Vashtorr the arkifane

This is a model that I have been looking forward to painting, and it did not disappoint. Already when it was teased I knew that this was a model I wanted to get my hands on, but when it was released I missed it as it was in the limited box. So I had to wait until it was released as a singel model. One acquired, it sat in my to do pile until the opportune moment arrived, and it just happened to be now.

The model as such is a fairly easy build even though there are quite a few pieces. The level of details is great and I absolutely love the amalgam of machine and flesh. One thing I missed was that I should have placed a small managed in the chest so that the front armour can be removed to show all the detail beneath. This might be my one criticism of this model. It looks so good without the armour that I am seriously considering getting another one and totally forgoing all the armour pieces. Apart form the armour I also left the wings and the extra stack of exhausts of for painting but otherwise the model was painted assembled. The base was done separately, nothing fancy, just some extra filler to extend the scenic piece to the edge and some extra skulls.

The metal parts were done in my usual way with a black base and brown/orange blotches before dry-brushing bronze and white metal. The flesh is a variation on my standard chaos flesh, but instead of suing the Kislev flesh as a base I used Dechala liliac. Then I painted in the highlight and larger areas starting at Kislev and going up to bone before doing a green and red/brown wash. Then it was back to painting in highlights again and at the end I added a white wash. The last step with white turned out to be a mistake as it toned down all the other colours to a more monochrome tone. So I re washed the model in gren and red/brown and re did the highlights except the white.

Armour was done with a basic gold rim and some two tone striped plating (the model has some structure but not as much as I put in). Not sure if I will attach it or if I will leave it of. Model looks better without armour, but with the graves and arm plating on it looks a but strange to not use the back and chest pieces. If I were to do another one I would re-sculpt the lower legs and the left arm so that no armour was used. Just the flesh and machine.

The hammer was originally done as a marmor type stone but it did not look so good so I went back and redid it in a hot metal type of thing. First time I do this on a large piece, I am normally not to comfy doing these light effects. I guess one should have done some OSL also but one thing at a time. At some point I need to try that though.

Over all it was a very fun model to paint, and it is testing my technique a bit but still staying close to the look I like.