Dreadtober Thanatar WIP 4

This week I finished the base painting on the Thanatar. I have painted and chipped the arms and body as well as gotten it assembled. Now I need to go back over it and finish some of the details and cover any of the joints where the resin is visible due to some over enthusiastic masking. There are also some spots where the paint has rubbed of as I handled the pieces. That is one of the drawbacks of resin, it is hard to get the paint to stick. But all in all it is turning out pretty much as I expected. I think it will fit in nicely with the rest of my legio cybernetica.

One problem that I have with plasma weapons is how to paint the characteristic "plasma coils". Most people I see paint the package as glowing. I think this looks good and it is an opportunity to try OSL if one is inclined towards that. But it is in my mind not realistic, for two reasons, and that becomes a problem for me and my painting style. One is the obvious, you do not put a bright light source on your military vehicle as it will attract every enemy that has eyes. The other is that this is not how plasma coils work. I am assuming that what we see on the model is the electric coils that creates the magnetic filed that contain and guide the plasma. The coils would be metal to carry enough current to generate a stronge enough field to guide the plasma. The coils would also be packed so tight that you would probably not see much of the plasma. I have seen lose coils guide plasmas in deposition processes but those fields and plasma currents are not near enough to weapon grade. Any way, my compromise here is to paint a bright base and then drybrush some copper on top of the ridges/coils, showing that the plasma is in a coil and some light escaping through the spacings in the coil, but not enough to be to bright. One could off course argue that if the light escaping is bright enough a viewer would experience the whole package as glowing as the metal coils could just be drowned in the light of the plasma...

Now I just need to finish the base and I might actually be done ahead of time. If that happens I might try to finish my Dominus knight that is missing his arms.