Ultramarines Ironclad Dreadnought WIP (Part 3)

I finally managed to finish up the oil wash (Winton Lamp Black and Odorless Mineral Spirits), and apply the flat, matte coat. I really liked the way that it turned out; while the Liquitex Matte Coat is no Testors Dull-Cote, it's still pretty good, and made everything just look perfect.

I scraped the decals a little to add a realistic effect.

Here's the base I will use. I am going to hit the dirt parts with the airbrush, and add whatever color that winds up being to the Vallejo sticky textures and pigmentation mix I use around the feet and on the ground.

I even managed to get Dante primed and put down the basest of base colors: mahogany!

Here's my question: How much weathering do you want to see on the dreadnought? I can't imagine that the Ultramarines would let their Dreads get really messy and torn to pieces, unless it was part of some long campaign. That being said, I don't really like the fresh-off-the-lot look, either. If you have suggestions, put them in the comments. I don't get too many readers here, so I'll basically do whatever is suggested (low-medium-intense choice of weathering).

Ultramarines Ironclad Dreadnought: WIP (Part 2) & Dante

Sorry for the delay in posting; I've been pretty busy and been painting quite a bit, but haven't been doing so much picture-taking and uploading.

I purchased Commander Dante for my Blood Angels army (and planned to use him in the escalation league), but his points value is such that I can't really field him and much else at 400 points.  So, I'll just focus on using the Vallejo Liquid Gold alcohol paints to achieve some really cool effects, and play around with a brown oil wash.

I washed the finecast mini and put it in a towel on the counter to dry, folding part of the towel over the mini. In a sporadic burst of spring cleaning fervor, the towel — and the mini — went into the wash and were subject to high heat water, detergent and bleach. This broke the power axe off the mini, but I was able to collect all the pieces, and pin them (hasslefest), and get them ready to fix-up. At least it's clean of any releasing agents, etc.

Clearing flash and getting bubbles filled were another nightmare scenario.  I really, really wish GW would just do these in plastic.  Finecast is not finely cast, and completely hard to work with and full of imperfections. Henceforth, I guess I'll scour eBay for the metal versions of character models. 

Now, on to the main point of this entry, which is the further development of the Ultramarines Ironclad Dreadnought.  I continued the pieces by masking the colored parts and spraying everything with Gun paint from Vallejo Model Air.

This is acceptable in this particular case, as I will be shading with oil washes, and  the purpose of this exercise was to speedily produce a gaming piece with fully-magnetized options with a paint-job that is "Tabletop Plus" quality.  As such, I am not doing my meticulous metallics, but rather, spraying what I can Gun, and then hitting the gold portions with VLG Gold paint.

Then, I just hit the business end with brown, black, and it's done.

I added some details (sans the skulls . . . that came later) to the various arm components.

And, laying down some colors on the base, just to get an idea of how I want the colors to lay.

Following that, I added details to the arms and weapon options.

And, some decals (thanks to everyone for the tips on how to make the decals lie flush!).

Hopefully, I can lay down the oil wash and get to weathering tonight. 

Thanks for reading.

Ultramarines Ironclad Dreadnought: WIP (Part 1)

It's been a while since I've been able to post; an extended overseas work trip has keep me away from the workshop, but I was able to make up for the two-or-so weeks away.

I've been indecisive about what I'd like to play in terms of 40k, but wanted to get back into the painting aesthetic; having played mainly Mordheim for several years ago, I'm largely conditioned for fantasy.

Anyway, I purchased an Ironclad Dreadnought online for about $28, and thought I'd see what I could do with it.  I did a little reading about what chapters could use the Ironclad, and it seems like the one with the most appeal is the Ultramarines.  Personally, I'd like to try an Imperial Fists paint scheme at some point, as I like working with yellow (as well as red).

The first thing I wanted to do was to make sure that everything possible was magnetized and usable; my friends and I are always cool with "counts-as", but I know that some groups and tournaments are not; whatever the model possesses — per the rules — must adequately be reflected on the model itself.  To this end, I magnetized just about everything that I could.

For example, I thought perhaps a player would like to have the regular and terminator honors sarcophagi, and to that end, I cut a sprue, glued it in, and put a magnet on it, and now, either one can be swapped in or out easily.

This is largely cosmetic, however, so I wanted to make sure that the important stuff in 40k — the weapons — were all swappable to any and every arm. I magnetized all the weapons included.

One thing that I thought would be problematic would be the missiles; some people might not want them as a weapon option, and might prefer the smoke launcher or the standard, or perhaps even the searchlight, so I made provisions to have the top of the hull magnetized, as well.

Now, all I had to do was magnetize the bits that I wanted to put on, but overall, the set-up worked perfectly:

Assembled, it'd look like this, and here are but a sample of some of the options and combos that could be created:

With the general assembly done, it was time to prime.  To be honest, I hate assembling the models themselves; if I could skip to the painting stage every time, I would.  However, I do game with some people who love kitbashing and building, but personally, I just find it an inescapable part of painting.

It's also sometimes a good idea to cut the tedium, and since I have decided I'd like to play and paint Blood Angels, I got started on some test schemes for them, and I am generally happy.

And, below are the paints that I used for the scheme: I built up from Umber to Mahogany, and then hit with two different types of red. Finally, I spot-hit the uppermost (zenithal) highlights with white, and then went back over it with Italian Red, until it was no longer pink, but a nice bright red.

Anyway, back to the Dreadnought. I picked the colors that I wanted to use, and got to hitting everything with Insignia Blue and then a light highlight with Blue Angels Blue, finally, French Blue.

Ultimately, there wasn't a strong enough gradient for me. I'm usually about about subtlety, but as this is going to be weathered, I know that sharp contrast will be important as the contrasts themselves will eventually be muted by coat after coat of sealants and varnishes, pigments, mud, etc., and need to get that "pop" on this. Mediterranean Sea Blue to the rescue.

I decided to mute things just a bit, so I used some P3 Blue ink to diminish the high contrast, and keep everything closer to Ultramarine Blue than Space Wolves blue-gray.

So, with the base colors down, I'm going to move on to some initial detailing, and hope to have something new posted soon.