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 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.