Fulgrime done

Now this model that has left me somewhat confused as to whether I like it or not. I mostly like the design apart from some details like the big open wound at the front. But my biggest issue is with painting this thing (I do not see how you could do that with it fully assembled). I tried breaking it down into subassemblies, as I usually do with big models, but there were not god way of doing this for the body. Either I had pieces where I could access all necessary parts, or I could assemble the model so that I did not get big seams at the front of the model, but I had to choose. Here I really think the sculptors should have a good discussion with the painters, so that they place joints where they can easily be hidden for breakdowns.

I am also not sure about the contrast in the face so I might need to go back and add some inks to give it some more depth, it might also be that the lights I used to take the pictures saturated the colours a bit and that's why it looks so bland.

Over all I am happy with how it turned out. I gott to play around with some new techniques, and I think the result is ok, but it is getting more and more obvious that I need to start working with the airbrush as it is to hard to get to all the places with a brush for smooth blending on these new complex models. I did not follow the box art colours for the model, instead I tried to match it to the Keeper of secrets that I have (which needs to get its base fixed). In particular I am happy with the combination of the dark and bright gold. The wings also came out nicely. I am also glad that I did the base and not just let him slither around on the ground.

It was an intense journey painting this thing. There are so many details and things to paint that it is easy to forget or miss something so you have to constantly go back and fix things, and when you think you are done you notice some more things that need sorting.

Well that is it. Now I have all the big four Demon Primarchs painted up. Next will have to be the Lion. 

But I have some other things to do first. Just need to figure out what it is.

The base of Fulgrim

Just a short update. Once I finished the Liaisons for my Forge Lord I started painting on Fulgrim. I am not really sure what to think about this model. Appearance wise it looks cool, but it is very difficult to break it down for painting and this makes it a bit of a pain to paint. But once the colours are down the result is very nice. My main issue is the snake body. As it coils around itself there are some places that are very hard to reach but are still highly visible from some angles. I decided to go for a blue purple colour for the main body with a pale, skin toned underside. Blending the colours were not easy and I hade to try some new techniques which is nice. I am still not fully done with the body as the fins need some more attention and the scales on the back are still not painted. I am at a bit of a loss on what colours to make them. Either I keep them blackish or I go for a bone colour. The later would tie in nicely with the base.

The model also do not come with a scenic base as most newer large scale demons do. So I had to build something so that he does not look so out of place with the other ones. I played around with some ideas of ruins etc but in the end I decided to go for a more simple platform. This was painted in rusted metal with some marble inlays. Once again I had to try some new techniques to get the marble effect I wanted. I am not sure how much of this will be seen once Fulgrim is on there, but it was nice to paint.

Once the body is done I will need to move on the the wings and try to colour match them to the snake body. Lets se how that turns out.

The Dark Commune and Apostle

I finally managed to finish the Dark commune by painting the demagogue. I am very happy with the result. The models are very nice to paint, not to much detail but still full of character. I tried to reverse the colour scheme on the demagogue, with purple leggings/shirt and grey over coat instead of a purple overcoat as I have on the rest of the models. This turned out nicely and emphasise her body a bit better. 

I also tried to tie them into the Dark Apostle that I painted some years ago. I think they go well together as they have the same design philosophy. 

Next up will probably be the other model I got for Christmas if I can finish the conversions and the base/bases. Otherwise it will be my birthday models (I am starting to realize that I no longer buy my models, my wife does).

Dark commune, and Opus Storm speeder

This spring has been crazy at work, so I apologize if I do not update as often and don't have the much to show. This means that what i usually do in a week I now do in a month. So this month I did the two guards for the Dark commune. These look more like some fantasy models rather than scifi models, but I do like them. The helmets are reminiscent of the Nazgul helmets from LoTR and the poses are equally threatening.

For colours I choose the same as for the standard bearers, grey under robes and purple over robes. The armour was done as rusted metal with some bronze. When taking the photos I realized I need to go back and work on the blades and hands a bit more. Nothing that will change anything drastically though. 

When not painting I have been building on the opus. This is also painfully slow. I have finally managed to get the internal panels pinned to the external, which means I can start with the details as they are now related to each other.

I have also started work on some gunboats, in the for of some Storm speeder. These will be defending the ground around the Opus and pick up any downed pilots, at least until I get a nice recovery ship (haven't figured out what would be best for this). The buy was a bit of a mistake. For some reason I still had the old Land speeders in my mind, and that was also what the opus was built for. So the loading bays on the sides, blew the deck, where I first intended to dock undock these is now to small and they can not fit through the doors. So I will have to find another purpose those.

Well, I did not really like some of more Primaris like designs of the storm speeders, so off course I had to make some alternations. First of was the air intakes for the jets. The grills were a bit to restrictive, so off they went. I will add some visible turbines inside that I have as leftovers from the aircrafts. I also added som cowlings to define the air intakes a bit more. Then I also added some larger exhausts for the jets as the original ones looked a bit small. Then I exchanged the winglets for some larger wings and added hinges to them so that I can fold them for storage. This meant that I could use to original wings as vertical stabilizers. I think these alterations brings a better balance to the model, less front heavy as there is now more going on at the back.  I will also remove the extra gunner from the turret and exchange him with some targeting arrays. It thought it would look strange with a guy sitting in there while it is in storage (I made the pilots removable). I also added some landing gears for the same reason. They can not just hover all the time. There is still more details to add but so far I like the build.

I guess that this version of the Storm speeder is more of a flyer that the standards ones, and it ties in better with the rest of the aircraft I have (it is also as big).  Even if it would have been nice with a canopy for the pilots. 

Dark commune banner and some Opus

Well, well. Once again I have been neglecting my updates. Not that there has been much to post lately as I have been traveling and doing other stuff than hobbying (like sleeping). But once in a while I have been dragging my self into the hobby room to ship away at the pile of things to do.

One of the things that has been sitting on my desk it the Dark Commune that I got for Christmas from my wife. These are gorgeous models with a lot of detail and a lot of small fragile details. That means that they have to be painted in sub-assemblies and then put together and a lot of touch ups where the glue melts things off or were the colours do not match. That means it takes some time to do these models justice.

I choose to paint them up to match the Dark Apostle I got earlier, which meant that I went for a grey and purple look for robes and pants of the models. The metal parts got the usual rusted treatment. I also tried my hand at some OSL from the flames, but I think I need to go back and enhance it a bit. I also thinking about doing this on the Apostel model to match. Not sure yet if I can pull it off.

I have also been working on the Opus, and it is slow work as it so big. I am currently working on the hangar bay. I decide that it would be better to add an internal skin of panels rather than trying to detail all the external parts internally. Now all miss matches will be cowered in the area in-between and will hopefully not be visible. To help with the detailing I bought the Necromunda columns and walls kit. This will be applied at various places but primarily for the access arches to the  gun ports and as emergency dividing walls for the different sections of the bay.

I also started out on the flooring. At the moment it is one large piece to make sure it all lines up along the hull. I might cut it up at some point (depending on how the details end up) to make it into more manageable sections. Once I hade it and the walls in place I put some of the flight wing into the storage to see how many I could fit, and it turned out to be 8-9 aircraft, a bit depending on how I want to treat the elevators. This is more or less what I did expect. With the second floor I guess I could fit another 6-8 craft which would mean that all craft I have fit inside except for the heavy fighter who are to tall to fit on the levels. I could probably get two of them onto some elevators and park them at an intermediate level, but that would seriously limit the space on the second floor.

So I think that the storage area in the hull is not meant to store all craft, but just a way to make space on the deck for flight operations. If the Opus needs to be lifted into orbit or the deck cleared for other reasons the craft would just have to relocate to a land based base instead.

Obliterators

These guys have been on my to do list for a long time. Initially I did not like the idea of the Obliterators, and the first iteration of the models were not were good. But then these came along, and I thought they looked really cool. I have been holding of painting them as I were waiting for inspiration. And after painting Vashtorr, with the blend of machine and corrupted flesh I finally felt that it was time.

I decided to paint them in the same scheme as my raptors (Crimson Angels), i.e. a purple metallic with white metal borders. This scheme came to be when I painted Gulliman as I came up with it for the chaos marine that he is standing on. As such I never put much thought into it, and I never developed any real method for painting charters this way. In stead it kind a looks a bit sloppy the way I previously painted it. So for these models I decided to put some more effort into shading to get some more depth to the armour plates. I think I managed quite well, so I will have to go back to the old figures and do some touch-ups to get them to the same level. The flesh was done as my usual chaos flesh with a green and brown wash to get a sickly done to the flesh. Love how the weapon feeds blend with the back muscles. When I added this lighter done to the models the armour plating's turned darker and got a stronger red tone which is a bit strange. Just go to show the adjacent colours do influence how a colour is perceived.

Over all I greatly enjoyed these models, they are highly detailed and the poses are quite different so it does note feel like painting two identical models. I do however not think it would be fun to do multiples of them as they are very distinctive and do not offer any options to make them individual or re-posable. I am actually quite surprised that such advanced models were provided in a boxed set (presumably for people new to the hobby). These usually tend to be more  simple monopose models. Well, now they are done. I still have the 10 chaos marines, so I might do them in the same scheme at some point.

Next up will be a transport option for my desert rats. I have been working on a wheeled tauros transport, but more about that in a later post.

Crusader and Sergeants done

Well that to more time than I had expected. From the beginning I thought this would be a straight out of the box build. But it has taken years to plan and execute. In the end it did not turn out anything what I had imagined but I am still happy with the outcome. I love these chaos models. The detail and character is great but they are horrible to modify due to all the details. This is why I could not make it as first planed, it would have required so much cutting and re-sculpting that I do not think I could have done it justice. So instead I went with what could be done with the models. I am really happy with the scratch build cannons on the back, even though I think it would have looked better with a more traditional shoulder mount. Thar would however have meant that I could not use the spikes and horns on the back. The arm mounted rotary cannons also turned out nice, giving an older and more intricate design than the original which I think goes well with the knights over all estetiks.

I am also really happy with how the paint jobb turned out. It is the first time I painted a large model using stippling weathering combined with my usually rusted metal and sponge weathering. I think this works best with a lighter colour that contrasts well to the darker metal, which means that the Northern Knights will probably not get this treatment.

Next up will be some mechanicum models I got from my wife, so back to green it will be.

BeLakor

So, now he is done, and I am pleased. I like how he turned out. I have intentionally keep him as monotone as possible so that all the details in the model does not over power the impression except for a few key colours like the blue flames and red loin cloth. All metals have been made as either rusted iron or bronze with Verdigris to go with the brown of BeLakor himself or the magical flames.

One thing I noticed on this model is that I am coming to the end of what can be done with my dry brushing in terms of shading and blending. I continuously end up wearing away the base layers before I come to the level of blend I am attempting. That probably means that I need to start air brushing, at least parts of the models to get a smooth transition. I will probably continue with the current technique on the armies where I have started this but to evolve I think I need to learn new techniques. Fortunately I have a long running project in the form of the Opus Magna that requires an air brush (since it is to large for brushes) where I can learn.

That being said, the model was both a pleasure and a pain to paint. The parts are large and difficult to hold and once all the small chains etc are attached it is very difficult to handle the wings with out breaking things. And one the wing are on the body it is very difficult to reach all places. I do not understand how any one could paint this if fully assembled before painting. But seeing it coming together is very satisfying and the sculpting is superb with so much detail that I honestly skipped a lot of it and just let it end up in the background.

And I think I am finally coming to terms with bases. The former gamer in me screams immersion breaking but the later collector and painter murmurs something about context and balance. Well, since models like this is more for display than play I have now problem with decorating the ground as well.

Now I have some smurfs to finish, and I need to get going with the build of the Opus so that I can start painting..