Thunder chick.

So, after taking a little break with my 40k modeling. But now I am back, at least for a while, I am going away for some weeks so it will be a while until next update. But a few months ago I built a stormraven gunship. Now was the time to start painting it. During the Titan project I did learn about weathering and some other techniques that I wanted to test, so this will be the opportunity. I read an article over on FtW about painting vehicles, and I did not recognize myself. In some details it is in line with my own ideas but in some it was quite different.

In my bock painting vehicles is all about non uniformity, the base paint does not need to be smooth and even, rather the opposite, the more color variations the better as this will give the model a realistic look. I tend to start with some thing that looks very sloppy and then I work it over by layers building up a more coherent color but with subtle variations in the background which I find gives the model more depth and realism. Add some nice weathering to this and you go from something that looks like a painted toy to something that looks more like a miniature of something real. Of course the method to use depends on what results you want.

So the first step is to paint a thing layer of your base paint over a black base coat. This layer will look strange but dont wory.

Second step is to give it a bit of a wash or ink to give the recesses some deeper color. One can also paint in the lines with a darker color by hand, you do not have to be super neat about it.

The third stage is to drybrush the model with the base color.

The fourth and fifth stage is just to bring the color up by latest two additional tones.

After this you start over with stage two and work your way up again. you can do this as many times as needed. I usually go for two turns to get some more shades in there.

Then it is on the some weathering, details and such, that will be the next stage for me.

Until later then..

Final

 So, I finally finished the trio of titans. Well they are mostly done, I still have to finish of some parts on the inside of the back carapace and the banners. But apart from that they are base painted to a reasonable standard. After this it will be some freehand, battle damage and weathering. But for now they are done. I will take some better pictures once it gets light around here again and I will try to make them a little bit more in game. The things that got painted since the last blog is the last warhound weapons and the reaver crew. The weapons where quite straightforward as they have to mach the other warhound and the reaver. The reaver crew however I have been putting of for some time as I did not feel comfortable painting them. Now I decided on a simple look and not to fancy. The are not glued in to the cockpit so I can revisit the later on if I want.

This has been quite a project, about one and a half year, but I have to admit that I have not been painting full time on these guys, there has been some other things in between. The next thing now will be to paint up the thunder chicken that I bought for my Desert Eagles. This blog was started to follow the progress of the titans, but I have gotten quite used to it now, I was not to sure about it from the beginning. Thanks to all of you who have followed my progress and to those who left me some comments of encouragement. I hope you will still visit my blog once in a while to see what I have been up to. And there will most likely be some updated on the titans two.

Gatling blaster

The holiday season is realy great for getting some painting done. All these lazy days with no obligations. This is just the time to get somewhere. Or on the other hand there might be no time at all. Well, for me it has been a good time where I have managed to get in a quite a few days of solid painting. The latest thing to get painted is the Gatling blaster. I am, well, I am not sure what I am, paint wise I am happy, I got nice shading and the individual pieces look ok but I am not happy with the overall look. The barrels are too uniform compared to the rest of the titan.I could have gone for metal barrels look but it would have been slightly contrary to the over all look of the titan which I have kept to a believable military pattern. I think I will have to go back and add some with/bone to the barrels, I have seen withe bands around tank barrels so I will see if I can make something lake this. Well, this more or less concludes the reaver, the crew is half painted but otherwise it is base painted and the look as it is is. Now i only have the two remaining warhound weapons left to paint and they are not horribly advanced so I think I might have them painted quite soon.

AML with side order

So, after some much needed alone time with painting I have finished the Reaver AML. I am sure I am getting more and more sloppy with my painting but this was almost a low water mark. For a while there I thought about striping it and starting over. Well nothing is glued in yet so it might still happen. I will leave it for now and keep working on the green stuff so that I can get the last peaces painted. Now back to painting before my wife gets home, I have promised to not paint this evening...

Holiday progress

It has once again been a while since my last update  (seems like this is starting to be a standard introduction). Things are however moving along. Since last I have painted the head of Wolfish Perversion and now one can see what he will look like when he is done. I am not quite happy with the bone and I will have to go back and try to smooth it out so that the brush strokes are not as obvious, so please have this in mind. Aside from that I am happy with the way it turned out. The stance is quite low and the titan looks very compact compare to its brother which is very elongated as it is running upright. This was the over all look I was aiming for. One warhound driving the pray towards the other one.
I have also painted the power plant that goes into the pack carapace but I forgot to take pictures of, so that will have to wait until later. I have also started out to work on the chaosification of the two imperial weapons that I have, once for the reaver and one for this warhound. There are some green stuff work needed but I got the FW chaos things on and now it is mostly clean up. As the main parts of this titan is now painted I will go back to the reaver and paint up the missile launcher while I finish of the rest of the weapons and get them ready for primer.
Well this will be it for now, but I will be back.