Varangian WIP; leg

I finally managed to sit down for quite some time today and get some chipping, rust etc done on one of Varangian's legs. It is not done, I need to finish the metals, but then I can mount it to the base. I am however not sure about the chipping, it looks a bit messy in places, but there is so much to paint that it easy to speed up just to get it done and then it is not as crisp as it could be. All in all it is a learning process for me, and most of this will not be too visible in the end.
I like the contrast between the light and dark green, but the chipping and rust on the dark green is not as visible as on the light green. But this is certainly something I will carry over on to the rest of the model.

Once I finish this leg and the other leg I can glue the them together with the pelvis and cut all the pistons to length. Who knows, I might finish the legs to Christmas this year instead of last as I though then. I am seriously in over my head with this model.

Primaris Ultra

Since the last pictures of the Primaris Ultra Marines were a bit smeared and that I got a request for some better pictures I took some new ones.

Varangian pelvis

I have just finished (almost) painting the first piece of the Varangian exterior. For this piece I had to try out the weathering and shipping that I will use for the whole titan. As I was not sure how it would look, since I normally do this on smaller models, I started with the pelvis, as this will mostly be hidden any way. I have painted the shipping in several sessions trying some different techniques. The upper rim was the first and here I tried using brown and orange paints to actually paint some larger rusted areas. In the end I think it looks more like leopard spots than rust. The second part was the dark green areas were I tried to down play this a bit and add some streaking. It did not turnout as well as I hoped. So in the end, for the leg rings and the back I just did some light sponging and orange/rust lining. I think it looks better, not as cartoonish as the painted rust spots. I am still pretty happy with how it looks. There is so much detail on the model that I think less is more in this case.

Now I will give the legs the same treatment so that I can glue them together and pin them.

Death guard etc...

I am still around. Since last I have been doing some random work on some of my projects but have not felt any hobby mojo. I have tried to paint some primaries marines, worked on Varangian and finally done a Death guard.

The primaries marines were painted as Ultra marines to go with Gulliman. For these I tried a variation of the technique that I used for Magnus. As it has become more popular to do shiny metallic paint jobs, especially for the Thousand sons, I though I would try to make them less like smurfs and more gritty. To do this I did a metallic drybrush in four stages of the minis bringing them up to white metal. Then washed them with watered down regular paints, and a light dry brush. This was then topped of with yet another layer of metallic drybrushing. This gives the blues a more blue gray look and bright highlights when subjected to strong lights. In normal lighting they still look like blue marines.













For Varangian I finished the base paint of the legs and pelvis. Now I will start with chipping, weathering etc. This model is so huge that I have to break it sown into sub areas as I can not do every thing in one go. I have also worked a bit on the GS motifs on the shoulders. Here I am really taking it slow so that I do not rush it. It will have to grow as I am getting accustomed to the design and gradually adding detail until it feels right. I do not want to have to remove it and restart!

Finally I painted a Death gurad. With the release of Mortarion coming up I decided that I once again would try get the colors right for the Death gurad. A few years back I test painted a few "normal" chaos marines as death guards but did not really like the colors as they were to much towards the green. I am more into the white of the pre-heresy scheme. So this time I did a bone white base with some green (northern ghost green) detailing. Metals and hoses were done as "pure" rust with a bit of metal showing. The tentacles and fleshy parts were done as pale flesh. Over all I thing it looks much better than my earlier attempts so I think Mortarion will get the same treatment, but perhaps with a bit more color shades.

And I do apologize for the quality of the pictures. I think my battery was low and hence the flares and streaking.

Varangian feet; VIP

Finally I have started to paint on the actual FW model. I started out with the feet and legs as these were the only parts I have assembled far enough for painting, and the most critical part to paint before continuing with the build. As this model is crazy detailed and highly 3D some of the parts need to be painted before some others are assembled if one which to make it a bit more easy for the panting. To stop paint going were the glue for the other parts need to go I used masking tejp to cover the insides of all sockets and also a little patch were the toe pistons attach. I hope this is not a bad move since a lot of the techniques I use are really hard to touch up if something gets damaged in the rest of the assembly process.
Well, onto the techniques used here. I wanted the feet to look really worn, rusted metal and flaking paint at the bottom and more grease and rust further up. After a base spray of black i painted the bottom of the foot black and added some brown, red brown and orange paint in some random patched to give some depth. After this I dry-brushed on several layers of different color metals, also with some random coverage. This was followed by some inks and washes before a last dry-brush. Once this stage was done I used masking tejp to make some random patterns along the bottom of the foot and toes. The edges were then covered with the base paint I am using for the titan to give a lighter layer between the metal and the paint. After this I used my standard Northern Ghost green recipe on the bottom of the foot and toes. After drying I removed the tejp to reveal the metal beneath. Sadly some of the paint came of with the tejp so I had to do some minor touch ups. Over all I am pleased with the effect even if it could be more visible, the metal and the dark green paint blend together some what. We will see what happens one I get to the weathering stage.

Well, once the foot was sorted I started with the rest of the leg. I had decided to use some more colors on this titan than I used on the others to achieve some more contrast. On my resent knights I tried to paint the backside of the armor plates in a lighter green color, representing the base paint used to protect the metal against rust etc. The effect was kind of what I wanted and I liked the color, kind of the same as used on aircraft, but it was not visible enough. Since the lower legs are mostly covered with armor plats I decided to paint not only the backside of the plates but also the whole lower leg in just the base paint so that it is visible through the gaps between the armor. With the pose of the leg I am sure this will show up.

When prepping the model I noticed that the thigh is actually not just a solid piece but is actually consisting of two parts (cast as one), and there seams to be a dampening system in place. Initially I had only planed to paint the parts below the knee in the base paint but now I decided to go all the way up mid thigh to the joint. There is a risk that it will look like the titan is wearing shorts but I think that with the armor plating in place and some weathering it will look alright.
So far I have painted one leg up to pre-weather and just started on the other. I will paint both before starting with weathering and chipping to keep it coherent. This will take some time as the legs are huge and my painting style is very slow. I have to break each leg into several areas (5) that are painted separately. Each area then sees nine layers of paint just to get it to this stage, so I am expecting the painting of this beast to take up to a year or so depending on how focused I can stay.
Once the legs are done I will fix the pelvis and the pistons there and once that is assembled I will attach everything to the base before gluing in the rest of the things. I hope that it will work out ok.

A titans foot fall

This must be a fist for me, finishing, or at least starting a base before the actual model. Well, to be true I have started painting the insides of Varangian but that is also not FW parts, I still need to get some paint on resin. This is about as far as I am going to get with the base until the feet are attached and I can do the final parts. I think the foot print worked out fine, some of the detail of the underside of the foot can be seen and I hope that it will be visible also with the foot in place. Normally I do my bases using natural sand and do not paint them. In this case there were a lot of the plaster showing through the sand in the foot print. So I had to try and paint it in color that match and also give the prints some more contrast. The chimera is supposed to be an abandoned wreck, left by the rode side, until it gets step on by a Warlord. It turned out nicely, it really has that rusted and abandoned look about it, I might need to clean it up a bit as it looks quite messy. The colors for this was choose so that the model would not stand out on the base. I do not like when the base overpowers the model it should support. Next up is to start painting the feet and legs of the titan.

Celestine

A few month ago I gave Saint Celestine to my wife as a birthday present. I told here that either she could paint it herself  to match her other sisters in her army, or I could paint it and try to match it to her earlier models. She opted for the latter option so this is kind of a commission work as she got to decided on the colors etc.
Her old models are silver with red and purple cloth, white casings on the guns and straight silver blades.

So I set to work. My basic silver painting scheme gives a slightly darker and more contrast rich color as I start form black and work my way to wards the brightest silver instead of starting with a metal base paint. So Celestine and here body guards are a bit darker. I stuck with the purple cloth, adding perhaps a bit brighter high lights, giving the fabric a more glossy look. For the wings my wife requested white but with the colored effect I earlier used on Magnus and Ahriman. For the blades I also used a multi-color blend even if it is very subtle. All in all I and most importantly, my wife, is happy with the outcome. I could have wished that some of effects might have been optional and that the models were not on the "flight" stands, but these are otherwise lovely models and if the mythical plastic sisters ever show up I might have to paint myself an army.