Lumineth Vanari Auralan Warden - Part III (Showcase)

 

Early toothpicks were dangerous to use.

A bit of a jump in steps, but the model was always about playing with, not replicating. Plus I wanted to just finish something to get motivation up, so this was it. I did not bother with being perfect, cut several corners (the eyes in particular could have a lot more work done, gemstones were done using technical paints only and without shading or anything), and generally consider it tabletop ready only. Really trying to save caring more for special characters. Or just Blood Angels in general.

The main idea behind this model was a more limited palette and seeing what differences I could show in texture. White on the cloth and armour panels, blues much the same. The "scales" were a mix of greys. I also tried a little NMM in places using an unusual combination:

• Thondia Brown (actually the base brown used everywhere on the model).
• Wild Rider Red on highlighted areas.
• Yriel Yellow glazed over most of the "metal", and then built up more on brighter points.
• Yriel Yellow mixed with some white on the palette for spot highlights.

I kind of like how that gold came out in the end. The brown base works here, giving it a neutral gold rather than shifting to any cold or warm spectrum in particular.

Tassels were a simple combination of Wild Rider Red shaded with Carroburg Crimson. Such small details don't need more, but I wonder if that would provide a good foundation for the top knots on the Allarus Custodes. It's worth thinking about.

And of course the varnish spray frosted slightly and really messed up a few areas, so in future I'll really have to look at a varnish that can be fed through an airbrush.

-- silly painter.

Project 20 Marines - Part II

 

Colour-of-Dried-Blood Angel

It's been slow going with painting projects lately, just until I get a few things sorted out and free up some time and motivation. This post is nothing particularly special, and mostly just to ensure a few notes are kept about the Primaris assembly.

All of the planned twenty marines are now sufficiently assembled to start painting. It took some time to figure out the best approach the for Primaris models: the weapons are not separate from the arms. In the end I decided it best to assemble the arms fully onto the weapons, then allowing the shoulder pads to be glued into position, but keeping the arms only blu-tac'd in place for now. This allows the arms to remain in position for the airbrush stages, also keeping the shoulder pads with the same highlight direction, but easily removed later for easy access to chestplate and weapon painting.

I've yet to decide if various airbrushing stages should be done without and with the arms, or if various areas can be touched up with some Mephiston Red glazing later on.

As a further step from painting the backpacks, I'm experimenting with doing edge highlighting before the final airbrush highlight. I generally don't do much hard edge highlighting anymore and it's hoped that this will allow a softer but still defined edge highlight that I can then strengthen in areas as needed. I've done a single test model in this manner and it's worked well enough so far. The rest of the backpacks need doing yet, but a wet palette means I can just do one at a time whenever the motivation strikes.

For something completely different, getting something to hold each model has been another challenge. I don't particularly want tens of painting handles, but would like something to hold the models while airbrushed. To that end: plastic bottle caps glued onto old Citadel paint pots. It's not perfect, but does the trick. Once the airbrushing is done I can then glue each model onto its proper base and use the painting handles from there.

-- silly painter.

Allarus Custodians - Part III

 

The Caped Custodian.

After a little bit of a getaway, I'm back and picking up the brushes again. So while not a whole lot of progress has been done since last time, there are enough little pieces to note down what has been done.

To start with, the armour has been highlighted on this model. It doesn't really look that way in the photo, and indeed it's subtle, but sometimes subtle stands out more. I toyed with a few things but ended up with:

• Canoptek Alloy / Liberator Gold (1:1) mix for an initial highlight, mostly along "feathers" of the various eagle designs, and edges. Liberator Gold alone has the wrong hue and doesn't match the gold armour, so here it's mostly used to saturate the Canoptek Alloy slightly.
• Canoptek Alloy for edge highlights, or anything that should stand out in particular.

For what I take to be either shield generators, or some kind of power reactor on the back:

• Warplock Bronze base coat.
• Castellax Bronze to highlight, with a fair amount of mixing with the previous colour to get the transitions just right.
• Canoptek Alloy for edges.

Obviously I'm enjoying Canoptek Alloy quite a bit here. It's a remarkably versatile paint and can be used for bright edges where a silver simply doesn't fit.

Gemstones I have to guess at. I wrote it down at the time, but have since lost the piece of paper. So this is a guess but should be close:

• Night Lords Blue across the gemstone.
• Sotek Green across about half the gemstone.
• Ahriman Blue as a sort of edge highlight.
• Abaddon Black, or Nuln Oil to darken the opposite side. This step isn't always necessary, especially for smaller gemstones.
  
• Corax White for a reflection dot.
• 'Ardcoat gloss varnish at the end.

The blues tending more towards aqua are a bit of a running theme for these models: I used Talassar Blue, Aethermatic Blue, a little Baharroth Blue, and some Guilliman Blue (the old glaze paint) for the power field effect on the weapon. I tend to give it more colour towards edges and points, and use stripe motions or drybrushing for a weapon in motion. The model shown here is not swinging his weapon, so it's a smoother appearance.

And the cape. I played around on another model to try get a feel for how to paint soft material, and initially tried stippling, dabbing with a drybrush, and glazing, but in the end most of that was simply wasted. Cloth does not highlight with smooth transitions like hard surfaces, so drybrushing works really well. It also doesn't desaturate from reflectivity, so the choice of highlight colour really matters too. In the end I'm going with:

• Dryad Bark / Mephiston Red (1:1) through the airbrush, all over the cape. Most of this is going to show through, so two coats to give an even finish might be needed.
• Word Bearer's Red, drybrushed very gradually and slowly built up in desired areas. Really take some time with this step: rushing will ruin it. Dabbing motions can also be used if the paint isn't quite so dry.
  
• Mix a very slight amount of Ulthuan Grey with Word Bearer's Red (and not much at all is needed - if in doubt, use less Grey) and drubrush this onto more prominent folds.
• Agrax Earthshade stippled, dabbed, and glazed into deeper recesses.
• Druchii Violet stippled, dabbed, and glazed across mid-tone areas to give some variation.

The capes will be matt varnished before being glued into place. In the photo above it's simply staying there, but isn't yet glued. The varnish step will help to differentiate the texture from metallic gloss that much more.

I'm not sure yet quite how to paint the top-knot. Red as a primary colour seems like it might be suitable, but too bright or saturated and it will take attention away from the rest of the model. There are still small details like the vents on the back that need finishing, the weapons, and various other items of interest. The base I will do as white marble.

In other words, still a lot to go on these models - at least two more blog posts, perhaps even three, but there is progress.

-- silly painter.

Project 20 Marines - Part I

 

Mr Grey

This post is a little bit different and is the start of a log of an attempt at assembly line painting. I'm horribly slow at painting models, but do finally have a solid formula for painting Blood Angels. This helps speed along individual models because I have plenty of references to fall back on when knowing what to do next.

The problem is the backlog of models that need painting. There are a lot. It's enough to keep me painting for a long time, and from a collecting perspective I have some models that are not really available anymore, so I am ok with having collected them. But I still want to do something about the backlog.

Blood Angels, perhaps more than any other army, have models that are all just about unique. Every marine looks quite different, with the multiple combinations options available. Within that, however, there are some similarities I can deal with: rope will all be the same, cloth, icons, blood vials, shoulder pad trim, etc. I don't need to batch paint every detail of every model at the same time, but I can do groups. With a wet palette, I don't even need to sit for long sessions - just a little bit each day will suffice. I'm also improving a lot with the airbrush - painting the basic coat and highlights of red armour isn't such a problem anymore.

Another demotivational point however, is sub-assemblies. I far more enjoy painting fully assembled models, and dislike doing them in parts with assembly only possible at the end. There's no way around that sometimes, so this experiment is as much about figuring out the most I can assemble a model as much as anything else.

And the experiment is: a production line of twenty tactical marines, mixing ten older models with ten Primaris. For me, that's quite a lot, and it will take time - but I'm hoping less than an average of one week per model!

To start with, the above photo is what I think I can get away with for basic assembly. The arms are posed, which was a bit fiddly to work with, but generally gluing the right arm first, then holding the gun in place while gluing and positioning the left arm seems to work best. The glue will take a moment to properly cure, but holds the position and allows for some adjustment so that I can be certain it will be ok when the gun is attached later.

The backpacks are being done entirely separate. Actually they're already a couple of airbrush coats in, and won't be long before they're onto the next steps. Backpacks generally don't get the focus of attention, so they're good to use as a bit of testing.

The bases are all done as well, just because it was easy enough to do. Once the airbrushing is done I can probably start to glue models to bases.

Back to the main model, leaving the guns off allows for easy painting of the chest, not to mention both sides of the gun. I'm sure some areas will be a pain still, but at this point the enticement of knocking 20 models off the backlog is too great.

PVA glue will be used on any area that should be glued later on. This generally means the attachment point for the right hand, backpack, and helmet or head. Using a dot of PVA glue before priming, it can be peeled off later to allow plastic glue to properly bond the surfaces.

Several Primaris still remain to be assembled, and they are a different challenge to the older models. The new designs don't allow the weapons to be so easily separated from the arms, so I'm undecided on if that means using a blade to force it, or to leave the arms off until the main body is painted. This is all exploration and experimentation, and I'm hoping the experience will make the next round of model assembly much quicker, allowing me to start making inroads into my backlog.

-- silly painter.

Lumineth Vanari Auralan Warden - Part II

 

Likes to sing the Blues.

Continuing with the theme of using free models for experimentation, the folds in the clothing worn by this model seemed an ideal place to try make clothing look like clothing rather than plastic. In other words, attempts at painting texture onto the surface. I took this a little further as well, and have used the same basic colours to try make a difference in texture for material, metal, and feathers.

White is planned, but this post will focus on the blue areas.

Firstly, the battle garment / cloak / dress. One of the difficulties in painting these is how to highlight and show folds without making it too smooth. There are a couple of observations that may help here:

Clothing generally doesn't give sharp, bright reflection points. Polished leather might, but even that will have less shine than gleaming metal.

The surface of clothing isn't uniformly smooth. Miniature painting generally needs to exaggerate stitching, fur, holes, etc, to make it visible at that scale, but the point remains that contrast exists even in lighter areas.

Stippling and drybrushing are the immediately choices that come to mind to paint clothing. The former was done here just for the experience. I've tried drybrushing before and while it did work to a degree, I basically wanted to see what I could do with stippling.

• Kantor Blue was used as a first step, giving the battle dress and even coat to work from.
• Shyish Purple (Contrast) was then thinned a little and applied over the entire dress. This was intended to give a little more shape and depth, but a normal wash would have sufficed, or even better stippling in a dark purple. Something to remember for next time.
• Teclis Blue was then striped and stippled across raised areas. This was done in multiple thin layer passes, building up a stronger colour on more prominent patches. Takes some time, and was looking a little out of place, but I should have continued.
• Kantor Blue glazed back over areas to bring them together more. This worked, but also muted the contrast severely. A different midtone should have been used, or the prior step given a lot more brightness.
• Lamenter's Yellow glazed onto larger areas just to try bring the ambient level out a bit more. Yellow might seem an odd choice, and it does subtly shift the colour, but that also brings back some contrast and sells the effect a little more.

The last step is worth reiterating: subtle colour shifting and help make cloth look far more interesting, just through the use of colour contrast. I should have remembered that from long ago painting the Cold One cavalry.

The feathers are simple so far:

• Kantor Blue base coat.
• Teclis Blue towards the outer edges.
• Drakenhof Nightshade over the whole area.
• Nuln Oil in the shadowed areas, and towards the base.

In hindsight, maybe some Druchii Violet would have been a more interesting shade than Drakenhof, and I may yet add that.

Blue shiny armour I've tried a little bit of NMM technique with. I'm not very good at that yet, but that's why practice is good.

• Kantor Blue base coat.
• Teclis Blue in selected areas to start showing reflection.
• Celestra Grey (being what I had on the palette from painting the whiter areas) for more extreme reflection points.
• Black from the palette to darken other areas and boost the contrast a little more.
• Glazing back and forth with all off the above to get it showing how I wanted.

Different end results with the same basics of Kantor Blue and Teclis Blue. Limiting to these has really helped think about how I'm going to give texture to the surface, and it's worth looking into limiting the palette further one day to push that even further.

I will probably end up using metallics for some areas, but haven't really decided yet. Going all NMM means more practice with that, but it just depends how motivated I am.

-- silly painter.

Allarus Custodians - Part II

 

This guy means business.

Progress on the Allarus Custodians, with some assembly having taken place. The above photo has the cape and left arm only temporarily held in place just for giving an impression of how the model is turning out, but all other components are glued in.

On the subject of glue, I used superglue for the head. This was a mistake. I should have masked out the attachment point and used plastic cement instead, because superglue can cause frosting in surrounding areas. I don't see it much, and it's probably something to do with the particular metallics used, but it gave the face a hefty amount of white stubble that I had to correct. More on the painting the face in a moment.

The armour was finished mostly as I intended before.

• Thallax Gold / Air Caste Thinner (1:1 ratio) applied through the airbrush. Even thinned, Thallax Gold is quite an intense colour, so I tried to be a little careful about how I applied it.
• Reikland Fleshshade (Gloss) added to recessed areas, and glazed into darker or shadowed areas. The gloss shades can be used as a glaze on metallic paints - they're thinner than normal shades, and are quite well suited to the surface created by metallics.
• Cryptek Armourshade (Gloss) added to deeper recessed, or used to outline details. I considered using Nuln Oil, but instead went for something quite dark without being black just to keep a slightly warmer tone overall.

One of the bonuses from the gloss shades is that they act similar to a varnish. The Thallax Gold was rubbing off rather easily when handling the model, but with the shades applied that seems to have fixed the problem. I was experimenting with varnishes on minor areas, using Stormshield in thin coats to see how much it would dull the look. That's an acceptable, if time consuming, alternative, but no need if the shades protect it enough.

The armour is not yet finished. I intend to keep painting enough until full assembly, and then do edge and spot highlights. It might take a little while before I get to that stage: the cloaks I'm not sure of and will have to experiment on a test model first.

The face I decided to do in a darker skin tone. There's no particular reason other than I haven't done that before and saw no reason not to try, but I'm very pleased with how it turned out and how much character the face now has. Never having done dark skin tones before, I used mostly what was on the palette:

• Eyes first, with Corax White and Abaddon Black. I find it much easier to paint the eyes before the skin tones, rather than trying to no get white outside the the lines later on.
  
• Rhinox Hide applied across all the face (except the eyes of course!).
• Barak-Nar Burgundy mixed with a little Rhinox Hide, added to the areas I wanted shaded. A little back and forth with the mixing here, just to blend it in, or pull it back if it was a little too purple for my liking.
• Mephiston Red mixed with Rhinox Hide, added along the lips. Using Mephiston Red is difficult - it's a very pure red - so some other colour in future might be a little easier to get the right tone with.
• Rhinox Hide mixed with Abaddon Black (being the black on the palette) and glazed over the top to give the impression of a shaved head. This took a little bit to get the tone just right, but I think it worked out well enough.
• Cadian Fleshtone mixed with Rhinox Hide and used to highlight the nose, cheeks, ears, chin, upper lip, temples, and brows. Glaze consistency and multiple coats worked best rather than trying to go bright all in one go. I could push the contrast a little more, but with decent lighting it's enough that I don't want to mess with it more.

I may have glued the head with a little too much turn to it, but I he is looking where he's pointing (or starting to point) so it's not so bad.

As a final little hidden tip: the cowling was glued in place with PVA glue before the head was done. This allowed priming and airbrushing to be done on it, and for it to be easily popped off and glued properly once the head was then more easily put in place.

 -- silly painter.

Allarus Custodians - Part I

 

Shiny armour to blind the enemy with.

Having multiple projects on the go at once will probably mean it will take some time to get any particular one finished, but it's also an opportunity to play with a lot of different colours. Also, the Allarus Custodians look really nice.

I decided to go for a golden armour, and generally stick to the reference colours, but with my own approach on getting there. Knowing I want golden armour gives me a chance to try out various airbrush paints, but it took a little thought on what I would try; I didn't want to simply repeat the formula I used on various Blood Angels, instead looking for a way to make an older looking armour, something of a burnished, earthen gold.

First step is, as usual, a black primer. Following that, although there's still at least one more airbrush step to go:

• Balthasar Gold (Air). This is an excellent starting colour, and a bit of care was taken to get good coverage. As a darker brown tone it serves well to keep it in the recessed areas.
• Valdor Gold (Air). An interesting colour. It's almost like a very heavily de-saturated version of the previous step. I'm still considering if it might be useful as a final highlight later - it's quite a thin paint naturally, and doesn't give the coverage over black, but is a little too de-saturated to use as a midtone. I intended it to serve as a lighter colour for helping highlight a later step (not yet done).
• Agrax Earthshade. Using an airbrush here because I wanted to put some colour back into shaded areas. This ends up almost a beaten brass in appearance, which is something to remember for future reference. It's this step that makes the photo above look a little strange with the highlighting, but a later step is intended to correct that.
• Nuln Oil (Gloss). By adding some black to deeper recessed areas, or used more for outlining, I'm hoping the later step won't entirely obscure those areas and keep definition and depth. Although I generally don't like gloss in recesses, in this case the paint simply flowed much easier without staining raised surfaces. Some areas may need to outlined again later anyway.

The missing step is a coat of Thallax Gold. This will shift the colour back into more yellow gold, for which reason I intend to thin it slightly before applying through the airbrush.

Paintbrush highlights are almost certainly going to be done with Liberator Gold, and maybe a few edge highlights with Stormhost Silver.

These are really fun models.

-- silly painter.