Welcome back to another exciting WIP! So having finished priming my DV set I am diving into the painting. First up is the "limited edition" Chaplain. I wanted to start with him because it will give me a chance to shake the dust off the old skills and maybe give him a bit more attention. Besides, I can try a few things on him that might not carry over to the rest of the army and it's okay if he stands out a bit since he is a character.
For instance, I am trying to be more subtle with my highlights, blending and shading. It gives him a more muted menacing looks. The metals are particularly different for me as I usually do one last highlight after the washes to pick out the highest edges a bit.
I like the subtle look and ever since that Alpha Legion mini I've been using washes and glazes to really push the shadows and blend the stark highlights more. It really does give you so much more control of where you want to draw attention.
I used the Forge World Master Class glaze method to add a heat stressed metal look to the muzzle of the plasma pistol. I also just recently picked up Master Class Vol 2. It's amazing and I was surprised to see how much air brushing they do as well as how many non Citadel products they used to achieve their effects (Tamiya Clear Red is very prevalent in the book). Please ignore the cat hair and weird dust in the pictures above. The dust is actually left over from the creation of the OSL and a quick once over with my trusty Revlon makeup brush removed all that foreign matter and cat hair. A damp paint brush would work too if you are too shy to go buy a makeup brush.
***Actually, a good tip is to go over your minis before sealing them with a makeup brush or a damp paint brush to make sure you don't seal in any stray hairs or dust (Macro photography isn't all about the pictures, sometimes it can help you identify issues with your minis that you would have missed)***
Once again I have kept things subtle here. The red rope is muted and not a brighter orange, the gold is my usual way of doing it but with one more watered down brown wash in the most shadowy parts to really knock the colors back and push the subtle highlights without making them too stark. Extra attention was paid to the leather on the haft of Crozius Arcanum. Highlights where carefully blended on and then pushed back with a few watered down washes. The deepest areas of shadow were pushed back even further by taking a full strength wash and wicking away most of it on a damp paper towel until the brush was just damp with the wash and gradually placing it where it was needed (Almost like wet brushing with a wash - weird I know, but it gives you more control in terms of both placement and saturation).
One last look at how subtle the black and metal highlights are on the body. It really took everything I had not to push them back up with one last highlight after the shades and glazes - and I'm glad I fought the urge because I like how it's looking!
That's as far as I got this week. Next week I hope to have most of the body done and be onto assembly and sealing, but it is the holiday season...Rest assured though I'll have something for you to look at even if I have to dig into my archive of previously painted mins - which is always fun anyways :)
Now a little community announcement: Ron over at FTW is taking a little hiatus from blogging. He was one of the bloggers who really inspired me to start this blog so I just wanted to thank him and wish him well. Hopeful he'll have some time to troll our blogs while he is battling his blogging burnout. So let's give him something to look at and inspire him with our hobby projects for a while, like he has done for us all these years!
Merry Christmas to you all and remember; you can't spell paint without a little pain :p
