Venerable Dreadnought - Day three

A smidge more work on the venerable Dreadnought. I'm usually a 'Base Last' kind of painter, but I was getting bored with the body so figured I've move onto the base early.




I love secret weapon miniature bases. They do 80% of the work of looking cool. All it takes is a few build up layers of drybrusing and a few minor effects (The road lines) and you're done. I normally paint bricks red, but as there's so much red already I went with brown and I think it works quite well, both the grey and the brown. The yellow gives it a touch of color which is good too. I'm going to add some fake grass in there somewhere as well at the end...

On the body I started all the little stuff like the wires and the helmet. These are more guide colors than anything else and they were done with straight foundation paints. I'm going to brighten them up a little with regular paints next...

Still to do:
The Feet - I've been looking over the best way of doing dreadnought feet and it seems heavy scuffing is the way to go... Not totally sure on the technique but it's always fun to play... ^_^

Lenses: He's got quite a few of them at eye level... I dunno whether to do them all green or a variety of colors?

The red: Touch ups and stuff still to come...
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Head choice from last time.
Wow... Talk about varied opinions... Some people say one type looks great while others hate it... Personal flavor rules the day I guess... I'm leaning towards 6, 3 or 4... I like the simplicity of 6, the lethality of 3 and the regal bearing of 4... Maybe I should paint all three and see how they look then?

Day Two of the Venerable Dreadnought

Day Two of the Venerable Dreadnought. Not really that much work done today. Considering 'The Wise Man's Fear' came out today I'm surprised I've done any work what-so-ever... Or even remembered to shower and eat for that matter...



Done today:
1. Seals: Worked the seals in Dark Angel Green then lightened them with varying shades of scorpion green. Glazed with 1:1 green : water. I also darkened up the parchment with another targeted wash of sepia...
2. Cloth: Foundation purple with a purple wash, more highlights happening... Heh, there better be anyway...
3. Red Armor: While it may not be overtly visible I cleaned up a lot of the armor with some touch ups and started a little bit of blending...

Wow... Considering all that took me like 90 minutes it doesn't seem like much work does it...


Starting some more prep work for the Shadow Sanctus Captain I'm sending to whalemusic. I've had a few people say they didn't like the head I decided on so I figured I'd throw out some alternatives. If you like one let me know!

Oh well... Back to my book...

Venerable Dreadnought - Day One or OMG HE'S NOT DEAD!

Day one of actual painting for my old school metal venerable dreadnought. Yes, that's right I'm not actually dead...



This has been sitting around for awhile, a long with a few other things... I've been combating some pretty major loss of inspiration lately. So much is going on with Earthquakes, and people and work and painting has seemed less important with each and every day I've been putting it off...

I'll talk a little bit more about losing motivation to paint in a few days, but first let's see what I've done today:

1. Red. Basecoat red was done with my airbrush (Which then broke. I shit you not, broke. But that's another story). The red went over black so has come out a little bit dull for a miniature with such large areas, I'll be trying to brighten up the red in places with brighter coats and some blending.
2. Gold. The gold is my standard recipe (BGM > BG x 2 > brown washes). Those with sharp eyes will notice a difference between the golds though. That comes from using different washes at different stages. They'll all be tided up later on, and some highlighting applied.
3. Skulls. The skulls are done with 2x layers of bleached bone and a wash of Orgyn Flesh and a light brush of badab black (spelling?). Again; touch ups & highlights need to be applied.
4. Parchments. Used Menoth base (p3) for the parchment base coat and have only applied one layer of Sepia wash. I'll need a few more layers of the wash to achieve the right brown; one that is different enough from the gold...

That's pretty much it so far... My lack of motivation and inspiration is quite telling when I look at the dreadnought; I haven't taken care in some places and there's significant paint transfer... And in others it just looks wrong. I hope with a little more care it'll start to improve...

Dark Eldar Mandrake Unit

My completed Mandrakes! These were quite a lot of fun to paint. They're so very different from what I normally paint, IE Space Marines, and color wise they're quite easy to do. Overall I'm quite happy with the turnout. Some of the OSL is a little thick, but you can't win them all... You'll notice that one of them is without a weapon. They were a damaged product brought back to the store by someone who didn't want them, dunno what the GW return policy is but friendly manager let me have them for free so who was I to pass that up...

The biggest thing I've taken away from this is how good Andrea Paints are. I used the Red Paint Set to do the robes and I was impressed from the beginning. The paint gives great coverage, doesn't resist watering down, and is designed to be used with an airbrush or painted by hand. All-round top class stuff and I'll be slowly replacing a lot of my paints with them...

Someone told me I've been slacking off in explaining how I do things... You're right. I have. I'll try and remember for my next miniature ^_^

Oh and I got to be in the Tuesday Top Ten. Yay me! The slightly sad thing is that this was the best thing to happen to me so far this year... It's been a tough 27 days... Here's hoping it gets better ^_^

Completed Test Miniature for the Mandrake.

The photos are a little dark, but they're viewable. Not really much new today, just more additions to already done stuff.

- Added some white to ice blue and touched up the inside blues...
- Highlighted the Skin with some lighter Gray. I decided to not highlight the skin again because I want the skin to be quite dark, as if it's just a husk for the energy within... Also makes the blue stand out ^_^
- The head needed some kind of color and the single colored eye wasn't quite enough. I wasn't quite sure what to do, but then I saw Major Tom's OSL for his Space Hulk terminators and figured I'd do that, but knowing I couldn't use an airbrush to do it so I tried to do it without. It came out somewhere down the middle. Not in the super great category, nor is it shocking... But again, it's the first time I've tried it without an airbrush... So practice will help me improve.
- Basic Snow base but I think the choice of Black and White helps the colors really take off more...

Thanks for all the comments recently guys. I really appreciate the feedback :)

Dark Eldar Mandrake - Day Two

First off please excuse the images. They were taken early evening without my lightbox or any lights. Just couldn't be assed getting it all out...



All the base colors are now on, minus the base. The biggest change since yesterday is the blue Wytch-fire instead of green. The green was ok. But it didn't quite have the impact I was looking for. Then I remembered Roleplayers Jump pack tutorial and the blue he used for that and figured I'd give it a go. I think it looks pretty good, especially in contrast to the red...

The flames have come out quite nicely on his hand. GW goes from dark base to light outer as that "looks better" but fire is hottest, and thus brightest the closer to the source, so I've gone the other way. It's not perfect, but it's the first time I've tried it...

I've started lightning up the hair by picking out a few strands here and there going up the grayscale.

The blade is all boltgun metal with a wash of black followed by a wash of Orgyn Flesh to give it a worn look.

Things to do:
- Highlight the body.
- Highlight touches of the robes. -
Highlight the sword, and apply blood effects.
- Do the base. Since I have gone blue the Base will definitly be Ice...

And now for something completely different...

I know I'm meant to be starting on my Shadow Sanctus Captain, but I've changed that up and gone with a Dark Eldar Mandrake squad instead... Who knows what I'm thinking, but there ya go. ^_^



Anyway, here's a test miniature for my Dark Eldar Mandrake squad. I didn't like the brown of the robes on the GW ones, and as I like to use read quite heavily I thought it would be the way to go. I'm keeping the skin a very dark Charcoal and probably will keep Green as the Witch-fire and runes on him as well. Not sure what I'm going to do for the base yet. I'm thinking a snowy base might look interesting with the fire and lack of clothes... But we'll see.

The read was done with my airbrush. The red is from the Andrea Colors Red set. So it was the base followed by the last highlight. I think went with a little bit of Orgyn Flesh wash into the recesses. I'm still figuring out all the intricates with my airbrush, but it's working out well. I did the robes for all five mandrakes in the space of an hour which is pretty quick for me ^_^