Triari Sinister Walks!

Another Legio Astorum Warhound Titan marches out of the forge fires of the Pirate Viking Painting mechanicus workshops:

This one is Triari Sinister, the third Legio Astorum commission I've completed. Kinda feel like I'm building the whole Titan Legion one by one ;) . Lets check out some glamour shots:

Unlike the previous titans, this was mostly blocked in with an airbrush, made getting a nice solid, smooth blue a breeze. The yellow is Minitaire "Craven" over white with shading provided by Casadora Yellow.

I like this configuration of Warhound, Vulcan Mega-Bolter to strip shields and a Turbo-laser Destructor to provide the killing blow to enemy engines. Works just as well on smaller things too! I'm getting the hang of the "energised plasma" look on the TLD's too. Essentially you mist on white over a black undercoat with an airbrush. Add lightning in white and then once nice and dry, glaze with a couple of heavy coats of green ink through the airbrush. Finish with varnish or water effects to create the armoured glass containment vessels.

The heraldry was once again drawn from the pages of Imperial Armour. Freehand flames for the forward carapace and airbrushed white discs as the foundation for the legio "black star" markings. You then add the radial lines of the starburst freehand in white - make sure you go for anything other than 8 points or it looks like secret chaos affiliation, mine are 12 - and then paint the black disc in to finish it off. If you look, I've added the mechanicus discs that come in the kit to the shoulder mounts. This is going to sound crazy, but... despite the fact that the three titan's I've painted are for two different clients, I wanted minor structural differences between the three.

I love the effect of the engine deck beneath the grill. Gives a nice realistic air to the model. Looks ace.

So now to crate this bad boy up and deliver him unto the waiting hold of the good starship Royal Mail. The lower incidence of content on the blog lately has been mostly because of the time huge figures take to complete so hopefully there should be a resurgance of nifty models on the blog soon!

TTFN

Workbench: Warhound 3!

Hi folks, its been a little quiet here lately which usually means that I've started something large and time consuming and this week is no exception...

Yup, I'm painting another warhound! The client saw Pyladii Alpha and Beta and wanted one of his very own. Its going to be another from the Legio Astorum too (Triarii Sinister) so I've had some practice! This week has been all about cleaning and fitting the sub assemblies and painting the interior of the torso. If you are doing one of these then seriously. Leave about two days for assembly. The legs alone take almost a day.

With the interior, I'd learned from experiance and left the torso section in fore and aft halves. Made it much easier to get the brush in. Still not easy but easier. The Val Grey-Green gives a nice "institutional paint" colour and feels like the sort of colour you paint things that aren't meant to be seen by the public. The dirt and oil around the floor give it some character and age.

The engine section is simarily cramped. You'll notice a variable quality in the painting, some it fairly clear, some just give an impressionist feel. Why? Because once the two halves are together and the connecting wall in place visability is really, really reduced.

One thing that I've adored about this model is in the roof, the grilled opening to exposed engine parts:

It's really hard to photograph well but enlarge the picture and take a look. The grill is an etched steel part that covers the resin componants beneath. It's an awesome effect and if you ever get a chance to see one of these in the flesh then check it out. Really nice.

Thats it for today, started painting the legs, more to follow!

TTFN

Knight Paladin Datasheet

Hi folks, in response to a comment on yesterdays post from Mordian7th I had a look around for Knight datasheets. Frankly I was underwhelmed by the offerings that I found immediately so I resolved to create my own! So here it is:

If you prefer a printable pdf you can find it here. Feel free to distribute this as you will but credit the author ok? :)

I've tried to make the datasheet feel right with the backstory. The Knight Paladin was the most obvious candidate for the design of the model hence its designation. The knights didn't have fancy voids so the Ork power fields are being used and the model has that hugenormous shield that I figured was for a purpose! Let me know what you think. I totally guestimated the points so if through playtesting people find the number is wrong let me know and I'll consider adjusting the datasheet. Until then, good hunting, knights!

TTFN

Legio Astorum Knight

Greetings to you all! First, sorry for the long absence but circumstances have not been favourable as I have mentioned before. The up side however is that the one model I have gotten (totally a word) finished is huge.

This guy is one of Dreamforge miniature's 15mm scale Leviathan Crusaders. Now considering this thing is meant to be in scale to blokes only a centimetre and a half tall it is enormous! Allow me to bring in all 28mm of Miss Funnymoney to demonstrate:

Dayum that's large. In our case he is standing in for a 28mm scale Imperial Knight. The poor old knights have been rather forgotten in the modern Imperium. They are smaller, one man titans attached to the Legio Titanicus maniples as scouts and trailblazers working with the Warhound scout titans. I've always thought they were nifty and so was delighted when one of my clients wanted a pair of them painting! There are also a brace of Warhounds to go with these two, god alone knows how I'll photograph those, this bad boy barely fit in my light box!

All the Legio forces that I am painting are from the same Titan Legion, the Legio Astorum or Warp Runners to use their vernacular title. As a result a nice deep blue was the order of the day. I first started by drybrushing the whole darned thing steel. Frankly there was so much metal on display it would have made sense to almost undercoat in metallics! Next a couple of coats of Kantor Blue were applied over all of the knight's armour plates. Kantor Blue is a bit of a disapointment - base paint wise - as it's coverage is really not all it could be. Ho hum. Alaitoc Blue and Hoeth Blue drybrushes followed to give the overall shade and highlight tones on the model. Now the detailing could begin.

First up was heraldry, the Legio Astorum use a black hole/star motief. Now I do possess an airbrush that is ideal for this sort of fading out work but quite frankly I am still very much a beginner with it and wouldn't dare go near client models with something that I am comparatively unskilled with! As a result I figured out a means of getting that fading glow by drybrushing white in ever increasing circles and ever decreasing pressure. Adding the starburst lines - making damn sure to make it a 12 point star so as not to wind up unwittingly converting the poor thing to chaos - in white and a black disc finished it off. The white is cleaner in reality, the strong blue tones showed through under the harsh light. Really must get some diffusers made. A bunch of transfers were cribbed from various sheets and added across the model to give some character.

Next came adding brass and oil to the pistons, my usual oil mix of brown ink and gloss varnish coming through like a good un. The yellow and white heraldry was marked out with masking tape and painted and the flames were just freehand.

I thought some kill markings on the main gun would help the tough look, figure these are notable machine kills rather than the run-of-the-mill infantry support. Finally I broke out the weathering powders and sponge and chipped, dinged and dirtied up the knight. I'm finally getting the measure of powders, might have to do a tutorial in the near future.

Anyhow, that's it for this post. Around me the chaos of packing up Chez Mulder continues. PVP will be one of the last things that I box up so there should be some more updates before October's move. Until then folks.

TTFN