Dark Imperium

[Daniel]

8 hours ago, Will Vale said:

Aah, I was looking at that in the shop today. I think the price is great, and cleverly the models don't overlap with the other two starter sets.

 

It has a plague marine with a really unpleasant mouth tube

 

Will

 

I just ordered it! You cost me $40!

 

Dan

[Will Vale]

On ‎16‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 2:27 AM, Daniel said:

I just ordered it! You cost me $40!

 

I feel terrible. Not really. May it bring you much painting pleasure!

 

I've been batch-painting some more Poxwalkers. Small hipster-friendly batch though!

 

 

I wasn't clever enough to paint them all the same colour so the batch only really helped for the skin, horns, straps and bases. Still fairly quick though. The guy in the white suit started off orange but it was too loud with the boots so I re-painted him as wearing a thin plastic forensic/medical/slaughterhouse coverall. It was fun (ab)using the techniques people usually reserve for painting stockings on "sexy" figurines

 

I made the mistake of making the skin tone under the suit a bit healthy, but didn't want to repaint it again so settled for a greenish filter and some tweaks to the exposed skin.

 

 

Very satisfying models to paint, they're mostly easy to get at and the features are nicely differentiated. I've done the final steps now so they're all done, but ran out of light for pics. Still a while to go before I get to the halfway point though!

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

 

[Hunter Rose]

Nice paint as usal Will, they look great!

[rockpopandchips]

They are all great but I really like the HAZMAT one, the blue and yellow look fantastic against the skin tones.

[Will Vale]

Thanks! I think the HAZMAT suit was probably the most interesting to paint, but I really like the orange guy as I love painting orange so much. Not sure why?

 

(click for bigger)

 

The HAZMAT guy was lucky enough to get a freehand warning triangle sticker, and a stripey hose

 

 

I quite like the green trousers guy as well, I was tempted to paint an "accident" since his seat looked rather low, but decided that discretion was the better part of valour there/

 

 

I finished off the metals following similar recipes to the earlier figures, and sorted out the base edges on the two that didn't match, so I'm all up-to-date.

 

 

8 down 21 to go. Urk.

 

Will

 

 

[Gimme Shelter]

I just don't know how you figure modellers turn out this type of quality - quite amazing

[Will Vale]

 

On ‎19‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 8:49 PM, Gimme Shelter said:

I just don't know how you figure modellers turn out this type of quality - quite amazing

 

Thanks! It's mostly a fine paintbrush, optivisor and an over-active imagination I've just recovered from a nasty bout of sinusitis and the contents of my hankie were useful reference for the icky zombies...

 

W

[Hunter Rose]

Have to say as well, the watery bases are especially cool, really great work

[Carts]

Fantastic paint on the figures,and as an added bonus I wont be wanting any supper this evening:)

[Will Vale]

On 7/22/2017 at 7:50 PM, Hunter Rose said:

Have to say as well, the watery bases are especially cool, really great work

 

Thanks! They were inspired by Maxime Pastourel's awesome Nurgle army which you can see here:

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/06/22/army-showcase-maxime-pastourels-plague-marines-june22gw-homepage-post-4/

 

The water/sludge is just a bit of green paint mixed with glaze medium. I did the first two smooth but then found some part-set water (I had some water mix covered for a couple of days and forgot about it) and that made a nice lumpy effect so I've been doing them all like that.

 

On 7/22/2017 at 10:58 PM, Carts said:

Fantastic paint on the figures,and as an added bonus I wont be wanting any supper this evening:)

 

Cheers, sorry about your tea though

 

W

[Will Vale]

I fancied picking my paintbrushes up again this weekend so worked on a few more zombie poxwalkers while the rest of the family were off skiing:

 

 

More or less the same recipes as before, I seem to have made the leather a lot darker though? I enjoyed painting the yellow gumboot and the matching enormous boil on the left-hand chap.

 

I need to varnish them now (the photos are for a last minute check) and do the metallic bits and less pleasant glossy elements

 

I should've picked out one more model from the bag and I would have had a full squad of ten - oh well!

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

I finished these up last night after I found the missing bottle of pouring medium. Which was put away in the correct place, so no wonder I couldn't find it...

 

 

In no particular order, may I present Thinky:

 

 

Thumpy:

 

 

and Spiny Norman:

 

 

I haven't found a good angle to show off Spiny Norman's spines in a single pic, but he has a load of spikes growing out of his back and arm, and his right arm seems to have turned into wood?

 

The team is growing quite nicely now:

 

 

One to go for a full squad, ten more after that for a big squad, and I have another six which need priming. I sort of wish they were a bit quicker to paint, but it's not too bad and part of the appeal is that they're all quite different.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

Thread necromancy time! I popped into my local GW yesterday to try their new range of "insta-shading" Contrast paints. They're pretty cool, lots of interesting saturated colours.

 

 

It's painted only with Contrast over a pale buff primer layer. The skin has had one coat of the nurgly flesh colour plus yellow on the boils, darker green at the ends of limbs and underneath, and patches of thinned red and purple. The details (grenades, loincloth, belt and pouches) are a single coat of various colours, and the spikes are layered with pale brown all the way to black-grey.

 

The above chap took me about half an hour including drying time, painted standing up at a table without the benefit of my Optivisor or indeed a decent paintbrush.

 

It's not amazing quality, but I still think its pretty good for the time taken and would make a decent base for further work. I'm probably going to get some of the new paints for home use as a result.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[DalekCheese]

NECROMANCER

[Andy Moore]

14 hours ago, Will Vale said:

I popped into my local GW yesterday to try their new range of "insta-shading" Contrast paints.

What's your opinion on them beyond their intended use as a quick colour shade? From what I've seen they seem to essentially be a thick glaze, and I'm wondering how much use they'll be for more subtle shading and toning.

 

Andy

[Will Vale]

6 hours ago, AndyRM101 said:

What's your opinion on them beyond their intended use as a quick colour shade?

I've seen them used to do some nice blends with the Contrast medium - essentially coating an area with the medium and then wet-blending the colour in at one or other end of it. The slow dry time (slower than shades) seems helpful there.

I also saw some nice airbrushed glazes - Richard Gray painted a very nice troll with them using an airbrushed pre-shade then contrast for the skin, and then highlights and the usual finishing over the top.

 

For the Poxwalker I thinned some with water (which apparently spoils the shading effect) to add some colours around the boils and that worked OK but has clear tide-marks. I blended neat darker green at the ends of the feet and arms and under various features, and I think that was over dry paint but doesn't seem to have left an edge. So from that point of view they seem pretty good.

[Will Vale]

6 hours ago, AndyRM101 said:

What's your opinion on them beyond their intended use as a quick colour shade?

I've seen them used to do some nice blends with the Contrast medium - essentially coating an area with the medium and then wet-blending the colour in at one or other end of it. The slow dry time (slower than shades) seems helpful there.

I also saw some nice airbrushed glazes - Richard Gray painted a very nice troll with them using an airbrushed pre-shade then contrast for the skin, and then highlights and the usual finishing over the top.

 

For the Poxwalker I thinned some with water (which apparently spoils the shading effect) to add some colours around the boils and that worked OK but has clear tide-marks. I blended neat darker green at the ends of the feet and arms and under various features, and I think that was over dry paint but doesn't seem to have left an edge. So from that point of view they seem pretty good.

[Andy Moore]

Thanks for the info Will. I think I'm going to stick with glaze mediums and drying retarders for now, but I'll probably pick up some contrast paints in the future as there's some nice colours in the range.

 

Andy

[Will Vale]

No worries, sorry, managed to post in the middle of what I was writing. I was going to add that a big plus for me is that they're something that'll be readily available locally. I was all excited when my local model shop started stocking Vallejo but they have never once re-ordered paint and watching the rack empty out is really frustrating. GW are very good at that bit. (And other model shops can be too, it's just my local one which is poorly managed sadly.)

 

The other thing I was going to say is that the saturation is very strong all through the value range. I was surprised in Lightroom how far down I had to take the black point to clip all three channels! I also knocked the saturation back about 10 points to get something a bit more like real life.

 

I went back yesterday to have a go on something cleaner:

 

 

This took a bit less than an hour, including drying time. The marine had been assembled with minimal cleanup and apparently primed in a lint factory, so will probably have to get stripped and re-done at some point.

 

It was difficult to keep a wet edge on the larger model as there were so many fiddly areas to get the brush into - I should've done those first. I also re-touched some areas using the brush-on warm primer colour and went over them with a different tone (e.g. the helmet and kneepad) after the red was complete.

 

The experience is a bit like airbrushing base coats - you need to be very neat as it'll be hard to reconstruct the complex variegated finish otherwise.

 

Having watched other people paint Stormcast (with cloth, metal armour, trim etc. etc.) I don't think the new paints are going to be quick for those. But monocolour marines are actually a pretty good case and I really like the Blood Angels red paint

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

I finished off the test poxwalker with traditional paints.

 

 

Mostly from the GW technical range (blood, pus) plus some pallid highlights on the larger areas of upward-facing skin. I added a wash to bring it all together mixed from Athonian Camoshade and GW's medium, which turned out to be a bad idea. One or other pot has got matting agent clumps in which gave the mini a bad case of dandruff. I've scraped some of it off with a cocktail stick, and naughtily removed a bit more digitally!

 

I look forward to trying this finish on some other Nurgle stuff, albeit without the last step or with a new (or strained?) pot of wash.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

Started painting some of my own models now, given that there were 20 poxwalkers in the DE box and I only ever finished nine! The others are built and converted and primed and shaded with Tamiya clear green so ripe for picking up and applying some paint to:

 

 

The above was all done with the new paints, using the medium to thin them where necessary (e.g. on the skin). The skin tones look really weird in the pot but dry to a lovely subtle smooth finish. I also used the medium to blend the green hand, painting it on first and then blending the paint into it while wet.

 

Last night I added some highlights and details with normal paints:

 

 

I repainted the boot almost completely, glazing over it with Hawk Turquoise and Baharroth Blue mixes, as I didn't think it really worked at first. I need to smooth it out a bit more still.

 

I also added a very thin crimson wash to the skin detail, which looked great when wet but dried with tide marks. I was able to get rid of most of it by vigorous brushing with a damp stiff bristled brush. With that sorted out I painted in a few veins with Drakenhof Nightshade on an almost dry brush.

 

For reference I'm trying to get them to fit in with these:

 

So not too far off?

 

Will

 

 

[Will Vale]

Did some more last night, sorting out the hood (although it's still not great) and details and painting up another model so I can varnish all three in one go.

 

 

His duster/overcoat was a bit of a punt, I gave it a fairly thick coat of Aggaros Dunes and then thought that was too contrasty, so drybrushed quite a bit with Balor Brown to lift the shadows and something pale (Wraithbone?) for the highlights and wear. Then gave it a very thin coat of Skeleton Horde with a bit of yellow in it, diluted heavily with medium.

 

I think it's too close in hue to the horn so I should probably add some highlights or streaks to that to separate them.

 

 

I'm tempted to add glossy (or even bloody) snail trails behind the maggots on his back to show which holes they came out of

 

Will 

[Will Vale]

I finished off these three last night, mainly with technical paints, metallics, and glossy stuff. The goo they're standing in is a mix of glaze medium and paint left to go off a bit so it has enough body to hold brush-marks.

 

 

I used the Contrast colours as glazes on the hot metal and was quite happy with the result - they're very translucent but have enough body to stay where you want. The art shop media I've tried for the same purpose are slightly too thick and go tacky too quickly, and the previous GW medium was too thin, so I'm quite pleased with the new one. It also made it a doddle to clean up the edges of the coat where my highlights or dry-brushing were too thick.

 

I wouldn't say they were stunning paint jobs - the boils in particular are a bit naff - but they strike a pretty good balance of speed and quality and crucially were really fun to do The skin is also nice and smooth, or at least it was before I started messing with it, which means I have something that should work for painting models showing lots of skin tidily.

 

 

I'll give them a dust and take some beauty shots at some point but I need to recharge the camera battery first.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Hunter Rose]

Very cool Will! Really like the slimey bases

[Will Vale]

On 7/22/2017 at 7:50 PM, Hunter Rose said:

Have to say as well, the watery bases are especially cool, really great work

 

On 6/19/2019 at 11:45 AM, Hunter Rose said:

Very cool Will! Really like the slimey bases

Thanks! Apparently you are consistently a fan They are very easy to do - a mix of glaze medium + green paint left to go off a bit so that it has some body, and then globbed onto the base and brought up onto the feet a little.

When I painted the plague marines a couple of years ago, I had a hard time getting a really smooth shade on the armour with both enamel and acrylic washes. I wanted to try Contrast for that as the thicker medium seems to give the paint more time to relax and I haven't had many tide-marks.

 

 

This one's a plague champion so he has a nasty-looking power fist and a plague sword or something? And that nifty little fly...

I'm thinking that the purple-grey fabric, which I was going to highlight blue-white, might be better replaced with the red from the cloak? It would be very dominant then though, and might clash with the flesh/tentacles as those are going to get a lot pinker.

Will