Dark Angels - Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer - TO DONE! [White Pics]

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've been #paintingwarhammer on my Dark Angels Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer. Here's all the white background pics.

A different prospect altogether when it's not on the red background. All those subtleties in colour just jump out.

The heat bloom on the Flamestorm Cannon isn't great, or perhaps the blessed verdigris is bit clumsy but I'm happy with  most of my other choices.

The weatherign powder in particular adds just enough variety at the the bottom of the tank.

It may not come with a Red Planet BASE! but that dusting of rust orange gives the illusion of it.

I carry on with this I'll end up wanting to revisit all my models and give them dirty greaves...

Green doors may well have added a little more variety on the model and yet more continuity with the rest of the army but I will live with my choices.

Alongside the fact the gunshields are back-to-front. I did also consider the Indomitus decal sheet has a white checkerboard strip that I thought would be cool on the shields, if I could source a second one but thought it might be too fussy,

The Hunter Killer Missile appear all wobbly looking now. I was sure I'd glued it much straighter than that. It got a bit of a bang at some point which led me to believe that was the result, but it still feels pretty solid so I don't know why it's off-kilter.

 

The lenses still look OK. I didn't Tamiya Clear them in the end. The drop of Vernidas varnish to add a proper lense feel works but I think it works better with the Tamiya Clear process. 

I had to retain all that highlighting though, it would have been lost otherwise.

The green lenses look OK too, they aren't as well executed as the original red ones but the Tamiya Clear Green X-25 makes them look a little more realistic than the un-Clear orange and red.

I may well add some purity seals on these front wings as when the Land Raider earns the right to bear them.

A quick splash of Army Painter Soft Tone on the Mechanicum banner decal toned down the white enough to help it belend in.

Again, Camera360 isn't necessarily giving me the quality of imagers I hoped for, so I tried some with my native camera app.

I don't know if that improves anything for you as the viewer.

I think the depth of field doesn't help, the phone does have a dedicated macro camera but most everyone said zooming in with the main camera gives better results.

There we have it. Back to Greenwing and Ravenwing next.

Dark Angels - Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer - TO DONE! [Red Pics]

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've been #paintingwarhammer on my Dark Angels Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer and it is TO DONE!

Oh boy, this has been a challenge. It was roughly a year ago that I picked this back up with the plan to finish it. I felt motivated and confident.

Then the reality kicked it and it was easy to set it aside to find other things to focus on. It's come together brilliantly in the end though.

There's an irony that I painted over the original green doors - it was basecoated in bone, red for the weapons and green for the doors, although that was an overspray of a Blood Angels base. But now I remove all the green it could have benefitted from a little green, to match my Deathwing Knights - see later pics.

The right quartered heraldry was and addition, as was the number 1. I could have done that as a decal but I freehanded the lot. I think it tapers a bit towards the bottom, the scuff marks don't help to dissuade from the illusion but I'm still quite chuffed with the result.

As you'll know by now, the custom decals were an experiment. I felt the top of the tracks were too plain and thought I'd give them a shot. The process was deeply flawed, with the decal paper jamming in the printer, but luckily I had sufficient success to get some viable decals and they were applied SO successfully.

 If I'm honest, the top is now SUPER-BUSY compared to the SUPER-PLAIN. But it's better with, than without.

 

It's pretty cool model in the end. Quite the centrepiece, even if they're a bit rubbish.

Now this could be it's purpose - delivering the Deathwing Knights and you can see how just a small amount of green on tank would have linked it a bit more with the Knights.

I do have another 5 Knights to make up at some point. It would be nice to have all my terminators done. 

I don't think I could field a mono Deathwing army, but the 15 or so terminators I still have to build/paint would look pretty cool.

Chances are I never will field them, playing Dark Angels just feels far too complex for me to get the best out of them. I still need the Space Marine Codex and the Dark Angel Codex Supplement - too many rules for my old brain.

At least the Tyranid Codex is pretty simple and self-contained. 

Imperial Knights too are easier to play than other armies, it's just the more competitive ones are more complex to play.

There we go and here's the Great Big Granite Stamp of Approval - TO DONE! 

Dark Angels - Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer - Decals & dust

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I'm #paintingwarhammer on my Dark Angels Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer. Mistakes were made... My Xerox Laser Printer did not like the decal paper!

Luckily, I filled half the sheet with duplicate scripts and numbers and those at the top, above the wrecked ones, although slightly creased, were usable. I hoped that once they were floated off the backing paper all those ripples would disappear.

 

And I was right! The gloss varnish really helped blend the decal in. I did need to scrap one big number 1, as the tail got folded underneath and was irretrievable. The 1 was printed only as an outline, all that black was filled in with paint afterwards 😎 

 

The script came out really well though and I'm absolutely overjoyed how I got to blend it in, with no sign of the dreaded decal halo. Where possible I try to avoid straight edges and corners as your eye is drawn to those anyway. The decal paper itself helped because it was very thin, almost like a slightly thicker clingfilm in a way, hence why I had to scrap the first big 1. So, the fiddliness of application is outweighed by the supreme finish.

 

 I also added the AdMech banner decal from the Imperial Knight sheet. I don't know why it felt like it needed something. I some handwritten script might have been nice here instead, but nevermind. I also applied a coat of Lahmian Medium over the decals. I am going to highlight the black in some places, that may be a mistake but OCD demands I do it.

The Deathwing symbol also needs some unnecessary highlights and shading. 

I'm really pleased with how it looks. You may also spot I started changing the hatch lenses to green.

And a very subtle highlight on the 1, using Incubi Darkness. I don't know what possesses me sometimes. When I apply the matt varnish sometimes you can see the uneven matting agent instead of it being pure flat black. Here I've applied the highlight in such a way as to replicate it. Now of course I could go back in and paint it all black, but I fear it'll just add texture to it and make it worse. Hatch lenses have also been highlighted.

The Deathwing symbol is a little bit better. I also added some tiny highlights on the illuminated capital H. Incredibly subtle but really helps lift that bevelled effect in the letter. You'll see it better on the TO DONE pics.

And here we go with weathering. As with everything I do this required significant internal debate. Despite already having my Ravenwing with weathering powders to simulate the red planet dust of Ferron Proxima kicked up I feared this would look like rust. But technically it should, as Ferron Proxima is essentially just a giant planet of rust powder. So I have a precedent that works and still debated doing this, but it looks great.

 

I didn't go overboard on the bottom, just enough to give a taste of the orange.

This is of course pre-varnish and some of it will disperse once it's covered. I may add in some extra Vallejo Rust Model Wash & powder in some of those exposed footwells. The tracks themselves could do with more, but they'll definitely need extra varnish as they'll be where the most game wear takes place. I also don't want powder smudges left on other people's gaming table [should I ever game again!].

After the varnish, just some gloss on the lenses, I will not be using Tamiya Clear on all of them, on the advice of commenters. I may be a little selective, the hatch lenses and the lights - yes, targeting lenses - no. And then it is TO DONE!