Captain Tycho - Part III

Say hello to my little friend.

And that is Captain Tycho done, in what must be record time for me. The whole remaining isolated and indoors helps of course, and I could always do more, but: done.

The base actually has a little more contrast than the photo shows, and again I'm not going to do anything more to it. If I start to add grass or shrubs, it would be far too easy to add too much and ruin the model. So as much as I think a little something extra would help, I'm leaving it as is.

Highlighting the armour last, after the varnish spray, worked well. It's not useful for photography, but I'm not going to go overboard on lighting conditions to try help that. The face mask in particular looks much better highlighted, with the cheekbones matching and giving more symmetry to the face.

I did paint some bronzes onto the meltagun cannister for a bit of variation. Too much silver otherwise.

As ever, because I'm bad at freehand on smooth surfaces let alone contoured ones, I'm leaving the loincloth without decoration. This is still ok - Blood Angels of all figures would have a plain one as a symbol of purity, and the robes Sanguinius is often depicted as wearing.

Onwards to the next model!

-- silly painter.

Captain Tycho - Part II

Wipe your feet before coming in.

Tycho is now finished to a degree that the Purity Seal varnish can be applied. Given the amount of metallics on the model, it means actually being entirely finished is still at least a day's effort away (depending on motivation), but that's much closer than to the start.

There's again not a whole lot that hasn't been detailed before. And once again, having built up a formula for Blood Angels (and written it down!) makes the process that much faster.

The one area that is new, and not actually seen much in the photo, is the pistol holster. I was playing around again with that, and came up with:

• Rhinox Hide over the entire holster.
• Gorthor Brown for basic highlights.
• Druchii Violet over the whole holster, careful not to let it pool too much.
• Gorthor Brown again to re-highlight. This was done while the shade wasn't quite dry, so it blended into the brown nicely as it was being applied.

Seems to work quite well for this model, but I'm not convinced it would be as effective on something else. This is another case of the sculpt showing itself off, and the paint job doesn't need to add much.

The finecast models may be older designs, but those designs certainly have a lot of character to them.

-- silly painter.

Captain Tycho - Part I

Phantom of the Golden Opera.

The next model in the finecast collection is Captain Erasmus Tycho. I decided to paint him pre-Death Company, for no other reason than I felt like it.

There was no airbrushing on this model. I considered it, but ultimately decided that I would do the armour the same as the Sanguinary Guard, and the highlighting metallics have no matching Air range. I'll save airbrushed golden armour for the Custodes.

Not a whole lot that hasn't been covered before, other than the hair. I wanted grey hair; not the white like with Mephiston, and not normal Blood Angel blonde, but grey as a nod to the ongoing trauma that Tycho suffers from the Weirdboy attack. Very simple in this case:

• Grey Seer over the entire hair.
• Black Templar (Contrast) over the entire hair.
• Grey Seer, thinned, to highlight some raised areas.

That's it. Don't see the need to do anything more, just rather let the sculpt show itself off.

The eye was a massive pain to paint. I did that before any other part of the face fortunately. Once done, I just had to be careful not to accidentally cover it. Again I used something other than white for the, uh, "whites" of the eye. In this case I had Grey Seer at hand, and so used that. It really works better than using something like White Scar. The mask eye was much easier, and though not yet finished, it's basically a red lens.

The loincloth I painted white first, and then remembered I should have started with more of a brown. Oh well. Seraphim Sepia and Agrax Earthshade to the rescue, and next I'll just rummage around with whatever I feel like to try bring it back to a cloth appearance.

About the armour in general, that will actually be highlighted last. The varnish spray dulls metallics, and so I would have to either repaint it, or rely on 'Ardcoat. That latter doesn't quite give the same effect, so the former it is - and though it won't be protected by the varnish, it's also much easier to fix later on.

-- silly painter.