Dark Angels - Deathwing Knights and Terminators - Shades and metals

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Deathwing Knights and Terminators. Another peak behind the curtain - this was February!

Whether it was just finding time to blog or too busy doing other things but I threw on all the usual shades and metals here while I was working on my Haemotrope Reactor and Halfling Blood Bowl star players.

This usually becomes a 'save point' anyway - get the metallics done and then it's the bone highlights. 

I don't mind doing the blending for the highlights but it is laborious and takes a lot of time so I didn't want to start down that road when i had other projects I wanted to tick off.

I still think I have enough time to do them but I wanted the quicker wins before I tackle them in earnest. 

I think there was just the final brassy bronze highlight to do at this stage, which was just put off for ages but I did it eventually.

Last time I did Knights Army Painter Soft Tone was too dark and it put me off progressing with them for so long.

This time Army Painter Angel Green had a similar effect. I mean just look at that coverage! Maybe I didn't shake it enough, I need one of those vortex mixers. But this looks almost like Contrast and therein lies my issue with contrast.

When you've been told for years that multiple thin coats for good coverage is the way to go a paint that actively shows the undercoat, but tinted to create a highlight still feels like poor coverage to me.

The irony being - I never do multiple thin coats for good coverage. I either do one coat so I get an uneven coverage and see my undercoat [yes, the exact negative issue I have with Contrast, but somehow it's a positive when I do it] as texture, or I do a thick coat and damn the consequences.

Anyway, a second coat made it a bit better but it was the Dark Tone wash that actually made it look like it was Dark Angels green in the end. So, when I get some other little projects out of the way I am good to go for these. Definitely the Knights will be finished before the end of the season and hopefully the rest of them too. I've just checked back to my previous Knights and it takes 40-60 minutes to do that first bone highlight so I have some clue how long it'll take to do now... maybe not so definite now!

8th Anniversary of the birth of the Man Cave

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've had my man cave for 8 years now, it was originally installed on 27th July 2015. 

Still the best hobby purchase I've ever made but now it's also my home office. I use it every day and I had hoped to have some updated internal pictures but it's a complete nest now, but I can't find time to tidy it up 🤣 But I can confirm that I believe the floor upgrade last year was worth doing. I definitely had a warmer winter, but that might be down to rearranging how I use the electric oil radiator, so it's more efficient in keeping the heat lower. Without the new floor it wouldn't be so easy for it to be moved around and equally it wouldn't be as easy for my Herman Miller office chair to get around.

Conversely, it still gets quite warm in hot weather but my fan is helping to reduce temperatures by 2 or 3 degrees by moving air around at the top of the ceiling. I have picked up an additional air cooler which I might deploy on the worst days but haven't needed it yet. I've also considered a sun shield/net. For less than £20 I can cover the entire shed to block the sun and hopefully keep the temperature down but I'll need to find ways to anchor that so it doesn't get blown away. I might look into it next year.

One last thing, one of the fluorescent bulbs finally gave out, 8 years, we thank you for your service! Unfortunately I do need both bulbs and the only one I could get at short notice was a warm white, but it was only £1.20 so gave it a shot - no, very wrong! It was cheap because they're trying to move these over to LEDs, but the battens need to have their 'ballast removed' for this to work and although it would mean more efficient bulbs I wasn't able to swap them out and instead ordered another 2 daylight tubes. So I should be good for another 8 years before I need to address the lighting issue. It is surprising to see an 18W bulb described as energy efficiency of G! Remember when we all had 60W incandescent bulbs? Of course the landscape has changed and I figure they've revalorised the energy ratings but even so, odd.

Anyway, another year older for the shed - you're doing a grand job for my hobby, my mental health, wellbeing and the wellbeing of my marriage!

'nids part 347 - Tyranid High Rule Dude - BIG BUILD TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer and here's what's going on that big old base. I'd been eyeing up this 'High Rule Dude' on Cults 3D for years. A totally free sculpt as an alternative of the Forgeworld Hierodule, which I don't like. This however, I do like.

It's simple in detail in some places, certainly limited on texture in others but I paint on a lot of that anyway. I finally arranged with Liam for him to print it out on his 3D printer, but it seemed to have disappeared from the website but I think I'd already downloaded it. It took a while to print and not without some issues, which needed the terracotta Milliput fixing.

And I added various additional Adrenal Gland symbiotes crawling over it for extra details. I also magnetised the arms, because there are the gun options also available [which I don't have pictures of].

 But this will be my #Dreadtober entry and I prepped it well in advance because I had the time and inclination. I may well throw in some of the Leviathan models too - 2 Screamer Killers anyone? So whatever headstart I got with this it's so I could be more ambitious and focus on the cool stuff rather than just it's base and the boring process of adding magnets...

Great Big Big Build RUSTY Stamp of Approval for the build.

'nids part 346 - Tyranid High Rule Dude - BIG BUILD BASE TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer and I was sure I'd shared this already but can't seem to find the post. Maybe it's because this will from part of my efforts for #DreadTober and starting in April [when this was done] isn't totally within the spirit of the event but I'm going to commit big this time and not just for the occupant of this resin base I bought, which ironically I added more basing material to.

But it's a big base - 100mm across and you can see how big that is compared to a standard 25mm Poxwalker.

I needed the extra gravel to tie in with my existing Red Planet BASE! 

And all those flat surfaces will be marble. 

As you can see here in the completed pics.

Some extra bits of debris

It looks like a slice of pepperoni.

But it came out awesome

And again, for a sense of scale here's some rubble strewn Ravenwing bikers I finished at the same time so see how the base blends together. 

And my Primaris Chaplain on a bike

So, I get the Great Big RUSTY Big Build Base Stamp of Approval for the basing!

 

Terrain is everything - Thermic Plasma Conduits - Highlights and metallics

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Thermic Plasma Conduits. On with some VGC Sun Yellow highlights, plus some additional shading in places to create more definition/contrast in the structure of the pipes.

I also picked out all pipework with a VGC Gunmetal Metal drybrush, some of the canisters in red, that fits with my Servo Haulers and GSC Sentinels.

I also painted the coils, which everyone else does blue but I wanted them to follow the red insulation glass I've done perviously.

Even the 'chimney' has one and I think it ties everything together.

It does mean the plasma canisters which go in here will need to be red, when I did the one for my Crashed Aquila Lander blue, but the technology is all over the place.

At this stage they were effectively complete, I just wanted to record them here before varnishes etc.

The smoke on the chimney added another subtle addition to the scheme.

A whole lot of effort, for no real purpose, though they'll probably be in next year's Armies on Parade.

But it's about the enjoyment and satisfaction of painting something nowadays. Are they realistic? Not completely but I think they're getting more so, and much like BLESSED VERDIGRIS, rust can vary massively. What you see sometimes doesn't look real, or consistent, but that's because it's a natural process.

It's completely random and throw in a wholly fictional planet with unknown environmental properties and this could be 100% accurate to the conditions on Ferron Proxima. 

Super chuffed, now to varnish, photograph and move on to the next thing.

Terrain is everything - Thermic Plasma Conduits - Rusty yellow

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Thermic Plasma Conduits. Next up Colvin & Co. Burnt Sienna stippled and drybrushed on. 

I mean, when this stuff dries it feels like rust. 

I may have to try this as a final coat in future, rather than an intermediate application. The things is, rust is so diverse there's now reason it can't be different in the same setting.

Sure, you want consistency on the tabletop and the same techniques tie everything together. I love that, I really do, but I'm also about experimenting.

Taking those opportunities to challenge how I do things and explore different ways [like the variety in my Nurgle Blood Bowl team]. And in real life things do look different and incongruous. You don't always get colours that match or compliment each other sometimes they clash and look odd. 

I'll continue to play with that even if I know the safer option might be aesthetically more pleasing to the eye.

That said, the yellow makes them look very different.

Sponged on Colvin & Co. Gamboge as I did with my Preceptor Weapons.

Kept the rust showing through in places.

Added Valejo Game Effects Dry Rust to all the pipeworks and fans.

Also on the control unit to help break things up a bit.

I knew jumping onto these so soon after the Haemotrope Reactor would pay dividends .All the same techniques, just a few little details I'll need to pick out next, more highlights and ways to balance the weathering and rust effects.

Terrain is everything - Thermic Plasma Conduits - BIG BUILD TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer OK I fooled you I did end up putting the Thermic Plasma Coduits together.

I mean it was only at the end of the Haemotrope Reactor and it was another tactic to avoid the Terminators but I was convinced I could rattle through these as all the experience on the reactor would be still fresh in my head.

Again, lots of Oxid Paste texture and red crackle paint to get them suitably weathered.

Some additional brown stippling for one tone of rust on the top.

Just adding more texture to what I'd already built up.

Different pipe.

Other side.

I had decided to make this one an upward vent. I may live to regret that it feel like I'm limited in how I can arrange these with the Reactor but we'll see.

I just wanted a little more verticality and it's decision like this that delayed getting them started int he first place.

The control unit, I've still to prime the plasma canisters that fit in the sockets.

And the control panel itself. More rust and yellow to follow.

Great Big Big Build RUSTY Stamp of Approval for the build.