs it's not really very noticeable. For "normal" troops, as I've previously considered, it's just not worth such attempts at all.

I am a dreadnought and I'm digging a hole...diggy diggy hole.

likewise with the metallics it's not worth putting in much effort. For this scale, edge highlights are everything - base, wash, maybe additional definition on raised areas if necessary.  I went with darker silvers because of the darker overall palette, and limited Runelord Brass to add variation where I wanted to break things up a bit, such as the hood over the head. A relatively small brush and light touches, and not even a wash is needed afterwards. 

The eyes are Troll Slayer Orange. I did do a very minor amount of volumetric highlights on the helmet simply because it's a focal point and helps to frame the eyes.

Not much else to say on these. Very quick to paint, mostly because I'm only aiming for a tabletop standard, but the end result is still rather solid and they look impressive enough when grouped together. Next are some more tanks, which I hope to have done by the end of the year - if I get time enough with the airbrush.

-- silly painter.

Legions Imperialis - Deredeo Dreadnoughts

 

Oreo Dreadnought

(Warning: long day, a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes below no doubt, and I can't be bothered to proof read and find them.)

Pursuing more testing of small scale Legions Imperialis, I've managed to work on some Deredeo Dreadnoughts. They're honestly not my favourite design, just personal preference, but do provide some interesting shapes to serve as a test platform.

For these I opted to try a base coat of Night Lords Blue with Typhon Ash kind of Zenithal'd over the top. I put some extra emphasis on the upper body area, the upper missile racks, and the base of the legs. I also drybrushed Wraithbone over the top because I felt like I hadn't gone bright enough and wanted to try and catch some edges - but edge highlighting on models this size are rather pointless to do everywhere. A gloss varnished followed by flow improver mixed with Black Legion sorted out the shading, which actually isn't too visible aside from around the legs. It's still easy enough to do that I think I'll keep this step.

Black Legion was again used to base all of the black areas, and I still prefer that paint over anything else when doing this. The pigment count is very high and the paint consistency works well even over the gloss varnish. Troll Slayer Orange for the eyes to try and make them stand out, but they're barely visible at any sort of distance.

I did try some fluro acrylic paint, but that was a complete mess. The consistency was wrong, opacity was wrong, everything about it was just wrong for this usage - but that's what you get for using canvas paints on little models. It was worth the experimentation to see if it might be useful in future, but I think I'll stick to dedicated miniature paints for now.

Back to the black details and initially I was trying to do some volumetric highlights, but my patience was wearing thin. Lack of time to paint coupled with not really liking the model, and eventually I just stopped and instead only went with edge highlighting. Here's the biggest takeaway from this test: other than boxy tanks, and perhaps even not then, it's simply not worth trying to do volumetric highlights on this sort of scale. Save it for the Titans and larger vehicles. Anything smaller than a tank, just use a solid base coat and edge highlights to make it readable. It will give a cleaner look, take less time, and be far more impressive on the tabletop.

When Rifleman from Battletech goes grimdark.

The other major mistake on these was just a little playing about with Runelord Brass. I put Spiritstone Red over the top of that for the missile rack sensor array. It's a nice colour, it works well standalone, but it's far too bright here and attracts all the attention even with a matt varnish.

Lastly, I still need some practice with the airbrush. I suspect I didn't leave enough time between coats of Terradon Turquoise, which resulted in a grainy appearance instead of the smooth finish that I'd like. Practice will help I'm sure. The next models on my list (more dreadnoughts) I'm going to try give white edge highlights before that step, just to see if it will show through.

And no, I'm not drilling out those gun barrels.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Furioso Dreadnought - Part III

Armless maybe, but harmless not.

Not too much to say here other than I'm starting to fill in some colours on the body of the last "boxnought" dreadnought. There are a few details remaining, but I can soon start on the arms I think.

The sarcophagus is the part that really brings everything to life (as is natural for a dreadnought), but it's also one of the simpler things to paint here. There's nothing fancy beyond my normal approaches, and I'm following the box art fairly closely. I forgot to put some silver around the side gems, which I'll need to very carefully do later, but the one "cheat" I suppose is actually the side cabling. I'm not using multiple different colours, no fancy hazard stripes, just all metallics, black, or some variation thereof. I used to take far too much time selecting appropriate cable colours, and now I kind of don't bother without a very good reason. It's simply a time saver.

The armour I'm still highlighting gently in places. The airbrushing back then did most of the work, but was lacking in a few key areas, most notably the feet. I'm concentrating most of the manual touch-up around them. I'm also leaning into highlighting lower panes of flat surfaces to give more depth and shape to then, and I think it does help. It's possibly not very physically accurate, but it looks nice and helps readability.

The base I'm going for another marbling look, but with perhaps some more weathering added later on. I think I know why some previous attempts never turned out quite right and so this time I'm going to work slightly in reverse: the thin marbling lines will be added next, and then some of the more gentle striations. This should prevent the thing lines from overpowering everything, and blending them in more. I find marbling to be about subtlety more than anything else.

And that's about all for now. The metallic surfaces haven't had additional highlights yet, and I might wait until after varnishing for that, or I could do some basic highlights first, then pick out details again afterwards. I'll see how motivated I am.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Furioso Dreadnought - Part II

 

He can always headbutt - and win.

I was motivated to do a little more of the Furioso, so thought it about time to do an update. Some of it has actually been sitting a while and was done alongside the Librarian.

Firstly, the left shin name plate I'm particularly proud of. I didn't change how I paint it at all, but everything came together almost perfectly - it was the shadowed upper area that I noticed early on and leaned into, matching the highlighting elsewhere on the model. I can't really repeat this on every model - the sculpt itself is slightly concave and the painting simply accentuated the depth. Writing on that will certainly be done with a decal.

It's worth noting that this model was the last I had done with the three coats of reds to build up highlights. That's why they're not quite as bright of "punchy" as with the Librarian. I'll need to really sharpen up the edges later.

The sarcophagus will be the next item of focus now that basic torso colours are blocked in. The hope is that once I can make the sarcophagus either complete, or nearly so, then it will start to make the rest of the model look nearly finished, and that will motivate me to carry on more quickly. I fully intend to the follow the box art for basic colours. The arms I'll focus on once the core of the Dreadnought is finished.

The white wings on the torso (and again on the arms actually) is something I think I like, and was incredibly simple to do. Corax White as a base coat, and then a mix of Apothecary White / Basilicanum Grey / Contrast Medium (about 1:1:2) to give definition. Given the already white look, there was no point is trying to highlight anything further and I'm all for the softer shadows in this case. The one downside is that the medium used can dry a bit thick; it's fine as it is, but if I add anything more than paint will start to obscure detail. The intent is to try this same effect on the crossed bones, but given their lack of detail it might not turn out quite as nicely.

The metallics were applied with an airbrush, and poorly at that, but fortunately are dark enough that I can get away with simply highlights later. Metallic paint through an airbrush definitely needs thinning before use, but not too much or it really easily separates and pools weirdly. I do want to try a different approach at some point, which is to drybrush metallics over a black (or very dark) undercoat.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Librarian Dreadnought - Part VII (Showcase)

 

Space wizard in a robot suit.

I'm calling the Librarian Dreadnought done. As is typical, there's always more I could do, but I think it's time to move on to another piece now. I'm overall satisfied with the end result, and I think as a model it holds up well even after all this time. The character that it portrays beats any of the more modern dreadnought designs.

The red I think worked out quite well. I was a bit concerned that the varnish would tone everything back too far, but I think it's ok. The photo doesn't really do it justice - the gradients are a little smoother in reality, particularly on the right shoulder, but I'm hopeful that as I continue to refine it a little then it will become what I wanted airbrushing to achieve in the first place. I'll still paint special models by hand, but it can replace squad based work...maybe. I'll find out with the assault squad.

The force weapon I kind of just stopped with. I could go back in an do a lot more detail, but basically I just didn't feel like it. I probably would have if there wasn't a sculpted design already in place, though now I think about it I could just make that design glow.

It's about here that I was considering again about why I paint, and what I want to achieve. Ideally I'd like to move onto single miniature work one day. That's the goal. To do that however, I'd need to put aside painting up armies, as there's just no time otherwise. So instead I'm focusing on above average tabletop standard for squads, a little higher for characters, and building up an army in that style. It won't ever win a painting competition, but it sure looks nice on display and I can experiment a little more easily. All speed painting techniques, all hacks to make me paint faster, are only done without sacrificing quality.

All that said, I think I'll have to get out an extra-special model soon and really go to town with it, over time.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Librarian Dreadnought - Part VI

 

Put your...hands? In the air!

Some progress on this Dreadnought, even if it's painstakingly slow due to being basically incredibly busy right now. Still, progress is progress and it shouldn't be that much longer before I can call it done.

The major change has been to the base, where I went with a black marble again. Actually I also left some of the airbrushed red in places to give it some colour from that, but mostly I just played around with various colours to give the characteristic veins of marble. In doing so, I believe I've come up with some new ideas on painting marble.

One of the steps that's often missed with generic baby wipe and airbrush is that marble has shades, not just lines. Shades and transitions between them can often inform where to places veins actually, and soften some of the harder lines later. Normally I just fill in some colour and then feather it out randomly to help define these shades, but then I was playing with contrast paints and actually using something like them and allowing some "coffee staining" to take effect gives an easy, random, and convincing edge to act as a guide later on. The trick is to make sure it all flows in one general direction instead of being circular. Overlapping this effect (allowing drying time between of course) can even help give some depth impression, before and after building up some the striations. I want to explore this more later, and will definitely search for an excuse to do that - possibly with the next Dreadnought.

As a minor point, the colours were Abaddon Black, Corvus Black, Eshin Grey, and Mechanicus Standard Grey, with a little white or pale yellow mixed in places if I wanted something that little bit brighter.

When the marbling was done, I still wanted to add some shadows and highlights. Space Wolves Grey glazed into areas worked rather well to add shadow and some ambient occlusion, while Apothecary White acted as a general brightening filter. Using Apothecary White in a more concentrated fashion also helped give definition to the broken sides; marble has a quality where broken edges look brighter, and this was a fast and mostly acceptable way to achieve that look. A little Wyldwood around some areas in various concentrations (glaze vs shade) gave some more earthen tones, though I might add a little more rubble and dust before I'm done.

Moving onto metallics, I played with mixing blues, purples, yellows, and browns to get a machine oil look on pistons. In the end I mostly went with Snakebite Leather. On its own it's almost like a fresh lubricant oil, perfect for those parts which receive regular maintenance. Adding a blue or purple helps dirty it some more, edging it closer to thickened grease. I'll have to remember this when it comes to Imperial Knights.

Space Wolves Grey works nicely over Grey Knights Steel as well. I played with this on the force weapon, but there's not much to show there yet. It darkens without shifting the colour away too much, and I want to experiment with that to paint metallics in a NMM style.

Next up I'll be working on the scrolls, purity seals, etc, to put "writing" on them, and then I can probably lock everything in place with a varnish. Then I'll be able to see how well the reds turn out. I did edge highlight in a few places, but much of that will be toned back with the matt varnish and will need re-applying later. I just need a couple of days without being too otherwise busy and I could get it all done, but let's see how that goes. I'm not counting on it.

-- silly painter

Blood Angels Librarian Dreadnought - Part V

 

"I once caught a fish..."

Painting continues to be slow, and that trend will continue for at least another week. Consequently there does not appear to be took much progress on the dreadnought, but I have been experimenting with a couple of things.

Not seen in the photo are other winged blood drop symbols. I continued with the idea of mixing Contrast paints to see how that would turn out, without the need individually paint each "feather" separately. Mixing Apothecary White, Basilicanum Grey, and Contrast Medium seems to work alright, but I'm having trouble getting the ratios correct. Too much medium and the effect is far too minimal, requiring a second coat - and worse, the medium itself can build up and obscure detail. Too little medium and the effect is too dark. I'm only really interested in this type of approach for those details which are small and shallow, and otherwise too annoying to highlight individual lines.

I started to paint much of the left arm in a metallic paint, then stopped in one area and I've changed my mind - I'd rather have kept that red. I'll need to re-paint that area by hand, but that's for later as I go around fixing up mistakes. In general though, most other areas have their main colours decided on - always the most problematic step for me - so there's hope yet that I'll complete the model before the end of the year.

The base I've been thinking a lot over. I still have another similar base to paint for the Furioso Dreadnought, and I want to make the bases visually distinct to distract from them actually being the same sculpted base type. The bases obviously lend well to concrete or similar construction material, but could also lend itself to slabs of marble, granite, etc. This is when it occurred to me that there is one marble effect I've previously painted and want to return to, particularly because it's hidden beneath a model and not really visible: the "black with red veins of rock" marble on the base of Primaris Mephiston. Regarding colour and light theory, this won't separate the base from the dreadnought, but it will be different from other models.

Not much else to really say at this point. The exhaust ports I'll give a little more colour with metallics, which I find preferable to trying to give heat effects, and I still need to try out some mixes of washes or clear colour paints for piston oil effects. There's some Warhammer+ content on that which I may try out.

Other models are in planning stages, hopefully more on them soon.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Librarian Dreadnought - Part IV

 

Hey goa'uld, I can do that too!

(There will be grammar and spelling mistakes, but if I don't get this written out now then it'll be another week before I have the chance.)

There hasn't been much time for painting progress, but I have filled in some dreadnought details. This makes the model look far more complete than it really is - there are still arms to do, the power plant, the base, final edge highlights, decals, etc. It's nowhere near complete.

I actually decided to brighten up the edge highlights of the blue. This was just mixing a little more Baharroth Blue into the mix still on the palette and very carefully applying it to the most prominent edges.

Not too much to say about the yellow details. Again, I might highlight the motif on top with more white to give it a more reflective appearance, but that's a step for another time. Averland Sunset, Yriel Yellow, Phalanx Yellow. Same as used on the side cabling, although those were shaded with Agrax Earthshade and Seraphim Sepia.

The keys and Librarium symbol are plain Grey Knights Steel right now, with a slight Drakenhof Nightshade (barely visible). I'll do more of those details after the varnishing stage probably. The background is a little more interesting and was some experimentation with metallics in volume highlights. Warplock Bronze and Balthasar Gold, mixed in varying degrees and glazed. I like how it shows so far, but I'm aware that varnishing will change it considerably. I had intended to see if it would be something that might be suitable for shading, but I don't think I'll use in future - I'll stick with shade paints for the moment in similar situations.

The eyes on the helmet I debated leaving alone, but with more details done it was apparent something needed to draw attention back there. To that end I'm going for a glow effect, but it won't be anything particularly special: white (Corax White here) and a Contrast paint (Aethermatic Blue most likely).

The chained book cover is Lupercal Green. I mixed in a very, very small amount of white to highlight the upper edges mostly to see how the colours would mix rather than for any visual difference; the detail is too small for highlights to be noticeable.

Scrolls and paper used very similar colours to the normal approach for purity seals, but some slight variation:

• Steel Legion Drab as a base coat.
• Zandri Dust mixed into the previous colour and built up to pure Zandri Dust for initial highlights.
• Agrax Earthshade glazed into recessed areas.
• Seraphim Sepia glazed over selected papers to make them appear more aged.
• Ushabti Bone built up for further highlights.
• Pallid Wych Flesh glazed over more as appropriate.

The last steps used a small amount of Lahmian Medium to build up the glaze. Particularly for brighter or whiter colours, using a medium to thin it to glaze consistency gives a much smoother result than water. At a guess, water separates the pigment too much and leads to chalkiness, whereas a flow improver simply thins without changing too much else of the chemistry.

Lastly for the details so far: the winged blood drop icon. I wanted that to be white winged, but not with black shading. Blue is still much more indicative of sky, angelic, heavenly, and so I still wanted blue tinted recesses. To that end:

• Corax White, with multiple thin layers to get an even, opaque coverage.
• Apothecary White / Talassar Blue / Contrast Medium in a 1:1:2 mix, and heavily applied all over.

That's all. There's a much greater glow in the photo than in real life, and there's no real need to edge highlight anything. Contrast paints excel at this kind of task. If I were to continue with many more of these symbols I would play with the paints and dilution more, but for now it's ok. I can always knock it back further with Apothecary White later on.

Next steps are to fill in some metallic areas around the torso, perhaps some cabling, and then start to look at next pieces of the model. There will be a general harmonising at the end along with filling in the last details in one go (e.g gemstones) but it's about time to start more assembly.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Librarian Dreadnought - Part III

 

'tis but a scratch!

Back to very little for painting again. This is a little frustrating, but I'll see if I can adjust to take more advantage of the precious free time I have, to be more efficient in my approach. This alone is a shame - I enjoy taking my time to paint a model, but I have far too many to get through to be quite so picky right now.

The metalallic parts are simple enough to need to explanation, and they 're not exactly the focus of the model. I will do more on them later for oil stains, lubricants, that sort of thing, but I'll try not to go overboard. I refer to them as "background framing" and don't really hold the viewer's attention - as a result, they can be rather simplistic without the overall quality of the model diminishing.

The "head" (or helmet, or sensorium, who knows) is a base of Balthasar Gold, some sepia tones washed over that, and highlighted with Gehenna's Gold. Just enough to glue everything in place. I'm still thinking over the eyes and if I'll leave them as they are, or do the whole Librarian psychic eye glow thing. Depends if I'll need to draw more attention there once the other details are filled in.

The blue sarcophagus is the most outstanding visual difference since the last update. I knew I wanted a darker blue, tending to black, in shadows but didn't want the cobalt blue of an Ultramarine for highlights. This keeps Librarians different and their own separate group. I ended up going with:

• Night Lords Blue / Black (1:1 ratio). I also started moving more towards pure Night Lords Blue in those areas not within shadow.
• Kantor Blue transitioned as first stage highlight, which was done through a combination of glazing and mixing on the wet palette with the previous paints.
• Macragge Blue as a second stage highlight. Some care needs to be taken here, and it was again mixed with the previous step first. The real catch is that Macragge Blue is a step up in brightness, but also a deviation in tint from the other blues. It definitely benefits more from glazing for this reason, otherwise it's very difficult to get a smooth transition.
• Druchii Violet used for recess shading. While I considered Nuln Oil or Agrax Earthshade, The red hint from violet gives a deeper and richer shade without desaturating. Just a fancy way of saying it looks more interesting. Also, Blood Angels. Perhaps a darker green would be suitable for Salamanders or Dark Angels.
• Baharroth Blue mixed with Macragge Blue for edge highlights. Baharroth Blue on its own is far too much of a colour shift (it has more green in there) and looks completely out of place. An alternative to mixing is to edge highlight with Baharroth Blue, then glaze back over it with Macragge Blue to pull it back into an acceptable range.

For now the edges don't quite "pop" as much as I would like, so I may bump the contrast just a little more after varnishing.

And that's about all for now. Next I will likely start to fill in more details, particularly as the parchment should use very similar colours and should be relatively easy motivational wins. I will plan to simply get a small selection of paints and finish off details as I go around the model (with the arms yet to be properly started!). I'll leave armour edge highlights until after varnishing as that seems to be a good harmonising step.

And the moment I've been dreading is soon here: Legions Imperialis. I don't want to buy masses of those models to just sit in boxes, so I might simply buy one box at a time and paint it up before I allow myself to buy another. It will cost more in the long run perhaps, but it will keep the backlog more manageable.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Furioso Dreadnought - Part I

 

Some serious upper body strength.

While the Librarian is moving painfully slow, I decided to get the next Dreadnought started - a Furioso variant. This will share many of the same painting steps and so I decided to get both to about the same starting level before continuing - as such, this post is mostly about airbrushing.

To begin with, I somehow managed to damage the tip of the "good" needle for my good airbrush. It's still functional and so I won't buy a replacement just yet (unless the next time I use it causes problems), but it really does show how careful one must be with them. I don't even know how I managed it.

Anyway, the first thing done on this model was to try and airbrush some of the metal components. That proved less than stellar. The Air range from Citadel is a bit hit & miss at time, but the metallics are very poor in my opinion. The coverage isn't great, the result is "noisy" (for lack of a better term), and they clog readily. I might have to try again at some stage with a larger nozzle size and little bit of flow improver and thinner. This will necessitate multiple coats, but might give a better result. I might even have something perfect to test that against soon.

With the red armour I intended to use a larger nozzle (0.4mm) to base coat and run through an initial highlight, but wasn't thinking and used the smaller (0.2mm) instead for everything. At least I had good control: even if I was being lazy and didn't mask edges off this time when highlighting, the result was mostly good enough. It was also a good test to see how the colours and control might go on larger batches of smaller models.

In any case, the usual 1:1 mix of Dryad Bark and Mephiston Red was applied all over, and then highlighted up with Mephiston Red. I've been learning to use thinner and flow improver a lot more, and other than not clogging up the airbrush as much, I'm very tempted to apply both on the Mephiston Red step and use more layers in future. I'll experiment and perhaps pre-mix a bottle if it works out. Next up was a 1:1:1 mix of thinner, flow improver, and Averland Sunset. Just like before, I then went over it with Blood Angels Red directly from the pot. The Averland Sunset I perhaps should have used a second layer with - it was quite as bright in some places as I would have liked - but I can hopefully fix that with some appropriate edge highlighting in places.

The lessons to take away: thin the paints before going into the airbrush, mask off edges on larger models to keep proper shading and that flat panel look, and go brighter than you might think with the Averland Sunset step. With the thin paints I think this is where an airbrush can really shine: use something thicker for a base colour to setup with, and then use thin layers to build up glazes and filters of colours. Less speckling, more control, and easier to clean.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Librarian Dreadnought - Part II

 

The highlight of the party.

After travels and some minor health complaints, I'm finally back to painting. There isn't actually all that much to show since the last post as I've only just had a chance to get back into it, however I wanted to record some airbrushing from today.

I pulled out a few spare shoulder pads and did some small experiments in layering to see if I could get some more vibrancy out of the initial airbrushing stages. In particular I wanted to use this Dreadnought as a test piece - being a Librarian there's an excuse for the colours to slightly differ from the rest of the army. I tried white, yellows, and building up reds before a final coat of Evil Sunz Scarlet on some, and Blood Angels Red on others.

The idea struck me that perhaps I could learn from what I'm doing with Ultramarines and use a Contrast paint through the airbrush as a final filter step. The major benefit for me in this approach is being able to more easily see where the highlights will be and making sure they don't blend too much into shadowed areas - whites or yellows against a red base make it instantly visible where the highlight is. I'm hoping this will build up more tonal variation in the final result than what I'm otherwise getting with the airbrush.

Unsurprisingly white with a filter just ended up looking like pink. Not what I was going for. Using a bright yellow such as Flash Gitz Yellow was closer, but still further into the orange spectrum than I wanted. Averland Sunset is a far more muted yellow/yellow-orange and looked about right. So that's all that's really been done since the last photo.

Yellows and whites have a habit of speckling quite a lot for me. I could play with the air pressure, nozzle sizes, distance, etc, but I'm not as proficient with the airbrush as all that. I do find that changing the flow properties of the paint helps me more, i.e thinners and flow improvers mixed with the paint. I find this reduces speckling and also results in a much thinner coverage - perfect for highlighting where I can use two or three passes to build up the transition and mistakes aren't too troublesome. I used 6 parts thinner, 3 parts flow improver, and 6 parts paint, mixed well.

With the Averland Sunset stage done, it was then a simple case of cleaning out the airbrush and the some Blood Angels Red directly from the pot. This sprayed directly over the top gives the picture above.

I might have gone for too much tonal contrast, but I'm sure that will get knocked back by the time edge highlights, shading, details, and varnish is all applied. A good first try in other words. I would like to try this further, however think I might instead use the normal method on the next Dreadnought just to see how it matches up. I strongly suspect I'll be doing more of this Contrast approach on future models though, notably the resin Contemptors that are still to come.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Librarian Dreadnought - Part I

 

Excuse me sir, I have a question.

I've finally returned to some more dreadnought work, though admittedly very little because the bulk of painting time has been NMM trim on a certain other model. Much of the time in preparing a model like this is simply cleaning, positioning, and deciding on sub-assemblies for airbrushing and general painting.

The positioning of the Librarian here is based on some fairly popular artwork in which the force weapon is pointed towards the sky, summoning some psychic power perhaps. The left arm is normally pointed slightly higher, but I've not glued either arm in place just yet, and the photo angle doesn't show the pose as dramatically as a lower angle might (something I'll try remember for a future display). The red armour plates on the torso are also not glued in place just yet, because I intend to airbrush some metallics around the legs and torso just to avoid spending hours with a brush for the same. I have yet to decide if those metallics will be covered in an oil wash or not - it's still an incredibly effective shading technique and gives a much grittier feel that worked so well on the Titanicus Knights, but it's a painting hassle to setup, apply, then cleanup brushes and workspace that I never look forward to.

The airbrushing so far hasn't had a final highlight applied. I've held back so far because the airbrush was getting clogged at the time, and I'm considering if I should experiment with some of the highlighting methods. I could use a thinned white to increase the brightness of the later layer, and even then I'm not sure if I should follow up with Evil Sunz Scarlet or Blood Angels Red (Contrast) paint through the airbrush. I could also use a yellow instead of white, but then it's a consideration of which yellow. I think I'll have to find some spare bits and experiment with several combinations first, to then decide which I like best. It's not like I don't have many, many spare shoulder pads to use for this purpose.

I guess I'll try the various methods and then choose a couple to go forwards with. This isn't the only dreadnought in the pipeline, as I've also assembled a Furioso to work on at the same time and each could use a slightly different approach to the red highlights without looking out of place in the army - simply by virtue of there not being other large walkers to compare them to.

I'm also considering if I should buy a Nemesis Dreadknight as the basis for a conversion effort. I have quite a few spare pieces from the Blood Angels Dreadnought kits, and I could really go to town on that kind of conversion. Unfortunately it would add yet another dreadnought to try get done this year - and I have enough pending that completing them all in the next six months is unlikely as it is. This is also an idea that I'd likely look to ebay for first, seeing as it's an expenditure that won't be considered trivial.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Contemptor - Part IV (Showcase)

 

He'll be charging through the rubble when he comes...

The third monopose Contemptors is now "done". This is the second part of a duel with the original Sons of Horus Contemptor painted earlier in the year, and I have certainly learned a lot in that time, even if this is perhaps the dreadnought I'm least happy with so far.

The pose was never quite right. I should have pivoted the pelvis slightly to better give a sense of movement, and perhaps strengthened contact points so that one foot could be in the air. That is a definite problem with models: giving them a sense of movement despite being a static object. Credit where it's due, Games Workshop has been getting a whole lot better at this recently.

The head I'm not a fan of here either. I perhaps should have tried to keep the original, and just tilted it up rather than swapping out for a spare tactical marine helmet. The size isn't quite right, and it messes up the proportions of the whole model.

If I were to make more of these, I would also very much consider finding a way to sort out proper "upper legs". I'm sure there are 3d printed pieces available, and it's small enough that the difference in finish wouldn't be noticeable. Or I could just improve my sculpting skills, which is definitely a cheaper option. In any case, that's been a weak point of these models - they're otherwise just as flexible as the new plastic kits, with a bit of planning.

There's not much point dwelling on the painting of the dreadnought itself as it's no different to a normal Marine, and I just followed that forumla. The golds didn't quite turn out as bright as I wanted however, but I could have mixed more Auric Armour Gold in for highlights, and edged with something else - perhaps a mix of Auric Armour Gold and Stormhost Silver. The reds are fine, but I really need to push the contrast between shadow and highlights more, particularly on the larger models. Edge highlights being done both before and after the matt varnish definitely worked well. It takes more time, but the result is worth it - and actually I can probably move faster on the pre-matt-varnish stage knowing that it will be faded out a lot by the varnish. I didn't really like how the scratches were turning out though, and weathering for Blood Angels is going to take a bit more practice before get the hang of it (mostly because I don't weather them, but also because I find it challenging to do make it properly visible against a deep red).

I like the black detailing, and it very much fits with a pre-Heresy look. It's artistic, but not extravagant. The visual interest is subtle but helps to break up large panels. Ultimately, however, I think I prefer some old school checkers and bright colours that have been dirtied in battle. Personal heraldry, bright wing motifs, patterning around the power fists, that kind of thing. The sculpted Blood Angels models don't lend naturally to that, however the monopose ones do. It would also have taken me a really long time - perhaps I can practice that style with future Titanicus models, or better yet the Imperial Knights currently sitting in a box.

What I think I did manage to salvage was the base. I could have put another "slab" towards the back, but it's still ok. There are some skulls for a nice finish, but what really did the job was the marbling. Exactly the same colours as used on Horus' base were used here, but I borrowed some of the heavy drybrushing from Rylanor's base and used that to help bring out the texture. The end result was an excellent foundation to build up the marbling effect from. Close up, marbling is often multiple thin striations of different rocks, which when cut give the well known pattern. A little further out and the thin lines blur into a kind of darkened line - and at the scale here, that means thin glazes to build up a kind of blurred and soft shadow in main colours, then later going back in with a darker colour for bolder lines where the shadow is heaviest. Thin, shaky lines are not enough - the blurred area outline is also critical to giving the marbling look. When in doubt, look at marble statues, but not just up close; observe marble patterns from multiple distances, from short range to several metres away.

Your fight is with me, traitor!

-- silly painter.

Ancient Rylanor - Part IV (Showcase)

 

Purple Flame

Another Contemptor joins the "calling it done" group. There is a whole lot more that I could do: more highlights, more panel lining, subtle oil and grime colours, etc. I have more models to do however, and I'm happy enough knowing that it's not lack of skill stopping me - it's just wanting to do something else. Also I'm not going to proof-read this, so excuse any mistakes; this is not a professional blog, just notes on what I did and why.

Lack of weathering kind of worked in this case I think, and I'm glad I kept everything more clean just to show it off. The purple highlighting works quite well, and the airbrush grain isn't really visible beyond a few centimetres.

The trim metallics is simply continued with Liberator Gold for edges, and some glazing to restore shine, and then Canoptek Alloy for the higher edges and eagle. I wanted the eagle to stand out slightly, and it just seemed that extra highlight attention would do that. Canoptek is also starting to be a favourite colour to edge highlight with because it's very desaturated without being silver.

Some of the metal areas I kept dulled from the matt varnish as a style choice. The best example of this is the assault cannon: I didn't want it to be bright, I wanted dark without being black. Using metallics for colour, and then varnish to remove the shine and dull it slightly, works for weapon barrels.

The shield designs I didn't know what to do with. Too bright and it would draw too much attention, but it needed something artistic. I also couldn't decide what to write across the scroll, and for that I ended up showing the Legion number (III) - so I leaned into that to write a stylised version of III on the shields. A black shield background, with gold lettering - and that was done using an artificer brush, a good amount of concentration, and a magnifying headset. Simple, stylised, and without clashing against the rest of the model.

The left leg design I wanted as (probably) laurel wreath I painted up as a green just because I didn't want it to be metallic, and it shouldn't draw too much attention away from the face (helmet) area, especially with the teal around the latter. Viewed from the side however, and then it starts to be a bit distracting, so the shoulders have white decals (eagle heads from some Aeronautica kits). These decals are far too bright, as I suspected might happen, but I'm not going to try change that now. A slightly more grey would have been better perhaps, but I won't be doing that now. I'll need to plan how to do such things in future as I'm not sure just painting over the decal would work.

The base was another case of just playing around. Celstra Grey I think, but then thinned Basilicanum Grey over it, some Black Templar to outline some areas better, and then just drybrushing up with off-white and slightly blue paints. Somehow the drybrushing worked really well and makes the designs on the base really stand out and show more depth than is actually sculpted. The value contrast against the dreadnought body helps, the details are clearly visible, and how everything ties together makes this one of the better bases I've done recently. Agrax Earthshade was also used to surround some of the rubble to separate it from the surface it's sitting on, making it look like...rubble.

Not looking forward to more resin models, but I am getting better at dealing with them. Now I wonder if perhaps Rylanor is looking for ordnance.

The count now stands at 9.

-- silly painter.

Imperial Fist Contemptor - Part IV (Showcase)

 

12 barrels of Imperial Fi..repower

The Imperial Fist Contemptor rolls off the painting desk and into the photo area, as I'm now labelling it as finished. I'm sure some kind of markings on the front facing surfaces of the "shoulders" would be appropriate, but I actually don't know what to put there, so I'm leaving it alone. I can't continue to spend the rest of the year on this model.

Starting with the trim, that's ultimately:

• Warplock Bronze
• Balthasar Gold (mixed with Warplock Bronze, see the previous post for more details)
• Castellax Bronze glazed in areas, highlighted on more prominent edges. The glazing was simply to give back some shine after the matt varnish.
• Sycorax Bronze as a final edge highlight.

I'm of the opinion that the colour worked well for the trim. It's basically a darker brown, but it doesn't clash with the yellow; the trim frames and outlines the panels, helping give shape to the dreadnought.

The metallics elsewhere are also dark. Light silvers would again only clash with the yellow, so keeping them closer to black seemed appropriate. Looking at real gun barrels (or at least photos of them) gave inspiration for this, and I didn't highlight them after the matt varnish - I kind of liked the more functional aesthetic it gives, which suits the Imperial Fist character.

I tried some writing with a very fine brush tip and a good deal of patience. The VII (7th Legion) was first, and quite easy - just some straight lines. I don't recall which colours I mixed for the lettering, but black would have been too stark, so a kind of lighter brown was used. If I really wanted to go for it I might have added highlights to create a kind of engraved 3d look, but I was concerned about ruining the look and so left it as is.

The other writing was Terra across the scroll. My first attempt was actually far too small and looked out of place, so I went with a more stylised look that spread across the centre. It's not perfect, but I'm quite happy with the result. The semi-cheating secret on the second attempt was also to use a sharp pencil point to sketch the locations first, painting over it later. The was certainly advantageous because I did need to correct it a couple of times.

The base I'm not entirely happy with, but think I managed to rescue something out of it. The original intention was to a show the dreadnought walking across a road, up to a curb and onto some walkway pavement. It doesn't really work that way, but I basically just didn't want to spend time doing more. I wanted to try get something out of a basic base. The etched brass designs are supposed to be drain covers, and it's these that help the most - I painted some rust on them, added dirty looking colours around, generally made it look like dirty water was running through on a regular basis. This really helped to break up the lines and colour monotony without me having to give more attention to the "road" (which was painted the same as on the Titanicus models).

I'm not sure what I would do for future Imperial Fists model bases. I'm not really that good at urban bases unless it's just rubble everywhere - and that gets a little boring.

Otherwise I think it's an acceptable model for one of the mono-pose Contemptors. The battle damage works exceptionally well against the yellow, the helmet colours make that the centre of attention, and there's plenty of room to do a lot more if I wanted.

The count is now at 8.5, with the other dreadnoughts not far behind.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Contemptor - Part III

 

When 40k meets Chariots of Fire.

Time for an update with the Blood Angels Contemptor now that all of the main colours are blocked in. The photo is a little out of proper focus unfortunately because I need to swap out the camera lens, but no matter - the basic impression is still visible.

While most of the details are actually fairly well complete by now, some of the weathering needs some work. The chipping I'm finding quite difficult to pull off actually - originally it was a brown (Rhinox Hide) and black mix, with normal highlighting along lower edges, but this wasn't very visible and just looked out of place. Some metal showing underneath for the most chipped edges works much nicer I find. Still, I find it actually not enough - chipping alone just means some banging around, and I really want to add scorch marks later - just that I'm not sure yet how to go about that. Perhaps if I pick the proper black and just kind of "drybrush smudge" it in places then that might work. I also have an idea to use a sponge to add chipping across the power fists, pushing each "finger" into the sponge for that random used look.

The metallic trim, which is just Balthasar Gold and Seraphim Sepia so far, is very dark and dull currently. Experience shows that after later highlight steps it will stand out some more, but that will have to wait until after varnishing.

I'm also trying to decide if more details should be added - decals, insignia, decorative trim, etc. It would definitely fit for Blood Angels, however it would also add a lot of extra time and effort onto a model that's already taken longer than I wanted.

The lettering across the torso is a small cheat in that I used a transfer. I did paint over it, but mostly it was another test to see how well decal lettering would turn out. I think it turned out well enough, and will probably need to print out a full sheet with a whole range of words one day. It's semi-cheating really - the print dots are visible, so painting over the top is still desirable, but it does lay out a guide to follow. I'll take it.

The base and gemstone on the helmet (which will be red - I had briefly considered purple, but decided that wouldn't be as harmonious with the rest of the model) then I can probably start to think about varnishing. Not much to go now - but I am painting the MkIV assault squad in the background, and the other dreadnoughts need bringing to the same level too.

-- silly painter.

Ancient Rylanor - Part III

 

Colours are great for hide & seek. You hide, he seeks.

The Year of the Dreadnought continues, and today there's enough of Ancient Rylanor to justify another post. All of the recessed shading has been done, some ambient occlusion, but the edge highlights are still not complete. I'm not sure if I'll do them before, or after the final matt varnish - perhaps before, as I can always add a little more after if the varnish knocks them back too much.

All of the grey metal is Iron Warriors and a Nuln Oil (Gloss). That's all so far - the gloss paint really does work well over the metallics, but creates very shiny recesses - however the varnish stage will fix that nicely. There are still a few details that I haven't picked out for this treatment, but I might end up switching to Leadbelcher for them anyway. The most obvious are....whatever they are above the head (searchlights maybe, shield projectors, something), and as that's a much brighter area in general then Leadbelcher might be a better base coat (or 5 coats to get coverage!).

Scrollwork across the torso uses the normal formula that I've detailed a while ago. but there is one slight problem: it's very difficult to write Rylanor across that! There's not much space to work with, so I might cheat slightly and just III in the centre to signify the 3rd Legion. I also need to raid my stash of transfers to find anything appropriate to put on shields and shoulders.

The golden trim associated with Emperor's Children is so far just a couple of colours: Retributor Armour and Reikland Fleshshade (Gloss). I'm intending to layer that up to a fairly desaturated gold, but still keep the hint of red in there as a complementary colour to the base purple. Trying to go too far into yellow will contrast too much and break the harmony of the model, and I want the the helmet lenses to be a more proper contrast colour (a sort of teal) to draw the eye there later.

The flamer is so far Warplock Bronze and some Balthasar Gold, though I might leave further work until after the fist has been glued into place. I will very likely paint the flamer fully before varnishing, as I don't intend for it to be too shiny; any soot from the flame would keep the shine away. The under-slung fuel tank I entirely forgot about and will need attending to later as well.

I've been trying to think during all of this how I might paint the base. I find snow and muddied bases fit well with the colours, but that won't fit the feel of what's there. I might go with marbled stone perhaps, or just a light standstone. It's going to take a while I think. As for battle damage, while the base has indications of battle I think I want to keep the dreadnought looking more parade-ready. There's no storyline reason behind this, it's just that I'm not sure how I would make battle damage that adds rather than detracts to the model.

An awful lot of detail remains (purity seals, shields, etc) and a fair amount of higlighting (e.g the head) but I'm pleased with the progress. I'm still painting three dreadnoughts at the same time, and while I could have finished any one of them by now, I figured that finishing three close together would bypass thinking about "still another two to go" (which is highly demotivating). That being said, given the extra details on this model then it's likely to be the last finished.

-- silly painter.