Here you can see how I added yellow and grey blobs to the armour panels to create the mottled effect.
With that texture in place I was to add a fair bit of glazing layers toward the top of each panel. This would help merge the individual blobs in this area. It creates a highlighted look at the top with more definition in the pattern the darker it goes.
Then gloss varnish.
And decals next. Now this was a weird one as I have loads of cool decals now. The Warlord sheet itself comes with this quartered cog, meant to fit on the gun plates [just]. Now, I'd have preferred black on the yellow, but they didn't think to do that option instead giving us two white cogs! I mean when it's a two colour black and white sheet why would you just put two white cogs. It's not like the Mechanicum doesn't have half white half black anyway. It just makes no sense
Here is Iron Regent from the Adeptus Titanicus rulebook.
The axes on the left knee where nearly perfect - just black instead of blue. I considered painting over them but didn't see the benefit. You can also see the freehand chevron stripes. I was a fiend, refusing to pencil in the lines. I was sure I'd got them positioned right based on the illustration but seem to have done them at a steeper angle and thicker, so the bottom stripe is much lower.
The right knee. There were no head and wings in a size for the top left, so I chose a full griffon. There was no blue dagger symbol in that size, so I chose a blue Knight. A King or Queen might have been more appropriate for the Titan but wouldn't fit. No griffon head symbol with lightning for bottom right, so I just chose a Y symbol, that broke as the decal was applied. So, quite short. And the eagle was almost correct, except black with laurels. I also got creative, adding a large white griffon on the left and using the Armiger decal sheet to add the shoulder cog to the right thigh plate.
Anyway, the Cerastus kits come with Horus Heresy decals. Forgeworld decals are full colour prints and conveniently one knightly house - House Coldshroud, has exactly the same heraldry as Legio Gryphonicus. So the bottom right is one of the fancy decals that matched the Y on the knee plate. Where I could I tried to copy what was on the knee plate, with some added warning decals with text.
The left tilting plate has a Forgeworld decal that is the blue dagger, Titanicus symbol and griffon head. I added a couple of kill markings and House Raven lightning bolt for more heraldry. I'm not overly keen on the result but it'll do. A house Hawkshroud eagle is close enough to the Griffon symbol which only comes in white, but I wanted in black. The eagle on the head plate was supposed to be black on both sides but the left side shredded on application so I use the only alternative - a white one. Echoing the half white, half black cog. The full colour Coldshroud badge and the second tilting plate is a crossed axe and dagger
The back has it's number 69Δ from the Armiger decals and a titan eagle on the right.
So here we are - highlights and decals. I'm overjoyed at the progress but suddenly convinced it's too much bling. What have I done? Doubts start gnawing at my confidence
That all these extra details had overegged the pudding. Like the two blue cog/lightning badges on the back of the arm guards for the Volcano cannons. I knew I wanted to use them, I just never thought if I should - but that's making decisions right?
The white cog on the gun shield looked too bright, as did the cog on the thigh plate. At this stage I was properly considering if I needed to paint them over completely, or if I could tone them down with glazes.
And just to make matters worse, although not really evident in these pictures, a thinned coat of matt varnish over the decals looked like it had yellowed. All the whites and greys seemed to have been tinted. Suspiciously the same colour as my water pot, however I only used clean water thinning the varnish.
So, after all that progress and hard work applying the decals - I mean it was hours, they so fiddly and fussy! I'm having a crisis of confidence, what could I do bring it back on track...?
