Flesh Tearer Reiver - Part III (Showcase)

 

Walking on black...stone.

Done enough on the Reiver for now. The model isn't fully complete, but it was always intended only as an airbrush test to begin with. Just wanted to see how much edge highlighting would show on through. The rest was just playing around for the sake of it.

The helmet eye lenses are done as a glow effect. No white dots to get in the way. I still have Waywatcher Green from the old glaze paints, and used that to put some glow around the "eye sockets", with white and Hexwraith Flame for the lenses themselves. A bit of thinned black around the edges helps with more depth, and while purely by chance of being inspired to try it, I really like that subtle addition.

The NMM on the blade came together ok. It looks far better in the photo than in real life. Need a lot more practice with this technique, as it's something I do want to learn - not for normal models, but if I ever do a diorama where light sources are important, then I want reflections and shine to be based of the light sources in the scene. So I'll keep at it with test models I think.

I could not be bothered with the base. Absolutely nothing was inspiring to me, so in the end I just left it a clean black.

The spray varnish really took away any shine, and there was a little frosting from the humidity in the air. I'm tempted to used a paintbrush and put some Stormshield back over some areas, but I'm unlikely to go that far. At least that varnish really merges the decals onto the model.

-- silly painter.

Flesh Tearer Reiver - Part II

 

Stabby McStabsalot

Still slow going for now, though the pace should pick up again in another week or two. I've managed a little bit more on the Reiver, and have decided that as a test model I'll give NMM another go. I'll mostly focus on the knife for the effect, but the gun will have a little bit added as well.

Although starting to take shape, I can definitely say that sub-assemblies, even just for initial base coat and highlights, are the way to go with an airbrush. I have some plans around that in a couple weeks.

The pouches here are done with a new paint: Thondia Brown. It probably wouldn't be far off from a layer paint really, but gives a nice basic leather colour to work from. I glazed a little Bloodletter over the top, mixed some flesh tones on the wet palette for edge highlights, and added some Agrax Earthshade at the end for a bit more depth. It needs something else perhaps, but that's for experimentation some other time.

On this model I also tried out Vallejo Decal Softener. I wanted to see how much better it might be at moulding decals to the underlying surface. It does a pretty good job actually, even on the circle applied to the left pauldron. The latter was purposefully unprepared (no strategic cuts to help it fold over) and while I had to work at it with a brush, it came out surprisingly well. I fully intend to keep using it in future.

It'll still be a while before I finish this model - probably another week and a half, if I'm lucky.

-- silly painter.

Flesh Tearer Reiver - Part I

 

Seen my knife? Let me give you a closer look.

Playing around with a freebie model makes for good experimentation, so I decided to see how well airbrushing in different stages would be on a Reiver. Normally I'll base, shade, and highlight with an airbrush before then going in with a normal brush. This time, I wondered how well pre-edge highlights would show through.

The basic idea is to base the model with an airbrush first, then edge highlight with a normal brush, then perform a normal highlight with the airbrush. I find the edge highlights can be a bit strong sometimes, and wanted to soften them slightly. I don't have to worry as much about transitions, and cleaning up a base coat is easier when there aren't carefully blended gradients to be concerned with.

First step was Khorne Red. Flesh Tearers colours are more towards the blue end of a red spectrum, which this base colour provides.

Cadian Fleshtone provides edge highlights next. The stronger the highlight, the more will show through after the next step. This is rather similar to how the Contrast range is used.

Wazdakka Red was then mixed with some Aircaste Thinner to highlight with. I thinned it a little too much however, and ultimately had to use a brush later to add more to a few areas. Something to keep in mind when mixing layer paints for use in an airbrush.

Did it work? To a degree, yes. It's a little more muted in places than I would have liked, but shows through well enough in others for me to be convinced of the usefulness in further exploration. I may try this on my normal Blood Angels formula as well, but that will have to work differently. Wild Rider Red will almost certainly be as muted, if not more. I could use that to advantage: there's no reason I can't apply a second edge highlight later to bring out selected edges, leaving others to be defined without the Tron appearance.

-- silly painter.

Imperial Thunderbolt - Part V (Showcase)

 

Not the flying circus.

Thunderbolts were finished some days ago, but I've not had a chance to post about them yet owing to various problems. In fact, I don't really remember everything I did since the last post, so I guess this is something very quick.

The metallics I started in typical fashion, but ended up switching to drybrushing for the highlights. This gave a much grittier look to them, which fit perfectly with the overall style for these planes. Fairly plain, very little highlighting, really just letting the airbrush steps show on through to give a more practical feel. Very little fancy painting at all, which strangely was difficult to do - I wanted to go to far with them, but every time I tried it just didn't look right. I hope I've still captured the workhorse nature of the planes in what's there.

Another thing I didn't do: weathering. There are little touches here and there: some darkened areas near the engine exhaust, a few very small drybrushed wear & tear around the canopy where I imagined the pilots would be getting in and out of. No wing scratches, no scorch marks, etc. It might look alright with such weathering, but on inspection of various photos of planes, not much of that is visible at full scale, let alone on a small model. Flex from the wings of Spitfires showed common wear to the paint, but that doesn't fit these models. So I ended up not weathering them - if I tried, I'd very likely ruin the look. Perhaps I can practice on some tanks at some point, where weathering definitely fits more.

Not seen there is some yellows thinned down with water and washed into areas to simulate jet propulsion glow. A little Fuegan Orange afterwards to shift the colour a little as well. 

That's really it. I may consider completing my Aeronautica models soon by doing a couple of Marauders, but first I'll likely get back to 40k.

On that note, there could be 3 or 4 weeks of "not much" now. I have some other priorities to attend to, after which I'll have much more time for painting and will hopefully start to get a lot more done, with more interesting posts.

-- silly painter.

Imperial Thunderbolt - Part IV

 

The pilot is seeing red.

These models are taking ages to paint. This is purely because of lack of time: work, a cold, a few other things getting in the way. So this is yet another short post, but an update anyway to show that even with short time, progress, however slow, is being made.

The canopy was was a little bit of fun. I tried to make it seem brighter towards the front, but didn't want reflective dots like with eye lenses in helmets. Just didn't seem like it would fit: such a bright reflection point would be lost in the size of a canopy, and instead be generally a more bright area. Perhaps didn't push the brightness far enough, but the darker tone suits the workhorse nature of the Thunderbolts anyway.

• Gal Vorbak Red over the canopy.
• Wazdakka Red layered and blended to the front. At the very front I also added some cream tone to the mix, making it very bright to the front. This is pulled back later.
• Abaddon Black thinned towards the rear of the canopy.
• Blood Angels Red (Contrast) glazed over the canopy to tie everything together and give a more saturated red.

The frame of the canopy was the usual Eshin Grey, Dawnstone, and whichever black on the palette - basically the same as I do for black armour on Space Marines.

A little Fenrisian Grey for a few edge highlights on top, and as the basic missile colour underneath. I tried not to overdo it, and in fact it probably didn't need any edge highlighting at all. I stopped short of going around panels - it just doesn't fit the feel of the model to do that.

Thunderhawk Blue for trim highlights, with Coelia Greenshade in recesses rounds off the highlighting. 

Getting very close to the metallics stage now, and weathering, but still a few smaller details I'd like to take care of. One example is the missile colourings: after a little research, it seems that yellow stripes around the head indicate high explosives (the warhead), with brown for low explosives (the rocket). Black for the fins, because why not.

Pretty much want to rush though and finish these models, but likely won't have them done by my intended target date. So it'll be another slightly late post again, hopefully with them finished by that time.

-- silly painter.

Imperial Thunderbolt - Part III

 

Now with wings on the wings.

 

Painting these fighters is proving to be painfully slow. No real reason other than lack of time, but perhaps there is an element of them being something so different that I'm having trouble getting into the feel of it. I am still painting all four simultaneously, which will naturally take longer, but even so they should really be much further along.

I used some busy time to think which transfers to apply. Obviously the leader has wings on the wings, and with a black tail there will need to be a white transfer. I've glazed a little Russ Grey over the white transfer as well, but it needs some more. The other planes have a number on each wing, and the black variant on the tail. On the note of transfers, I used airbrush cleaner to help soften and match the transfers to the surface, but it appears to have reacted slightly with the prior varnish step and smudged some paint. It's visible on the left wing, so I might have to add some scratches there to cover it up slightly. A good point to remember however: only varnish after transfers, never before.

I've outlined all the panels and shaded all the rivets on the blue-grey areas. That took some time. I ended up batch painting areas, e.g all tops of the wings, then all tops of tails, then all sides, then stages along the undercarriage. This helped quite a lot - batch painting doesn't mean only one colour at a time, but it can equally apply to one area instead.

There is still some of the time shading to be done, then trim highlighting, metallics, the canopy, weapons, and weathering. Still a lot to go. Somehow it feels like I've turned a corner though, as if the hard part is now over, and so I'm hoping the rest will go much more quickly. Still, with the little time each week I have right now, it will probably take another couple of weeks to get these models done.

I've been using the new STC paintbrushes from Games Workshop on these models too. I haven't used enough to get a full feel of them, but they are so far handling better than the last ones. They still form a hook on the end, which just seems to be a part of using synthetic brushes - but at least harming animals isn't required. Definitely superior to before, but don't come close to sable brushes. I may write more about them after finishing the Thunderbolts.

-- silly painter.

Imperial Thunderbolt - Part II

 

Colours of war.

A little late with this post thanks to being constantly busy with work and other tasks, and for the same reason not really that much done for the past week and a bit. I did try to come up with the basic colours for the Thunderbolts however, and have managed to block in some base paints to give an idea on one of them.

Stegadon Scale Green for the trim, Corvus Black on the tail and cockpit, and in this case some Gal Vorbak Red for the canopy. No silver applied yet to the engines or other areas, only some black because it was on the palette and I figured it would give a visual clue to the final result. The red cockpit is intended to be as hints from red cockpit lights; traditionally red was used to not ruin the night vision of pilots when looking out the window, so I'm going with that. Plus it fits the paint scheme: the Knights have red "eyes" (visual sensors or some such) and so it's fitting that the planes have a red tinted cockpit canopy. A little visual difference on the lascannons to line up targets, and to add some interest. There's not much else that fits brass colouring, but sometimes less is more.

I also used GIMP and an outline of the Thunderbolt to plan the colours, which helped decide where and what to make black. Games Workshop should release outlines for more models to allow people to more easily come up with colour schemes.

This particular model will have a black tail, though I may not do that for the others. This is the lead plane and so will have some distinguishing features.

Overall I'm happy enough with the colours and so will continue this with the other three models and then get started on some highlighting.

-- silly painter.