Feel the Fists !

Someone has to protect the Imperium from all this plague and disease going around. This platoon of 30K/Horus Heresy Imperial Fists volunteer for the job. I'm enjoying the look and aesthetics of the Horus Heresy Mark III and Mark IV power armor, and the Tartaros Terminators. As you can see, it doesn't take them long to get dirty and battle damaged after their first encounter with the Lord of Decay. Using white highlights and airbrush on the armor, then finishing with yellow ink really makes the yellow color vibrant; a perfect backdrop for the black/silver armor chipping and battle damage, with a bit of dust and dirt at their feet. The Razorback appears to have cruised through a mud pit and suffered some engine trouble delivering the platoon to the front lines!


















I prefer blue for power weapons, and the Tartaros Terminators' power lightning claws are a good color contrast in the group. The shoulders were finished with water transfer decals. Using about four rounds of Micro-sol / Micros-set, the decals were able to look flush on the rounded shoulder pad, and then sealed and some minor weathering added on top to make them look part of the model 

Death Guard Marines

The Death Guard Marines from the 8th edition starter kit in all their disgusting glory. Airbrushed, ink colored, and oil washed. I wanted to go with a white armor color scheme to make all of the diseased details pop out - weathered rust, dirt, infected wounds, and filthy streaks of - something - on the armor. I'm getting itchy.

Nurgle Pox Walkers

Here's a little preview of something J's been working on in the studio.  Apparently, his friend has quite the big Nurgle army that needs painting. This time around, the focus is on the base colors, and then using different colored inks/washes, to bring out the true colors of Nurgle.  

All paints were Vallejo and Games Workshop/Citadel, with the latter representing the majority of the washes. The base effects were achieved simply with the Vallejo sticky textures, specifically "Black Lava" from the jug.

I hope to post more soon — next stages will be toning down the glossiness with some matte coat, and then the highlights and details will be painted.

Enjoy, and as usual, feel free to comment if you have any questions or comments.

Shading Metallic Gold

Welcome back! Just a quick-tip today about how to shade metallic gold successfully.

I love the NMM (non-metallic metal) effects, but I am not good at created them, so I enjoy creating the NMM with actual metallics and shades.

The wings, etc., are unfinished on this model, as this is a WIP and I am trying to use it to test this technique. 

Essentially, I laid down Vallejo Polyurethane Grey Primer, and then put down a base coat of VMA Mahogany. Following that, I put Vallejo Liquid Gold Alcohol-Based paint (Old Gold) everywhere, except for in the cracks/lines.

I did edge highlight a little by putting some VMC Silver and Brass, mixed 1:1 where it needed to be.

The fun part, however, was shading.  I used one large drop of Liquitex Glazing medium (I'd say it's around 10-15 "normal" drops worth), one drop of my water/flow-aid/retarder mix, and a size 3 brushload of the ink that I wanted to use to do the shading. The great part about this is that it can be painted on flat surfaces (and not move), or pooled-up. It's fast, clean and effective.

The down part (that I don't mind) is that you need to do successive layers. It's so subtle that you can barely make out that there is any color in the glaze, until the glaze dries.   I keep a hair-dryer (or, if I am taking a break, I put the mini in front of the air purifier I have in the room) handy to quickly dry things so that I can put down the next layer. All-in-all, it still only took around two hours to do the shading.

Leave comments when you can, and thanks for looking!