Captain Karlaen Kitbash - Part I

 

New armour, same hammer.

I wasn't intending to start any new little projects, but the Combat Patrol magazine has resulted in quite a few of the Leviathan Terminator Captain models around the place, and I grabbed one. I like the model, it was cheap, why not. I'm also going through a lot of furniture and "stuff" reorganisation (again...) and so at the same time as this new model I also happened to be looking at Captain Karlaen. I like the old sculpt, it works well, but the proportions of the newer Terminator sculpts are much better. Why not give some kitbashing a go?

The first thing was basic eyeballing to see if it might even work in theory. The belt buckle and tassels are a fairly unique part to Karlaen and I wanted them - they even flow in the same direction as the cape. I also looked around the Internet for inspiration: if someone else has done the hard work to prove it will fit, then it would certainly make things easier for me. I also basically copied someone else with the model's left tilting shield.

I decided early on that I wouldn't bother with the chain around his torso and across the cape. It would be relatively easy to use jewellery chain for this, but I was concerned it might clutter the model too much, and I also didn't want to be spending any more money.

The pauldrons aren't easily swapped out, and so I've kept the originals in place. The intent is to simply paint the right one in a similar fashion to the older model's sculpted version. This does leave a bit of a problem: no Blood Angel would march into battle without the Chapter's insignia. If this wasn't going to be on the pauldron, then I would need to convert the chestpiece to display it instead. I used a Dremel to carve out the skull, and a spare blood drop symbol (actually from an Aggressor pauldron) to fill it in. This didn't work quite as well as I'd hoped: the engraving bit was slightly too large, and the blood drop symbol wasn't flat - I had to very carefully try and carve off the back. I probably should have made a green-stuff version instead. I'm sure it will look nicer once painted.

The Dremel was again used on the belt buckle. I carved out the old hanging scrolls, and used a jewellers saw to cut off the belt buckle as cleanly as I could (I might actually be able to use the rest of the Karlaen torso somewhere else one day). I needed to snip off the bullet bling to fit at the proper angle, and very slightly trim one of the tassels to fit better against the leg. I had intended to fill a small gap there with green stuff, but forgot to. I then needed to Dremel out a lot of the back of the belt buckle to fit flush against the new model. It might not be perfect, but I'm pleased enough with the end result. It doesn't stick out too much, it's more or less centered, and the bullet bling helps cover up the other side.

The symbol on top was fairly straight forward: snip off the old one, glue on Karlaen's. It's not perfectly in the middle, but not so bad. I did use a very small amount of green stuff to pad out the join on the back because it wasn't a perfect fit and I wanted more stability to the join.

The hands I thought about for a long time: keep the new model's, or try and use the older model's? There's no particular reason not to keep the new model's unless some of the blood drops want to be included, and would have made it much more difficult. Ease won the day (it's a kitbash, not a total conversion). The storm bolter is all original except for moving the targeter from the older model.

Now for the thunder hammer. I spent a few days considering the best approach. I wondered if I should trim off the power cable just to make everything easier, but that would mean the grip wouldn't match up. I don't have an appropriate replacement haft and couldn't do a simple swap of the head of the hammer. So I would need to keep the cable, and all of the thunder hammer itself (hilt included). The older model's sculpt isn't the best to trim away only the hand, so I'd have to cut around that: only the hammer. The power cables don't have anywhere to connect on the new model however, and the cables from Karlaen aren't great fit to replace. Instead I figured something on the forearm would be added to split the power supply from the armour on the newer model, and I'd simply have to try and green stuff that in. It's hidden in the photo, but it ended up much simpler than I'm making it out. I used a jewellery saw again to carefully cut away the hammer and the forearm cable housing, and trimmed the latter back until it mostly fit the new model. It wasn't a perfect fit against the new hand, so I pinned the hammer and put some green stuff around that to extend the haft very slightly. More green stuff to fill out the forearm cable housing and harmonise it with the cabling, and that's pretty much it.

The tilting shields are simple: trim off the old, glue on the new, trimming and filing back as necessary to get a clean fit. The head cowling had a push fit nub which I cut off and then used the Dremel to smooth back. It's a little rough, but will be hidden by a head when that's ready.

The head I again thought about for a while. I don't have any spares that I thought were appropriate, and I didn't want the shouting expression of Karlaen's. It just doesn't seem to fit the post of the rest of the model. Fortunately there is a new Blood Angels upgrade sprue on the way at some point in the future, and one of the heads in there looks almost exactly like what I'm after. With that not yet available though, I'm likely to leave off doing any painting until it is. The motivation was the kitbashing, not the painting, and I really need to get back onto some other projects next, especially now that I've readied a painting area again.

I think the efforts have paid off in the kitbashing. It's all gone relatively smoothly, and nothing looks too out of place. The silhouette is still obviously of the Leviathan model, but as I'm unlikely to get another one anytime soon then it's still going to be fairly unique within my collection.

-- silly painter.

 

Legion Imperialis - Tarantulas

 

Turret Defense!

For these weapon platforms, sentry guns, whatever, there's not a whole lot different from before. Certainly nothing revolutionary, just trying to fix some mistakes and add a whole bunch of new ones.

The starting point with these weapons (four in total, just double up on what's shown) was Typhon Ash to serve as an undercoat, and Terradon Turquoise over that. The Typhon Ash seems to have some kind of grainy problem: I checked airflow, checked it was properly thinned and mixed, enough flow improver, but somehow it was hitting the model like flecks of sand. I don't mean it was dry when it came out the airbrush, I mean it was like adding small flecks of sand to a thinner medium and airbrushing that, with the result being a very grainy appearance across the surface. Spray primers have a more even coverage. Next time I'm going to add a drop of white ink to see if that will smooth things out. As it is I needed a couple of passes with Terradon Turquoise, which in turn darkened the base colour more than I'd have liked.

I also worked with the edge highlighting using Gauss Blaster Green again, but I think I can do better. I'll try to edge highlight with white before the turquoise and see if that makes any difference. I can always go back over them again if not.

Not worrying about volumetric highlights of any kind was a big help to these models. They're so small that they just don't need it: the edge highlights are sufficient to help with definition. A top-down approach with the airbrush will give some gradient in places anyway for next to no effort.

These models were given a gloss varnish and then gently covered with a Black Legion Contrast mixed with acrylic flow improver wash, which really helps with all the definition. It could have been a slightly darker wash so next time I'll try play with the ratio of contrast paint to flow improver.

Lastly, always dry fit to the bases before just blindly gluing these models on. The bases aren't always even, and not all of the feet might make contact with the base properly. Just worth keeping that in mind.

-- silly painter.

Legions Imperialis - Heavy Support Batteries

 

Teeny tiny troops.

Painting Legions Imperialis a certainly different to anything larger scale. The brutal lesson from these is: don't bother much with volumetric highlights on the smaller models. It's simply not worth it, not at this scale, for anything other than competitions or purely display purposes (box art, that kind of thing).

Here I wanted to try not using the airbrush, just because I didn't want to setup and later clean for such a minor amount of use. Instead I used a spray primer (Wraithbone) from the top and then Terradon Turquoise with a brush. It didn't work very nicely at all. The primer was hit & miss, the Contrast paint pooled badly, and I spent a little while fixing it up. In future I might as well just mix up a base coat for troops and evenly cover them with an airbrush - no Zenithal, or volumes, just even coverage. Later I can use thinned Black Legion to help define some of the model.

Most of the the rest is fairly straight forward: I used Sons of Horus and Lupercal Green to tidy up some mistakes, Black Legion for the black areas (it has very nice coverage, so I'm starting to favour it over other blacks for a base coat), and some minor edge highlights with Dawnstone (for black), and Gauss Blaster Green mixed down with Sons of Horus for the green. A little Troll Slayer Orange for lenses, which are barely visible at all, but do add a nice touch.

The metallics are kind of drybrushed in places, using an old an worn out small layer brush. This allows black to remain in the recessed areas, but the brighter silver defines the shape overall. Ironbreaker for select highlights on barrels, and Hashut Copper for a bit of visual interest in places (notably on the weapon platforms and left pauldron studs). 

The treads on the weapon platforms I didn't want to be just black, but neither did brighter dusty tones seem to fit with the bases. Instead I went for a 1:1 mix of Snakebite Leather and Agrax Earthshade and lightly shaded over them. Just enough to dirty them up a little, but not enough to make them look muddy.

Simple is key to these models I think. Basic colour blocks to define shapes, some shading, and minimal edge highlights to help pick out some details. I did try putting a basic Eye of Horus symbol on the shoulder pads, but at this scale it's not really visible. Instead it merely gives the impression of something being there, so I didn't even bother trying to be neat about it. I also clipped the little bump between the feet of the troops because I felt it would look nicer that way.

So that's it. Nice and simple - but sometimes simple can also be very difficult. It's a balancing act to make them look presentable and readable at scale, with too much effort, and focusing on what's important instead of getting lost in the details. I'll see if I can use some of these lessons on the next batch of models, which hopefully won't be too far away.

-- silly painter.

Legions Imperialis Bases

 

Legion stomping grounds.

Just a short, bas(e)ic post on the first attempt at bases for Legions Imperialis. Which is far more difficult to get right than I imagine.

I took some time to consider how I might make the bases look for those units which have them. I very specifically did not want anything fancy as I'd need to do a few, and nothing too colourful as I wanted the attention on what's standing on the bases rather than the bases themselves. No large differences in value or tone, which pretty much ends up as neutral grey. I also didn't want bland single colour grey, which is a little too boring - but also overpowering in its own way. Something to break up the flat surface is still needed.

To start with I used an airbrush across the whole set of bases I currently have (17 in total). I wanted to use Mechanicus Standard Grey, but that's not made as an airbrush paint and so opted for Dawnstone mixed with a little black instead (about a 4:1 ratio). Then I used straight Dawnstone to highlight between the cracks and recesses (which actually might have been the wrong way around). This won't go quite as bright as the layer paint - the previous layers will darken it down, and thinning airbrush paints helps give them more translucency than you might otherwise anticipate.

Afterwards it was a big mistake: Basilicanum Grey and Contrast Medium (1:2 ratio) and washed all over. It pooled wrong, didn't define things as well as I'd hoped, and just looked far too messy. I needed to drybrush back over everything with Dawnstone to clean up a lot of it, and attempt to edge highlight certain parts (edges of areas, cracks, etc). It's very important to edge highlight around the cracks, or else it ends up looking more like marbling than cracks in the pavement/road/whatever. The sharp highlight gives a much greater 3D impression - the flip side of this of course is that it's another experience to remember for marbling itself (darkened veins, with an extra dark line within, but no edge highlights). Some Nuln Oil to pick out the deeper recesses, and glazing of Agrax Earthshade in random points fills in most of the base.

The metals are a simple Iron Warriors and Skrag Brown (heavily thinned with water, more than a glaze but less than a wash) as some rust. Doesn't really work too well, but I wanted to the slight red / orange hue to break up the grey and it would help accentuate the turquoise of the Sons of Horus.

Not shown here, but I'm painting the rims with Mechanicus Standard Grey to try blend the base into the table some more. It just makes the base look even more flat. Not entirely sure I like it, but I'm sticking with it for now.

Next time I do a batch of bases I'll simply skip the Basilicanum Grey step and move directly on with Nuln Oil. It's easier to glaze that to darken random areas than it is to clean up the mess I'd made.

Of course if there are bases, there are models to put on top as well. More on that very soon!

-- 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.

Face

 

Mr Wonky Eye.

While poking around various models and preparing the next main working topic, I came across a spare head. It's a resin cast from an Astartes model where I'm using the helmet instead. Straight off the bat: yes, the face is a little off. It might be the sculpt, but I could possibly fix it up by nudging the model's left eye down slightly. There's also a weird sneer thing going on, which is definitely the sculpt, and not much I can do about that. None of that really matters too much however, because this was just a practice piece in painting faces.

As a bit of practice the goal was exploration of colours rather than a finished display piece. I wasn't as super-neat as I could have been, blending could've been pushed further in places (particularly the forehead), and so on. I was far more interested in facial colour planes: more yellow on the upper third, more red in the middle, and blue (kind of) on the lower third.

...and I'm John Chin.

I had the idea to literally pick a base colour and mix slight amounts of yellow, red, and blue into it to create variation. I originally tried to use a base of Cadian Fleshtone, however that particular paint needs some recovery and I had to abandon it. Instead I switched to using the more-yellow tone as the base.

• Bestigor Flesh
• Rhinox Hide / Mephiston Red (1:1), which I already have pre-mixed.
• Incubi Darkness, which is a little more green than blue but it was close by and I figured it'd probably still work.
• Ulthuan Grey, for the eyes.

Other than the primer of course, the above are the only paints I used. There's nothing particularly fancy, just mix them and paint. Other than the Ulthuan Grey, all the other paints are mixed to varying degrees - mostly just to tint the base colour. The cheeks are more red, and I also pushed that further to outline the eyes. The model's left eye could have used a much thinner lower eyelid highlight, and although the sculpt has definite trouble here this is one aspect I'll try remember for future reference. Give the lower eyelid a highlight, but make it very thin!

Pushing more of the Incubi Darkness mix into the hollows of the cheeks defines them clearly and gives a leaner, more masculine impression. It's important to very subtly highlight towards the jawline or it looks like there isn't much jaw and the hollow just turns into a cliff. The photo below shows the other side where I didn't do this properly, and it's good for comparison to see what does and doesn't work. I also glazed the Incubi Darkness mix around the nose, and that worked really well - it defines the facial shape in a soft and natural way compared to what I've previously done.

Look upon my chin and despair!

The chin sticks out a bit far, and I didn't help that by increasing the contrast under the lips. The highlight of the chin is also too far down. There's a reason for that: a small imperfection in the resin left a bubble hole and I was trying to fill it in with paint and a dot of blu-tac. It's worth it to notice what doesn't work on the chin, hopefully allowing me to get it right in future. I probably should've done a cleft in the chin too.

All in all, I'd say this is a success. Sure it's a little rough, but it's still some of the best colours I've ever done for a face. A greater degree of realism, and almost like an oil painting. If I can fix up the Cadian Fleshtone I think that would give me some more to work with on the forehead (it needs a touch more red towards the eyebrows). I also might paint the hair, but not sure which colour to go with there just yet.

-- silly painter.

Assault Intercessor with Jump Pack - Part VI (Showcase)

 

Just took a little off the top.

Finally found the time to actually finish the squad of Intercessors. As usual, things just got in the way - they should've been done a couple of weeks ago - but I also used the time to add smaller details that I might otherwise have ignored, such as the squad marking on the right knee.

There's not a whole lot to say overall, nothing much I haven't already done many times before. The matt varnish makes them show up much more nicely in the final photos, but it does tend to dull down the edge highlights. That the number one lesson to be learned here: push the airbrush highlight contrast even further, about twice what might otherwise seem necessary. I can bring it back at the end if necessary, but it saves a lot of time if I don't have to.

Actually it was edge highlighting that took up the majority of the final steps. I edge highlighted before the varnish, and then again afterwards to bring it back in places. It's a lot of wasted time if I could just get it proper to begin with. I'm considering using Averland Sunset to edge highlight before the red filter, just to see how much of that might show up at the end.

Sheer momentum can be effective.

I can still glaze reds when I want, and this will come in useful for a particular future project, with a good brush and the right medium (acrylic flow improver in this case) helping much more than just water. It also seems to work nicer over the matt varnish, which is something to keep in mind.

I haven't highlighted the metallics as brightly as I have in the past. There just seemed no need. I'm liking the duller appearance these days as it seems more suitable, but with a secondary  benefit of not stealing the show from the main volume highlights of the armour. On the subject of metallics: using Black Legion (Contrast) to base those areas works brilliantly, allowing the metallic paint to give better coverage, and is particularly useful if a gloss varnish was previously applied. That's a definite part of future painting steps.

Not much else to say. I wanted these models because I liked the old jump pack design, even if the new design is still quite tasteful, but also because I don't like the ankle thrusters of the newer models. On the whole, I think this small conversion experiment turned out well.

-- silly painter