Sons of Horus MkII Assault Squad - Part III

 

Now with candy floss gun.

I had originally planned to just block in the major colours but in all honesty the MkII armour looks really awesome and I kind of just continued. Another factor is that there's surprisingly little variation on everything: once the main armour panels are done, there's not that much left over.

The shoulder pad trim is just Ancient Gold from the TMM range, base and wash, although the final highlight is yet to be applied on account of waiting for the varnish step. I used spots of this on the weapons as well just to balance out the picture and to keep things interesting while limiting the palette. The weapon grip is exactly the same as the holster and a straight copy from the MkVI assault squad, which other than a base of Thondia Brown I can't recall right now.

All of the metals were covered first with Doom Metal (TTC) and then Iron Warriors, follow by spot highlights of Iron Hands Steel. There's a good deal of variation of this throughout, but that's the basic idea for the most of it. The exhaust of the jump pack is for now purely Iron Hands Steel. I may still add burn marks around it but that's definitely for later.

On the jump pack it's predominantly black, of course, but I messed around with the banding. I'll need to get a reference photo for later of what I made black and what I kept silver. There's a reinforcement band around the top of the turbines that I wasn't sure what to do with for a while. I wanted it distinct from the front of the turbine itself and tried Iron Warriors with Black Templar Contrast over the top. The latter was too strong and I needed to kind of glaze the metallic back over the top. Next time I'll use Contrast Medium to thin the black some. Most of the panels I tried to cover with a black ink, a particular one from the Daler-Rowney FW range. It has this oddly subtle brown hint to it that I think is extremely good for Sons of Horus, but it's not exactly made for miniature painting and I have trouble blending or glazing with it. So I mostly abandoned that idea and went with Corvus Black and Stormvermin Fur. Mixing some Twin Suns Yellow (TTC, or Dorn Yellow for the Citadel colours) gives a bright edge highlight spot colour to make the result look more like a hardened surface.

I should note that the turbine blades themselves are simply Doom Metal and Iron Warriors, with the latter just run along the high surfaces and leaving the former in the recessed areas. I haven't felt the need to do anything more as it's readable enough right now.

The weapon colour is white and Doomfire Magenta. That's quite a pigment heavy Contrast paint, which makes me wonder if it's a sort of pre-cursor to the upcoming Warhammer Tone Pro range. I like the colour now even if initially I might not have picked it, because it matches with the face rather well.

There's still some minor details to get done, the base needs to be done, the varnish stage, and then glazing back some the armour colours and metallic shine in places, but I'm happy with how the model is looking right now.

-- silly painter.

Sons of Horus MkII Assault Squad - Part II

 

My name is Bane.

The one test model has now been fully assembled, for better or worse. I couldn't get much else done during the week but decided that the focal point of the face would at least give some kind of sense of accomplishment.

I decided early on that I wanted pale complexion for the Sons of Horus, something decidedly unhealthy and representing their fall into corruption. To that end I originally was going to base the scheme on Idoneth Deepkin, but pivoted partway through for a more sinister look.

Base colour is Ionrach Skin, which is a pale almost blue/green tinged tone. This fits with the armour to harmonise the colours, but I went a step further and mixed in a hint of Lupercal Green and glazed it towards the back of the head and along recessed areas. The was followed up with a purple ink heavily thinned with acrylic flow improver. I particularly focused on the eyes with this, building it up with more concentration of pigment around there. Ionrach Skin glazed back over to smooth over transitions wrapped up the initial base.

Deepkin Flesh for highlight points was next, which I also tried to paint over the eyes. The eyes on this model are extremely small, and quite honestly it probably would've been better to simply wash over the area and be done with it. I could barely see where those eyes are even meant to be. Going further into madness I then used Iyanden Yellow to cover them and really make the model look insane. I even tried to put in a pupil on the left eye, but I messed it up and fell back to more of the ink to try make the whole face look aggravated.

And he does look aggravated. I think the ultimate win here is not trying to make the eyes themselves stand out, but to give contrast to that part of the face and the impression that this is not a sane individual.

With everything in place I really need to pick out the base colours next. This will serve as the reference for the rest of the squad when I start painting those, so it's important I try to get that "right".

-- silly painter.

Sons of Horus MkII Assault Squad - Part I

 

Sure hope the helmets have noise cancelling earphones installed.

I had wanted all of these models assembled, I had wanted them primed and basic airbrushing done, and on the way to getting them in a good state to be fairly quickly finished. Then work happened and most days I'm up to midnight on that, with zero time for painting. So for the moment this is the only Sons of Horus model painted up, and I have more to still even assemble. Kind of sucks.

On the bright side I picked up a lot of lessons from the last batch and have fed them into here. The major starting point was that I base coated the whole model in Night Lords Blue first. I thinned it overly much and it took several coats to get it right, but it wasn't all that bad: the airbrush didn't clog at all and was easier to clean out afterwards. Lupercal Green followed that up, but thinned properly so that again several passes were used to soften the transition and it was done from above and the sides for the most part. Sons of Horus Green afterwards, mostly from above, and you guessed it: several thinned coats.

The airbrush is very quick to use and multiple thin coats is extremely quick to do. It may seem longer but because it also lets colours more easily fade into one another then the overall time taken is typically far less: fewer hard transitions to correct, easier to clean the airbrush. I actually switched between airbrushes on this model, using my Harder & Steenbeck for the last layer because of the smaller needle size I keep with it and the greater trigger control I have.

Gloss varnish afterwards to seal the model and then an overall wash of Shyish Purple / Terradon Turquoise. I was originally trying a 1:4 ratio, but it ended up closer to 1:2 or even 1:1 by because it just wasn't dark enough. The flow improver might have been too much, but roughly equal parts of that are necessary to make it really slide off the more flat surfaces. This really works as well as I expect, but again I had to try remove some from areas it was pooling incorrectly, which leaves behind a bit of a mess. I think it was still worth while, but I'll need to look at using a different brush, maybe soaked in flow improver or Contrast Medium to soften it out some. Another trick to to slightly damp the area with water first too.

After all of that I went back in with Lupercal Green and Sons of Horus Green by brush to clean up a few places and put in some initial edge highlights. I used a better brush this time around and make sure to thin the paints with flow improver instead of just water. This saves a lot of time and effort for what is basically glazing. I'll very likely do another pass of this after the matt varnish stage later on.

Although all the above sounds like a lot of effort, there aren't many colours being used and each stage is more about refining the previous. I'm still careful along the way, but I'm less perfectionist in knowing that I will be adjusting things later on as necessary. For basically the same result it took about half the time, so I'm pretty happy about that.

I will have to start blocking in all the other colours soon, but first I'm probably actually going to focus on the head. If I can get enough done to glue that in place then the model will be fully assembled and I'll be much faster in completing it and having serve as a reference for the rest.

-- silly painter.

Crimson Paladin II - Part I

 

Making sure to step over the drain.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- silly painter.

Sons of Horus MkVI Assault Squad - Part VI (Showcase)

 

Assemble!

Surprisingly shorter time to finish these models, but they now done. Matt varnished, highlighted, based.

The first piece of trivia is the edge highlights are actually the same colour as the final volume highlights through the airbrush, and so they're not very visible. I had considered mixing Gauss Blaster Green for something stronger, but the slightly satin finish of Citadel (or Warhammer) paints is enough and I didn't want the colour shift with a stronger edge highlight. Basically I think these models look just fine without much in the way of edge highlights at all.

The black turned out alright in the end. I did tone back the jump packs a good deal and the matt varnish softened things further. I think I like Basilicanum Grey over Dawnstone and might explore that with the airbrush at some future point. The weapons weren't to my liking with the same visuals, so I might just stick with something a little more subtle than Dawnstone in future, at least for the airbrushing.

Overall, despite the minimal effort and intentional limiting of colour choices, I think these turned out ok. That's partially the colour scheme itself: blue, green, turquoise, are just seemingly much easier to work with compared to reds. The sculpts lend themselves very well to airbrushing too, with the large and softly curved surfaces and relatively sparse detail.

Once I had the colours and paints picked out, everything went fairly quick. Painting in sections with a single colour throughout the day helped a lot, particularly with the metallics. It still goes quickly to get the basic armour, then very slowly filling in details, then suddenly very quick again to finalise and finish each model. It might only be tabletop standard, but I'd be proud to have a whole army painted to this level.

Onwards to the next batch of models.

-- silly painter.

Sons of Horus MkVI Assault Squad - Part V

 

Changing the clip must be difficult.

Not a whole lot going on still with regards to painting (work + other responsibilities) but these models are getting really close to being done. Bases, varnish, final highlights mostly, although there might be more decals in selected places because why not.

The major change since last time is the metallics. Here are are few more spots of TMM Ancient Gold that I think work well with Sons of Horus more specialised troops and I think I'll continue with that going forward. The silver/steel/whatever details though are so far just:

• Iron Warriors
• Black Templar
• Iron Warriors to pick out volumes again.

I wanted specifically to go back to a wash or contrast paint because of the speed here. It's not quite as smooth as layering up various glazes, but it's fast.

Cabling in places is Screamer Pink and orange (actually Rust Orange from TTC to replace my dried out Squig Orange) mixed in for a bit of "let's see what this does". I also used the orange on the ammo counter for the pistols, but I need to darken that down again with a red wash probably.

The other point of interest is actually using Basilicanum Grey to glaze over the excessive highlights on the jump packs. I think the edge highlights are still excessive, but it toned everything down and gave a very subtle colour shift to make the "black" more visually appealing.

Short post today.

-- silly painter

Sons of Horus MkVI Assault Squad - Part IV

 

Overhead lights must be bright.

There are very likely going to be a few "not a whole lot done" posts in the near future because I can't get a whole lot done during the week right now. Far from being dismayed, it's simply a challenge to overcome and figure out how to keep the models moving forwards in the most efficient use of time as I can manage.

This is actually part of a broader discussion on painting motivation. I see many videos on how to paint fast, how to keep up motivation, and all of that - but the they all miss a very crucial point: humans aren't machines. Motivations change and what works one day might not work the next. Some days I feel like using a specific synthetic brush, other days a good kolinsky sable brush - and I'm using exactly the same paint for exactly the same task. Some days I want to paint metallics, others I just want to glaze and highlight volumes. Some days I just don't want to paint. Find what works for you on any given day.

The last couple of days I've been painting one part of each model at a time. Not all the metallics, but for example all the gun barrels of each in turn, then I might paint all the intake brackets on the jump packs, and so on. It's been keeping the sense of monotony at bay, and with the same paint I've been able to do one piece at a time whenever I get a few spare moments.

The metallics are going to be Iron Warriors covered with Black Templar as a base coat. This might not be as fancy as some of the dedicated layering I do, but it's fast and will give decent contrast around the details. I'll go back with Iron Warriors to neaten up later, and then it will probably be Iron Hands Steel for highlights after the varnishing stage (which shouldn't be too far off now).

Aged Metal (TTM) for the studs and some chainsword detailing gives some variety to the model - the shade for outlining, and later (post-varnish) I'll use the light version to highlight.

The black armour is an interesting story. I basically thinned down Dawnstone and shot it through an airbrush after masking the models appropriately. The masking worked, which was the main reason for this, but the use of Dawnstone was not the best. I should have at least mixed it with Corvus Black, or perhaps a dark blue. Dawnstone is too desaturated and gives too much of a broad, rounded volumetric highlight. I'll probably thin down Basilicanum Grey and glaze over it to knock back the stone look, though it might be better if I mixed in the barest hint of a blue for colour saturation.

The models are coming together nicely and I think I have all of the colour choices decided upon, so now it will just be a matter of following through with known steps to get them done. I'll be busy for a while however and no guarantees that such steps will happen quickly.

-- silly painter.

Sons of Horus MkVI Assault Squad - Part III

 

Crazy Eyes

This probably isn't really worthy of a post, but I've not had much time lately to write things down and so I'm going to try get through it quickly.

I filled in the eye lenses of the squad, deciding that the reflection point was nice but perhaps overkill if I was trying to be less exacting when painting these models. I also thought that something else could give a crazier look, showcasing the descent of the Sons of Horus into madness.

To that end I started with Jokaero Orange, using some off-white on the palette to brighten it because I couldn't be bothered reaching for a yellow, and then....stopped. Something wasn't right. I carried on with Blood Angels Red (happened to be on the palette) to make a darker orange towards the back of the lenses, and to give an outline in the recesses. Not a whole lot of colours, and it certainly would look nicer with the lens on a prior Luna Wolf, but that's when it occurred to me what was wrong: the lenses are far too bright compared to the rest of the model. It's the same base orange, but a Luna Wolf is much lighter (very much a light grey / light ash tone) so while the colour stands out, the value jump doesn't. This was too much and I ended up dialling it back with another glaze of red.

I think in future I'll just stick with what I did on the Luna Wolf. It takes eyes that aren't tired, but it's worth the end result.

Next up is more leather. Thondia Brown, Skrag Brown, Deathclaw Brown. This gives a nice, warm brown tone to work with, but leather gets quite dark when rubbed in a lot, so I then mixed Agrax Earthshade with Drakenhof Nightshade (about 1:1) and shaded the whole holster. I'm going to try reduce reliance on just reaching for a black and instead go with "very close to black" (dark blue, purple, green) instead, which should hold up better with saturation. I also played with an off-white and then glazing a mix of Corvus Black and Thondia Brown over the top to give that shiny impression worn leather can sometimes give off. This worked out very well on small details and I'll need to try my hand with it on something larger soon.

I have more to say on the subject of leather, hopefully soon.

-- silly painter

Sons of Horus MkVI Assault Squad - Part II

 

This is exhausting.

The next set of models are well into the initial base colour stages and I'm almost at the "paint by numbers" stage with them, but the jump pack remained somewhat of an unknown. Fortunately there are some good references available for Sons of Horus, so I've mostly tried to follow that.

Before anything else was done, I coated all the metal areas and weapons with Black Legion. This covers very well over the gloss and returns to a solid, satin, black layer to build upon. This is very important for metalllic paints to look their best. There's no need to be subtle with Contrast paints in this style: just give it a good single coat and about thirty minutes to dry (if not more).

The jump packs themselves I knew I wanted to paint some burn marks, soot, or general metal discolouration. I explicitly didn't do this for the Sanguinary Guard (or Blood Angels in general) as I figured of all the Legions, it would be the IXth that produced and maintained the best and most efficient jump packs, and kept them clean.

For the Sons of Horus though, step one is to give the exhaust areas a shiny metallic gleam. This is one occasion where I wanted polished steel and so base coated with Iron Hands Steel. This needed two thin coats for the best coverage, but gives a very smooth finish if done properly. It's well worth the time to do this, so it bears repeating: give it one thin coat, let it fully dry, then do another. Possibly a third in places if the paint is thinned a little more. I then applied Ironbreaker as a highlight, but I'm not sure this is really visible. It was thinned with flow improver, more glazed than layered, and I might just save this for a post-varnish step in future.

Next step is actually using a lighter gold tone for initial discolouration. I had Imperial Gold (TMM range, the layer/highlight paint) on the palette and glazed that around the central exhaust area. I didn't do it on the sides, but should have - something to correct for the next model. This was followed with Seraphim Sepia further down, but I did use it too heavily and needed to correct that. In general there is substantial correction with the base coat when necessary. Snakebite Leather mixed with Ratling Grime is next, further to the nozzle, and then just plain Ratling Grime on the very edges. There's no particular ratios here - mix and glaze, mix and glaze, adjust and push around the pigment until you're happy with the result. I will probably drop Nuln Oil into the side vents later, or could go with Black Legion if I really wanted it dark.

Aside from the jump pack, the other major addition is the decal on the right pauldron. 'Ardcoat is a thicker gloss varnish compared to what I use through the airbrush, but it seems to smooth itself out nicer as a result and so I much prefer to use that to prepare a surface for decals. The decal itself I should have cut some slices into just under the "eye" to allow the transparent film to slide over itself instead of crinkling up; it took two heavy coats of decal softener to really make that decal conform to the surface. Stormshield provides protection and satin finish afterwards. There will of course be a matt varnish later anyway, but this protects everything and lets me see how it will look until then.

The rest of the squad are in various stages of the above steps (the past week has been busy, I've not had time to do much painting) but in general the squad will proceed slowly because it's an entire squad. There's also travel coming up soon which means even if I manage to get into the zone for painting, there will be an enforced break.

-- silly painter.

Crimson Paladin - Part V (Showcase)

 

That's not dakka. This, is dakka.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- silly painter.

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

 

"I can't hear you!"

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

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

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

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

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

Charging headbutt.

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

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

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

And my axe. Mine.

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

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

-- silly painter

Crimson Paladin - Part IV

 

This ground sure feels weird.

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

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

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

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

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

-- silly painter.

Sanguinary Guard (Heresy Era) - Part IV

 

Mr Ethereal Eyes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- silly painter

Blood Angels Champion - Part V (Showcase)

 

You're mine.

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

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

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

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

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

-- silly painter.

Sanguinary Guard (Heresy Era) - Part III

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- silly painter.

Crimson Paladin - Part III

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- silly painter.

Justaerin - Part II

 

Mr T. Knot

Just a quick post because I wanted to wrap up the sculpting practice for the first of the Justaerin. There's ultimately not a whole lot done, but the small details are enough to shift the outline and bring some more depth to the character of the model.

Starting with the Sons of Horus symbol, that is essentially an embossed decal. I applied a decal first, adding some softener to make sure it was strongly adhered to the plastic, and used that as a guide to sculpt over the top of. This would never be quite so precise as the decal itself, but the intent here is to gain experience with sculpting, not try to be a human 3d-printer. With that in mind I tried to think of what to sculpt first: what is the basic shape to build the rest upon? The central oval shape of the eye, with a small cutout for the "pupil". That was the easy part, and I used straight green-stuff for it. Next I mixed green-stuff and Milliput together for more fine detail work and built up everything else. I've learned that this particular mix can be troublesome when freshly mixed, but given 20 minutes to cure it's more workable to my liking (at least for this scenario) and I managed something passable in the end. It's not quite as clean as I wanted, but with careful painting then it should be more than sufficient.

Next is the top-knot. I spent some time thinking that one over, looking at tutorials on hair, trying to figure out where exactly it should go, and how to anchor it to the model. I couldn't place it on the helmet directly: there's just not enough space. The top of the armour seemed too far back, leaving the arch above the head as the only real solution. I needed to carve a little away to flatten an area, before drilling a small hole with a 0.4mm drill bit and gradually increasing size to 0.8mm to fit the paperclips I use. The reason for multiple drill bit sizes is just to make it easier to centre the hole. A touch of superglue to place a piece of paperclip, with green-stuff to blend it into the model, and the shaft to attach hair to was done.

The hair itself I might have tried to put a blob in place and then carve into, but I took a far more painstaking route to rolling out multiple, thin lengths of green-stuff and wrapping them together. I did try to taper one end more to give natural bulk when it would attach to the shaft, then simply stuck it on and shifted it around to a pose I liked. In hindsight I should've used a dot of superglue when initially sticking it to the shaft, but here I needed dab the glue into place after the fact in order to hold it down. Wrapping a small amount of green-stuff around the join and blending it together works to hide all of that.

Not a very colourful fellow.

Priming the model brings it all together and gives a clearer view of what the end result will be. I was worried the hair might just look like tentacles, but it seems alright here.

I have made a mould of the Sons of Horus symbol and might see how well I can cast it onto a fresh shoulder pad, but equally repeating the same again would be good practice. Perhaps I can do both: there are, after all, five more in the squad to go.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Champion - Part IV

 

Champion and Dedork.

Progress. Very slow, but progress.

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

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

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

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

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

-- silly painter.

Justaerin - Part I

 

Clad me in spiked studs!

The recent Siege Assault Battle Group was good value for money when bought from a third party store, so I ended grabbing myself a copy. I didn't really fancy buying more models just yet, but I did want those new Cataphractii, and I could always sell the rest (probably won't, but I could). Naturally having the box sitting there I needed to assemble something and get a true feel for the new sculpts.

The end result is pretty great. The torsos aren't as bad as photos initially suggested, and if really necessary they could be padded out with green-stuff. The poses I was a little unsure about, but they do make everything seem more ponderous, which is absolutely spot-on for these suits of armour. Assembly, though, could use a few improvements.

The initial problem I was faced with (pun intended) was how to position the head correctly. I wanted it to face the same direction as the gun, and a wild guess likely would have it in the wrong position. So I needed to assemble the legs, some of the torso, and glue the arm into position, but not attaching the front and rear of the torso. Then I lined up the head, took some reference positions, and glued the head into what I thought was the right position. I did have a little time to make minor adjustments with tweezers afterwards and it ended up alright. I generally prefer to paint and glue heads into position much later, but the assembly here wouldn't permit that. Maybe I could trim some of the bottom of the head, but then that won't sit proper, and so in the end I've just fully assembled the model. Maybe in future I could PVA glue the chest in place, but that's just a lot of effort to paint areas that I doubt will be seen anyway.

The shoulder pads were a pain. They're in multiple pieces, I took the wrong parts from a different sprue (because the numbering is the same), and on the left shoulder pad the top tilted down where it wasn't supposed to. This gave everything the wrong angle and actually forced apart the under "plate" (I needed some severe gap filling with green-stuff to correct that). To compensate for the wrong angle I forced the arm up slightly and used pieces of plastic to add a kind of wedge (melted with copious plastic glue) to keep it in place. I fell like a few adjustments with little plastic nubs could've made all of that a lot easier to handle.

The hip plates do fit alright, but need care and should be done before putting the arms in place. Too bad I needed to put the arms in place first on account of the torso, but maybe that can be avoided: the attachment for the hip plates on this model are actually not on the torso piece and might not interfere if trying to add it later.

When attaching to the base, the angle wasn't quite right either. That's on me of course, and I only needed to tilt the model by one or two degrees, but it did mean mixing up the base and putting some extra debris underfoot to stabilise everything. Luckily the foot happened to be over an area that I thought would look cool if it was kind of crushed as the heavy armour stepped on it, so it all worked out in the end.

I'm making this model a Justaerin for practice. The triangular spiked studs let me try my hand and smaller sculpting, working the putty, and getting to be more familiar with how fast it cures, how the tools work, etc. I've actually made a small stamp for the spikes in future and can scuplt them sparately to later glue into place, but the experience with clay shapers was worth it for now. The little stamp was made by drilling a hole into a spare piece of sprue, adding putty inside, and then pushing the end of a thunder hammer from the kit through. Water or Vaseline makes sure that nothing sticks to the stamp when using it - but it works best with a "spiky" tip to stamp into. Pretty sure I'm getting the hang of bases too, but I have a few other ideas to make that easier (I don't have unlimited Sector Imperialis bases, and I'd like all the Horus Heresy models I do to have similar bases). Much sculpting ahead!

I'm not yet done with this model, and I have no real intention to start painting it quite yet. I just wanted to play around with it. There will be more painted model progress coming very soon.

-- silly painter.

Sons of Horus MkVI Assault Squad - Part I

 

Be careful with that handshake.

I apparently don't have enough works in progress, so in addition to the Sanguinary Guard for 30k, I'm painting up the other five models from the box as Sons of Horus. I was already painting up Legions Imperialis in that livery, and with the idea this year to try something other than red (or gold) armour all the time, it seemed suitable to give them a go.

Before anything else I should state that the metallic paint seen above is the base version of Aged Metal (from the Vallejo TMM range). This applies much more smoothly than Imperial Gold. Looks like the latter is just one of the annoying colours of that range, which is fine because the Citadel metallics already give me nice gold colours and Aged Metal was the one I was actually more interested in.

I tried to experiment a little with the turquoise paint scheme for Sons of Horus by starting with a very dark purple as a shadow colour, building up through to a sea green for highlights. I'm not entirely happy with the result, but more on that in a moment. The approach is summarised by:

• Chemos Purple / Night Lords Blue (2:1 ratio) with equal parts thinner and flow improver through the airbrush and covering the whole model.
• The above mix with then equal parts Lupercal Green (overall equal parts thinner and flow improver again) to cover the top and sides, some underneath, but leaving a few shadow areas as purple. This needs several thin layers through the airbrush, so a layer or two over shadow areas doesn't hurt if they're otherwise too dark.
• Straight Lupercal Green (thinned & flow improver'd) to start on highlights, covering the top and most of the sides, but leaving some shadow areas.
• Sons of Horus Green, which isn't an airbrush paint and thus needs definite thinning to make it flow nicely enough. I noticed this still had some clogging problems, which isn't a surprise considering it's not a paint designed for the airbrush.
• Gloss Varnish.
• Shyish Purple / Terradon Turquoise (1:4) with equal parts flow improver and brushed liberally over the model. More on this below.
• Glazed with a brush and the non-airbrush Lupercal Green to fix some areas.
• Glazed with a brush and Sons of Horus Green to restore highlights.

The last step needs a lot more work to go on each model, particularly where I went too heavy with the shading wash. That cocktail heavily tints the surface, leaving a few options:

• Wipe away excess from flat surfaces as soon as possible using a damp brush, and well before it starts to get tacky.
• Manually rub off excess, which needs some aggressive brushing and will leave texture and markings. Try not to do this.
• Glaze back over everything to restore colour vibrancy once everything is dry.

The first step is by far the best to do. It will still need the last step to be done as part of a general clean up, but it makes everything that much easier to take care of later. Try not to do the second step. Feathering out from darker areas works, or just covering an entire surface, but don't touch it afterwards until it's fully dry. I made a few mistakes on the model above with that and it took a while to correct. I also far too heavily shaded the shins and spent half an hour correcting them - with a lot more work to go yet. The lower half is actually much lighter in reality, but it still needs lightening in places.

I would almost certainly skip the first dark purple step in future models. It's just a little too dark and the wash takes care of it in places if needed anyway. I keep my models darker than the box art in general, but it was too much in this case. The other models of the squad aren't quite so bad fortunately.

For the few areas where I didn't clean up the model properly, or where I've messed up the painting too much, I'll add decals to hide those mistakes.

When I get low on some of the airbrush paint, which Games Workshop no longer make, it seems that Two Thin Coats has acceptable replacements. That assumes those paints work well enough through an airbrush, and while they might not be quite as nice as dedicated airbrush formulated paints, I suspect they'll work better than trying to use the base and layer variants from Citadel. The difference in finish shouldn't matter given that I matt varnish everything anyway.

-- silly painter.