Varangian WIP

I have finished some more of the panels on Varangian but I am no ware near finished. This model is just a beast, there are so much things to paint. I do not understand how people can pain this thing in just a few days. Apart from that I am happy with how the torso shields turned out. The wings sweeping back along the body really gives it a more sleek look. And the neck armor really works with out the inner part. Now I just need to finish all the pipe work on the body before I can start with the interior. And as far as the interior goes I have finished all the panels, which I will show in a later post.

Sisters of Silence

As we have had a real streak of nice weather here about I have not had much time to paint as most of my spare time has gone into shifting big boulders in the garden. But before the weather struck I had managed to finish of my squad of Sisters of Silence. I already had one painted from a long time ago so I just made the rest the same way except for the sister superior who got some white gray armor instead of the golden that the rest of them have. I sort of remember this from Beast series that the characters in the Sisters of Silence armies have different colored plates then the rest and I thought it might look cool.  It is just the five man (women) squad from the burning of Prospero so I had no real intentions of making this into a legit army so I was not to concerned about if the squad is playable or not.  But if the plastic battle sisters are released I might have to see if I will not make some additions to this so that it is filled out to proper strength.

Varangian, body box WIP

So, after finishing the head from Zed I decided that it was time to start with the body box. This is a huge piece and there is a lot of detail. There was no way of doing the whole box in one go so I had to break it down into manageable areas. Since I am dry-brushing it also meant I had to wash the whole box in-between areas and wait for it to dry, so very time consuming.  I also decided to break it up using the two shades of green that has been a comon theme through out the titan. In the end I managed to get it done to a pre-weathering stage in a surprisingly short time compared to what I expected. Now I need to go back to each area and add chipping, streaking, rust etc. But now I can see that I am really making progress. I need to finish up the armor panels so that I can start painting them.

The head from Zed

When I had just bought my Warlord I was complaining (alot) about the head choices available. At the time there were only two and for one of them you had to visit the GW head quarters. Of course I wanted the one only available at headquarters...  After asking Forgworld about if it was possible to get it with out spending the same cost as the titan to go there they more or less said that it was that or ebay. Luckily a fellow blogger read my post and offered to get one for me as he was anyway passing by GW (which I am very grateful for).
After checking my blogg back log I realized that the head was actually built more or less as it is now already in dec 2016. Well almost one and a half year later it is painted. As per the Northern Ghost scheme it has a bone white face paint over a green base. To show that the bone is painted on and not meant to represent real bone I made it so that it is flaking away. I tried to get the flaked areas to make the bone look like a skull, I don't know if it comes across or not (the crown hides the effect I think). I also decided to brake up the dark forest green with some areas painted in the more yellow "primer" green that I have used elsewhere on the titan. I think it gives it more structure without being to over powering. For some reason I received an extra pair of lascannons with the titan body so I thought it would go with the chaos theme to add some head weapons. If I remember correctly this was not an unusual option in the old epic game.
The crown of command is painted to match the bronze borders of the armor plates but the blades are in a rusted white metal to give them some distinction. I am not sure the the "eye" lens looks ok. On my Reaver I made the lenses so that they look more like eyes with an iris. It might look strange when there is only one, but as it is now it does not have enough character. I will let it sit for a few days and decided if I will re do it.

The inside is painted in the primer color and painted to look dirty, rusted and worn but that is as far as chaosifications that I did. I had already assembled the head and there is so much detail in there that I did not think I could add anything that would not look to clumsy. I will see if I will do anything to the crew but I think that I will come to the same conclusion as for the interior. We will see if FW makes a chaos head at some point and if it can be bought over the internet and looks ok I might do something about it. I still have the original head that I bought with the titan, so I might do a brand new look Northern Ghost of this at some point.

Vertus Praetor

This year I got some Vertus Praetors for my birthday from my wife. These are really lovely models with the right amount of details. The design is also really cool and it gave me the urge to start a small Custodes force. So far I have only painted one, but I have a second in the pipeline. These together with the five man squad form the burning of Prospero and one or two more boxes should make it nice collection. I went for a mix of steel and gold in the same way as I did on my other Custodes. I think it gives them more depth when it is not just one solid metal color. The robes are painted purple as it contrasts nicely with the gold. The scheme is really simple as it is mostly dry-brushing which should make it quick, but I am not sure that they are as quick to paint as I initially thought. All the different layers take a lot of time. Sadly the photos are a bit dark.

Varangian, moving pistons, WIP

One of the large uncertainties of my Warlord build has been how to do the arms so that they can be posed and removed for transport. I could not do it the same way as I did for the Reaver, with a screw going from the top into the arm as the Warlord has the shoulder mounted weapons siting on top of the arm socket. One other thing that differs is that the Warlord has two pitons going from the main body to the arm. For the Reaver I skipped some of the cables between the arms and the body to make the arms removable but these pistons are also such an visible part of the arm assembly for the Warlord so I did not want to lose them. So for the mounting and positioning I used some heavy duty magnets that should hold the arm in the socket. That did however leave the pistons. This has been bothering me for some time, how to do it, and it has been one of the reasons I have stalled with this part of the build. One idea that I had was to manufacture some "claws", like on the Defiler kit, that would hold the ball in the sockets for the pistons and hence allow me to have one part attached to the body and one to the arm. I tried this and it sort of works, but the claws really limits the motion and they are quite fragile. Another idea that I have been playing around with in my head is to actually make working pistons by having them spring loaded so that they actually presses against the seats in the arm and body. So I tried this and it works beautifully. I did however makes some initial mistakes. I did not check how deep the recesses in the piston body was compared to the body which lead me to cut down the pistons so that they fit with approximately the angle I wanted. However the range of motion was to short. After measuring the recess in the piston body I realized that I could drill them out, making them deeper which meant more motion to the pistons. Once this was sorted I used the spring from two ball point pens to test it all out. These are just test springs at the moment, once I have the real ones I will cut them to length to maximize the stroke. But already now I can turn the arm quite a lot. The spring force is also enough to hold the hole piston in place with out the claws so I will remove the ones I put on and just just the springs to hold everything in place.

Varangian, legs painted, WIP

I just finished painting the legs and armor plates for Varangian and I thought I would make a quick post with some pictures. The light is not perfect as it is night here and the model is to large to illuminate in a god way. I will take new pictures later in daylight and with a neutral background. I am quite happy with the result. The GS work and the painting goes together well I think even though both are a bit rough. Now it feels like I am actually getting somewhere with this model.
I still have one panel left to paint for the insides but that will also soon be done. I am also finishing up the modifications to the upper body box which means that I will soon be able to start painting this. I have started assembling the arms and the weapons are soaking in some soap water. Once I have figured out how to attach them I will start the GS work for these. I have some ideas but we will see if I can execute it.

I have gone for the standard Northern Ghosts green as a base for the armor. Over this I have added some blue-white diagonal stripes that are flaking of from the base paint for the left leg while the right leg sports a winged scull in bone and bronze. For the thigh plates I kept the "sword" motif but added a cog wheel and some metal wings. Here I mirrored the stripes on the right side while I kept the lef in the base green. The left side did however look a bit plan with just the green so I added a diagonal white stripe. For the groin plate I decided to go for some more heraldic stuff, similar to what is on the left knee cap, with a checker board and the maniple red edged black diamond with a white spade. As can be seen I also did a GS scull on the knee similar to what is on the Reaver knee. It will tie the two titans together.

I also finished the sanding of the base. I think it really turned out well. I am not a big fan of diorama bases as I generally think that the base should be there to support the model but not distract from it. In this case the chimera sort of disappears beneath the foot of the titan so from a distance it just looks as the titan is stepping on something undefined which works for me. Up close it does however look good and I think I managed to deform it so that it fits to foot really well.

I have also done a lot more battle damage and shipping/streaking than I did on my previous titans. I think I am improving. Also the chaos growth are starting to look better in my opinion. So I have faith the the titan will look ok in the end even though I have been modifying it quite a bit.