Why am I painting stuff for my army today; rather than working like I should be? Frankly, I needed some fun, I'm afraid Mrs PVP and I had some bad news. After just three months in our shiny new house we have been told that it is to be sold. Our contract will not be extended beyond November and we have to move house again. Gutted doesn't begin to cover it. So apologies to all my clients, this week has mostly been wrecked and these five were my mojo-recovery charms. Anyway, on with the fun and interesting bit! Painting!
I wanted these chaps to be more understated than the typical red, white and black stormtroopers you usually see with an Inquisitor. My guy is a bit more incognito than the gold power armour-wearing psychopaths you normally see in a 40k game! Plus with him being a Hereticus Inquisitor; I see him as having to kick down a lot of doors cult-hunting. I therefore wanted a very soldierly, SWAT-esque vibe off these fellas. Their colour scheme is fairly straightforward although it took the devils own time to figure out where all those colours should go! All the armoured locations (helmets, bracers, greaves, body armour) were painted Castellan Green. The cloth areas (backpacks, webbing, pouches and the thermal sleeves on the hellguns) were basecoated Vallejo English Uniform. Both of these areas got a nice dousing of Athonian Camoshade and then worked back up with a little bone added for highlights.
The most striking feature of these models are the dull brass hellguns. I wanted these high-power laser weapons to look a bit pimpier (totally a word) than normal lasguns. Brass seemed to be the obvious choice. To balance the hellguns I also painted the visors brass. Not totally convinced on the finish on these. I wanted to get the kind of astronaut gold-plated look but didn't quite get there. They look more like armour plates than metallised glass. Ho hum, one of the hazards of painting really.
I like the volume of equipment these models are carrying. Really makes them look ready for anything. I envision these fellas kicking in doors and firing breaching charges Rainbow Six stylee. On the battlefield they are just adding the brutal punch of their hellguns to the Inquisitor's retinue.
Speaking of the retinue, here it is so far! I'm relieved that the priest fits in with the rest of the troopers, helps to carry colours over between the models. In this case the brass bell and the green chainsword match the brass hellguns and green body armour. I also think I've finally nailed my new favourite skin method with the new paints (took a little while). Start with a basecoat of Bugman's Glow. This will be almost invisible under the next layers but provides a warm undertone to the much more transparent layer paints. Cadian Fleshtone is layered on leaving Bugman's Glow only in the deepest recesses. Then wash the whole lot with Reikland Fleshtone. Rehighlight with with Cadian Fleshtone then pick out the highest points with Kislev Flesh. Pick out lower lips in Bugman's Glow and then highlight with a 50:50 mix of Bugman's and Kislev Flesh. Paint the eyes and Robert's yer father's brother.
So with the workometer filling nicely and some mojo restored I launch back into my work. Should be some more pretty pictures very soon as I've got some more harlequins on the cusp of finished. Until then folks.
TTFN
They look good Jeff, agree with the visor thing, perhaps gold would have been the way to go...
ReplyDeleteAnd really sorry about the house news.
Hey Jeff, Russ from whgateway.com. I can't really talk about painting cause I'm not the most prolific painter around, however if you are ok with feedback, here goes...
ReplyDeleteThe paint scheme looks good, are the photos dark? The colors look quite dark and although I know what you are trying to achieve is a dark scheme, on this size model, I've found the colors need to be highlighted with more of a contrast that occurs naturally. Even if its just edge highlighting with watered down highlight. Not sure I've explained this well, so I'll move on.
I really enjoy your posts and the photos, would really appreciate something like a lightbox plugin for the photos where clicking on them results in a popout image, rather than going straight to the photo and having to click "back" on the browser. If you want help implementing it, happy to suggest something.
Good luck with the move, sux moving house so often, but I wish you all the best! May your fragile's stay intact and white goods remain scratchless :)
Heya Russ,
ReplyDeleteThe photos are an accurate representation of the scheme! I prefer a grittier more "real" - says the man painting super troopers from beyond the stars - feel to my work than the traditional studio look. High contrast highlighting results in a slightly cartoony look that I've never really liked. It can be a little jarring if you are used to the norm.
The lightbox feature is part of Blogger's interface that I actually disabled because the pictures wound up too small on any screen smaller than a widescreen laptop. Feedback always welcome though so I'll consider a return to lightbox, what do people think? I guess with having the backspace button on the keyboard for the laptop and a bumper on my desktop's mouse I might not have realised that going back is a bind. Do people - like me - tend to just look at the pretty pictures and then move on when presented with the lightbox? Having written the article I tend to embed the pictures to work with the text. if it is a feature people want back though, who am I to argue? ;)