Dark Imperium

[Will Vale]

I did a quick and dirty digital paint over to see what the colour options might look like:

 

 

With the addition of a green breather tube, I'm leaning towards the red?

 

W

[Hunter Rose]

9 hours ago, Will Vale said:

 

Thanks! Apparently you are consistently a fan

 

Yeah two years later and still loving them!

 

And the red is definitely the best looking imo

[rockpopandchips]

Red, what's he on about? Green! traditional and the best colour, definitely green. 

[Will Vale]

On ‎6‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 9:55 PM, rockpopandchips said:

Red, what's he on about? Green! traditional and the best colour, definitely green. 

Hehe, green is very Nurgley but there is green elsewhere & I ended up going with the red. In part because the hoses are all wrapped in green and he has one of those going into his face. Urk.

 

 

I've since added some detail to the pink belly bits and highlighted/shaded the hood a bit more, I'll post pics tomorrow.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

Did a wee bit more last night, adding some highlights and shading to the hood and working up the tentacle.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

And again, longer session this time adding white ink edge highlights, some lining with Snakebite Leather and Skeleton Horde, and shading the rivets with Sepia.

 

 

I also painted up the cloak to match the hood, I haven't really done the inside yet.

 

Some things to neaten then I can chip the white armour and start on some rust

Cheers,

 

Will

[Andy Moore]

He's looking great Will. Red was definitely the right way to go for the hood and cloak.

 

Andy

[DalekCheese]

He really is. I wouldn’t rust him up- kind of like the ‘ceramic’ or ‘ivory’ look.

[Will Vale]

Yeah I'm very happy with the red. Still have to decide how to paint the fly but now the options are wide open as it doesn't need to be anything. Red eyes/dark blue body? Blood-red body & black legs?

I think a bit of rust will look good without completely losing the pale armour - I thought it added quite a bit to the other marines.

Cheers,

 

Will

[DalekCheese]

The GW-painted versions of these have the flies very light blue, with wings grading from dark to light blue (airbrushed?)

[Will Vale]

Yeah they do, I quite like the blue wings but I've used blue/teal for the poison colour on one or two other models, so I think something else pale might be good.

 

In the meantime I had a good three hours of painting time on Friday night and added the chips and rust and weathering stuff I was threatening before:

 

 

The chips are mostly sponged on with Dryad Bark plus a little bit of brush work, and the rust is the contrast orange, either neat or diluted to a very thin glaze. I found it was a bit too pink so I ended up glazing over those areas with very thin yellow to warm them up.

 

I added some green to the skull on the knee to suggest that it's a bit more alive (or at least further gone to seed) than the rest of the armour. And because I liked the look of the yellow over the rust I glazed over a lot of downward-facing surfaces with the same mix. Hopefully it reinforces the original clear orange airbrush layer.

 

 

Last of all, I painted most of the details on the backpack - this skull I've tried to make look a bit more alive.

 

 

I made a bit of a hash of the tentacle and horn and lost a lot of the smoothness that was there, but hopefully the tentacle at least will look better with some glossy varnish at the end.

 

Weirdly I added edge highlights to the main horns and that came out really well, I'm not sure quite what went wrong on the other one - probably painting with something that was starting to go off a bit and get sticky on the palette. Ah well.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

[Will Vale]

I had the paints out and rather than starting something new I thought I should try and finish off the plague champion who has been glaring at me from the shelf for the last couple of months:

 

 

I put him to one side because I couldn't decide about the fly, but have gone with my first instinct to make it red and juicy. I've also re-used the grey/purple combo on the wings, in this case painting them with medium and blending thinned Magos Purple into it while wet.

 

I spent rather too long painting the blight grenade (severed head) and it's still not quite right, but it's not terrible. The sword was easier and has come out well but could do with a bit of highlight sharpening/neatening in daylight.

 

I just need to finish the base and varnish ready for the bits of brass and such.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[DalekCheese]

I’d forgotten this topic existed! Outstanding work as always, sire

[Will Vale]

Thanks, I like painting these but they're quite tiring as the marines especially are ridiculously detailed for the size.

 

Plague Champion has been tidied up, based and varnished now:

 

 

I added some green under-light to the fly's wings which I think looks good from the front but a bit heavy and over-done from the back so I might have to tweak that:

 

 

The little veins add something though.

 

I need to finish off the metal bits now and add some goop.

 

W

[DalekCheese]

I like the fly, I don’t think he’s overdone at all. I like how you’re doing them in the 30k Death Guard colours, as opposed to the 40k green.

[Soeren]

Fantastic model. Plenty of nice details to identify. For those eyes on the fly and carbuncle.  Do you start dark and pull into light? What kind of brush do you use for those tiny details?

[Will Vale]

14 hours ago, DalekCheese said:

I like the fly, I don’t think he’s overdone at all. I like how you’re doing them in the 30k Death Guard colours, as opposed to the 40k green.

Thanks, I really like the cream as it's a nice canvas for weathering and the green works better as an accent IMO. I'm not a huge HH fan, I must admit!

 

I ended up leaving the fly wings alone as I thought they worked well from almost every angle and thought it might be better not to mess...

 

5 hours ago, Soeren said:

Fantastic model. Plenty of nice details to identify. For those eyes on the fly and carbuncle.  Do you start dark and pull into light? What kind of brush do you use for those tiny details?

They're certainly laden with detail. I started with white for the eyes, the detailed one is painted traditionally (paint iris, dot pupil, add catchlight, add some messcapillaries) whereas the fly eye is done by adding contrast paint around the edge of the moulding in two passes so it's darker at the bottom. A bit like painting a gemstone? I wanted this one not to have a pupil to pick up the milky cataract-ridden eyes of the champion himself which are almost hidden under his hood.

 

For this model I've mostly used a Raphael 8413 brush in size 2, although the point is starting to go a bit and I have to be careful that I repoint it or at least line it up so the thin edge hits the model first when doing fiddly bits. It's usually better to use a big brush with a good point, as the tiny ones don't hold enough paint. If you hesitate as long as I do before making your dot or whatever, it'll have dried or gone sticky on the tip making a mess on the figure.

 

Oh yes, and subtractive painting is very useful. I'm not great at edge highlights but I find it quite easy to go in alongside a fat highlight to make it thinner and sharper.

 

 

This chap is now done and in RFI, thanks for following along! I'll try and do some more but might revisit the Age of Sigmar ghosts first.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Andy Moore]

 

[DalekCheese]

15 hours ago, Will Vale said:

I'm not a huge HH fan, I must admit!

Fair enough- I don’t play much of anything, but the FW SPHESS MERHEENS look really good, IMO

 

So what’s happening with the ultramarines from the box?

Edited October 8, 2019 by DalekCheese

[Will Vale]

On 10/8/2019 at 9:26 PM, Andy Moore said:

 

Aah, so that's where that ended up 😛

 

On 10/8/2019 at 11:05 PM, DalekCheese said:

So what’s happening with the ultramarines from the box?

Nuffink. I've built them all and they might eventually become Space Wolves, but I haven't started painting any of them. I do like marines but I don't have a mental "how to paint" for them so they feel like unknown territory in a lot of ways. I've got a SW Reiver kill team that ought to be first out of the gate if anything, but then I need to finish this guy first:

 

 

The DI Inceptors are really neat though...

 

W

[DalekCheese]

Well I look forward to whenever they do appear

 

and more space wolves is a good thing, although not as good as blood angels

[Will Vale]

December's GW paint club model was a plague marine from the multi-part set (which I didn't have, not having finished the Dark Imperium marines) so it was hard to say no. I picked the icon bearer marine and left Warhammer Wellington with a small box of parts. Then Christmas happened and I finally got him built and primed last week, and sat down to paint on Friday morning.

 

The unmolested model can be seen here (lower right) albeit with a different head.

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-NZ/Death-Guard-Plague-Marines-2020

I thought the backpack with all the chimneys didn't really suit the otherwise fairly serious-looking model so I removed some of the chimneys, turned the centre one round, and added a cheeky Nurgling. I also took the pickelhaube spike off the marine's helmet as I think they're a bit much. The Nurgling's free hand called out for something and I pondered using the spike to make a dagger, but settled for something more earthy

Hopefully the cheeky Nurgling contrasts the serious model, I think it looks better balanced at any rate.



I sprayed the armour with grey primer, then decanted Tamiya Racing White mostly from above and Alclad Hotmetal Sepia from below. I've used clear orange for this before as well, I'm not sure which I prefer but the Alclad is maybe a bit easier to use. After that it's all shaded with thinned Contrast as with the previous Plague Champion and the highlighted with white ink. The above pics represent about six hours of painting (one day, split over three sessions).

I did some more the next evening, mostly cleaning up mess and adding detail and richness to the armour and flesh. I also fitted the shoulderpads and helmet which were only blu-tacked in place for the first photos.

 

NB: The dark brown bits are standing in for metal areas, I'll do those once I've varnished the model. Maybe done today, maybe not - I'm easily distracted.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

A bit more progress, got up to the varnish stage after finishing shading the armour with glazes of Skeleton Horde and Snakebite Leather. I also tweaked the colours on the bolter casing and added chips and streaks.

 

 

I thought Splorty's skin was a bit plain so shaded it with a deep cool green (Ork Flesh? Something like that) glazed from below, plus added some very subtle flesh tones around the knees, feet, lips and buttocks.

 

 

I'm wondering about creating a string of mucus linking the stool and the place whence it came using nylon thread and glue, but haven't committed to the idea yet...

 

Will

[Stephen W]

Amazing detail and my hands are aching just thinking about the amount of fine detail in these!

 

You must be very proud of the work. 

[Will Vale]

Thanks Stephen, I think the thing I'm most excited about was how well he's come out for the time taken. Normally I spend ages fixing things but I'm starting to figure out ways to work faster.

 

W