Wraithlord - Part III

 

Sparkly sword!

This model is quickly turning into a bit of an annoyance really. I've already done what I intended with it and it's mostly just going through the motions at this point.

I'm still struggling with the black armour highlights, but using Two Thin Coats paints of Trooper White and Doom Death Black I tried to see how well point highlights would work. And it works well: I managed to the right of the head to make something that looks like shiny highlight point. The only real problem is that it took so incredibly long that I couldn't justify continuing. Next I figured I would simply try drybrushing and focus on the overall highlights of the model without going into detail.

I still struggle to drybrush, but with these paints I managed...something. It's not really drybrushing, more like damp-smashing. The TTC paints have a longer drying time, so using a drybrush I loaded up some paint and initially highlighted some areas before feathering those out, before mixing in more black and kind of wet-blending it down. Think dry brushing motions to perform wet blending to smooth out the transitions. It's not terribly precise but it worked well enough to build up the overall lights and I could go back in with black to darken areas and better define certain shapes.

The head, or helm, is Typhon Ash (from Citadel) airbrushed on to build up a solid layer and then a few sepia tones to add shading. I originally went with Skeleton Horde, but that was far too soft (possibly because I used too much thinner) and so then went with Darkoath Flesh. I wasn't being careful, the airbrush pressure was too high and there was water mixed in - basically poor glazing and some speckling on there, but this is actually something I wanted. Ulthwé are bone and black, but bone here wouldn't really be ultra-smooth so I wanted some texture to show through. A thin airbrushed glaze of Typhon Ash again across the "face" and that's about all. I'll either need to freehand or use a decal at some point to add the Ulthwé symbol.

The loincloth or whatever it is, I used an old brush to kind of stab the paint on to build up texture. Again, I didn't want smooth: I wanted texture to separate it from the armour. I built up from Doombull Brown covering all of the cloth, then XV-88 (at this point it really looked like flayed skin, must remember that for Nightlords) and then Balor Brown, each step covering less than before to keep shadows along folds. This was still too stark for my liking, so I then used Typhon Ash to glaze over pretty much all of it - enough to lighten to more of an off-white cloth, but not enough to hide the underlying texture or shadows completely.

The blade I purely mucking around. Trooper White across all of it, but too little to build up a solid layer. Typhon Ash to strengthen the colour, but it was too thin and spidered across areas. Magenta ink glazed across the base, then transitioning to Aethermatic Blue, leaving the end off-white. I was going for a crystal look, and it works here more for the contrast against the desaturated colours of the rest of the model.

No idea yet on how to paint up the rest of the model, but I'll keep at it as and when I feel motivated and see where I end up I suppose.

-- silly painter

Wraithlord - Part II

 

Back in black.

Not exactly going to be a long post, but I wanted to record a small experiment with the Wraithlord. The basic summary is: highlighting black by undercoating with off-white.

I've been using Typhon Ash a lot recently, mostly because it's the closest I could get to wraithbone in an airbrush paint and I have two bottles of it and need to use it up now. After the airbrush mania a few weeks back, I had the inspiration to see what I could do about black.

Black is very difficult to to work with. It's an absence of colour, and so any colour added stands out in very stark contrast. Grey tones end up flat, but picking the wrong slightly-cool or slightly-warm tones can mess up the entire feel of it. I have trouble with volumetric highlights for some of these reasons: smooth gradients with black are extremely difficult, best done with glazes, and are very time consuming. My physical accurate black often has fewer such highlights in reality, or they're very subtle, but that doesn't help a miniature stand out and be readable by the viewer. Some liberties need to be taken, but they often just end up looking like stone.

The Wraithlord has shapes that lend itself naturally to an airbrush. It's larger, curved surfaces are ideal for building up gradients with an airbrush, and a less than perfect finish might be explained by the Aeldari material used for most of their construction (wraithbone). I'm improving with the airbrush a lot, particularly in getting smoother gradients out from multiple passes, and basically thought I'd give it a go. If I end up collecting any Eldar then it's likely I'd paint them up as Ulthwe.

Typhon Ash would give me a warmer tone to the finish, in theory. So I used that to build up where I wanted highlights and tried to keep the upper part of the model brighter. I had to correct myself while doing this step because it's easy to get lost in details and forget about the larger picture. Once happy with this step, I then used Black Templar (Contrast) to bring back a black finish, more heavily in the lower areas and surfaces facing downwards. The end result is that is looks kind of....grey, like darkened stone. This fits for a Wraithlord, but I chose Black Templar for a reason: Abaddon Black is darker still and I could use that to nudge the contrast where I wanted.

The left leg has some experimentation with colours from the palette where I wanted to get more of a feel about how this would turn out. Mechanicus Standard Grey, White Scar, Ulthuan Grey, and Abaddon Black in varying degrees to shade some areas more, and highlight others. Edges and tops of the "bumps" make them stand out more, defining the shapes without necessarily brightening things too much. Upper areas of the model I'd use brighter edge highlights. It's working well enough, but I'm not sure how motivated I am to continue. I can see how using very small and bright edge highlights can make it look reflective and smooth, where the dulled effect I'm going for definitely gives a rougher, matt finish impression. I would certainly like to explore the shiny side of things, but I'm not sure that fits theme of this model too well. Perhaps i can try that on the blade later.

Final note: I missed a lot of paint when stripping the original model, and again when priming it. Patches of red were showing up underneath, and actually it looked really cool, almost like there was some nightmare glow from below. I'll have to keep that in mind for future reference.

-- silly painter

Wraithlord - Part I

I did a thing.

To add to the pile of in-progress projects, I was rather inspired to slightly modify a Wraithlord that was standing about in boxes of spares. I hope the original owner (you know who you are) will not mind. The original pose always looked a little to statuesque for my liking, and was at odds with what are supposed to be graceful war machines. I have a small jewellery saw from working on Contemptor dreadnoughts, and I figured this shouldn't be too difficult.

I wasn't sure what pose to do: one leg crouched, or both legs bent. The former goes with a swordsman look, the latter a hunter in waiting. I figured this was not the sort of thing to be pouncing on prey, so went with the swordsman look - and it also was easier to only carve away at one of the knees.

Taking the model apart as best I could first, I cut through select areas to make it easier: the shoulders (and shoulder guards), the legs at the hips, the ankles (part cut, part rip & tear), and the shoulder weapon. The hands separated at the wrists easily enough, but the feet needed to be carved off the prior base. The head and loincloth also just popped off - most of the model was stuck with superglue I suspect, making some of this much easier. The model's right knee took the most effort and some very careful cuts with the saw, but I managed to salvage the knee itself which would later cover up pinning to bend the leg.

Stripping the model was fairly simple. I tried kitchen degreaser first, and that worked mildly ok - but probably needed several days. I didn't have such patience and decided to give isopropyl alcohol a go (aka rubbing alcohol) and that worked a treat - used outside for good ventilation, gloves on, and a very old brush.

And there the pieces remained for quite a long time. I was stuck on how to base it, which is critical if I wanted to have one leg bent and the other straight. I simply wasn't sure how I was going to setup the slope this would require, and I wasn't keen on buying materials that I wouldn't use much of. Then it occurred to me: Rylanor turned out alright and I still had some of the shattered dominion base left. I could use pieces of that, some putty, later texture paints and perhaps grass and flower tufts to build it up.

Difficulties in pinning have made some of the joints less than ideal, and in future I should definitely use some handy-hands and rubber clips to hold pieces in place to get an idea of the angle to drill. Pinning works best when the pin (paperclips in this case) are straight. The knee required some bending, and the arms, but the hips were a bit of a nightmare and I could have done a lot better. Also, better where possible to glue one end of the pin, then cover it in some putty before gluing the attaching part. This will push the putty more securely between the join and give a superior connection overall.

The forearms had something attached (not any weapons), but I felt they stuck out too much and were distracting and so removed them and filed things back. I'm not entirely sure if I'll fill in the gaps or leave them there for visual interest. I'll probably putty over it eventually. The loincloth no longer fit with the lowered stance, and I didn't want my lack of sculpting skills to try make a different one, so I simply shortened it with a dremel until it fit. The groin guard was also ever so slightly mismatched with the changed leg position and so has very small section removed either side. All of this adds extra silhouette volume to the lower areas; without this it might seem far to visually top-heavy.

The head isn't glued in place yet, and I'm thinking to add some hair dangling from the back perhaps - really not sure if that would add or detract from things. The shoulder weapon isn't glued in place yet either, but I think that will be the final pose - and I might want to pin that rather than relying on glue.

Once I've added some texture paints to the base (or sand, or whatever) and primed everything then I'll need to figure out which Craftworld. Probably Ulthwe. I'll also try really hard to lean on the airbrush a lot and not get carried away with details - while I could easily go overboard with painting, I do want to try move through models a bit quicker in future. I also have no plans to rush the rest once the model is assembled, so it might take a long while to reach part 2. Just depends on motivation and inspiration.

-- silly painter.