jumai's BoP: space wolf first model

[jumai]

Hey B&C.

One of the projects I have on the go is a Burning Of Prospero box; in this thread I'll be sharing the Space Wolf test model I'm currently working on. As the first of my BoP miniatures to receive paint, my first attempt at grey armour, and as the trial subject for some experiments with different paints, this mini is an interesting one for me. Hopefully that shows through.

Since I wanted some cool 30k marines that represent the Heresy narrative, but don't really need the kind of full-scale, open-ended, optimization-centric hobby project an "army" would mean, I'm actually gonna build and paint my BoP miniatures as... the forces represented in the board game. Apparently very unusual? But Prospero is a great moment in the heresy, I've always loved the pre-heresy Thousand Sons colours, and I like the Rout in the novels (particularly the battered, humbled, embittered Wolves we've been seeing post-Prospero)... so why not.

I'm not entirely done assembly as of now, but I had the painting itch today, so here's what I've been up to.

I'm just doing a single Space Wolf right now, trying out my colour choices as I go. In the past, one benefit to me from keeping a WiP thread was actually recording what the *** I did in my test phase, so even though I've so far made only small adaptations from the official GW steps, I'm gonna be fairly specific as I go.

I started with grey spray primer (krylon indoor/outdoor). Then I layered on two semi-glaze coats of Vallejo Dark Sea Grey, thinned 2 drops paint to 2 drops water + 1 drop glaze medium.

I really like the grey I got here. The lighting isn't perfect in my pictures, but in person it has a lot of depth while still remaining very hue-neutral, and I think once it's highlighted it should really capture the "moonlight reflecting on ice" look.

I forgot to get a picture of the primer step, so the first picture is actually a different miniature primed the same way.

Next I attempted a recess wash with Devlan Mud. I kept my brush partially loaded with water during this step, but aside from that I used the paint right from the pot.

Since not covering the whole model with the wash makes it hard not to leave lines of abrupt colour change, I assumed from the start I'd want to blend the edges with a glaze later anyway. So I didn't try to be as absolutely neat as possible at this step.

For the red shoulderpad, I decided to test a Liquitex soft-body acrylic paint (quinacridone crimson), thinned ~1.5 "drops" paint to 2 drops water + 1 drop glaze medium.

Thinned this far, the paint was extremely transparent and required at least three thin coats to build a strong colour; it also dried a bit glossy. That being said, the paint flowed and handled wonderfully, and the pigment felt extremely fine and did not separate out. I definitely like the red it produced once a strong colour was built up as well; soon I plan to try magenta ink over this paint to see if it's a good path to the old school Word Bearers' deeper, richer reds.

For the next step I neatened up a lot of the mess from the wash. I tried to blend the dark and unstained colours with a glaze of Dark Sea Grey thinned 2 drops paint to 4 drops water + 2 drops glaze medium.

This didn't turn out to be quite thin enough for a super high transparency blending glaze, but since the edges of the wash weren't really tidy enough to use as-is, I ended up wanting the heavy end of my blend to be pretty much covering anyway. Initially this took about 2-3 fine glazes or 1.5 heavy ones to achieve, which was probably about right, but the mixed paint on my palette lost moisture it became a heavier colour it probably should have been. Next time I might try re-thinning it a bit as the session wears on (or ideally, paint tidier and neaten up less).

At the next stage I blocked in the armour's trim and its darker sections.

For the riveted trim around the shoulders, neck, and head, I used multiple coats of Gehenna's Gold thinned ~2 "drops" paint to 1 drop water + 1 drop glaze medium, followed by a careful drybrush with unthinned Gehenna's Gold to buff out the finish. For the fine trim elsewhere, I added ~0.5-1 additional drop Gehenna's Gold to the remaining thinned paint on my palette.

The shoulder design and kneepad were put on using Chaos Black. My Chaos Black is slightly overthinned in the pot from being resuscitated after almost drying out, so thinning proportions aren't much use here.

Since I liked the way the kneepad accented the armour, I decided to darken the rest of the knee joint and add a second dark panel on his right vambrace. I used Vallejo Dark Grey for this (possibly darkened down with a little Chaos Black). I forget the exact proportions, but I believe it was thinned 2/2/1 similar to the base coat.

I also put some thinned Chaos Black down on certain details, like the chainsword teeth and eye lenses.

Next I wanted to pick out the non-gold rivets in Ironbreaker, but my hands weren't being steady enough, so I just neatened up a few spots here and there to finish up.

Going forward, the plan is to do the rivets, wash the metallics, and start with some highlighting. I'm excited to try to up my edge highlighting game; usually rely on blends and transparencies to get a similar effect, but I think these models will do better with more standard edge highlighting and offer a good place to build some experience too.

Questions, comments, and critique are more than welcome.

[Noctem Cultor]

Looking good so far, I like the attention to each stage and look forward to seeing him finished.

 

-Noctem

[Carrick]

Its always nice to see something a little different I think. Your grey is much lighter than many go for with the Rout but I like how it has come out. Your gold looks particularly bright and clean. I look forward to seeing this progress.

[jumai]

Thanks for the comments guys.

@Carrick

I felt like picking a grey to use for the Rout was actually a bit tricky, so I'm glad you noticed. I wanted my space wolves to be proud and identifiable, so I sought to stay away from anything too similar to another Legion's colours. The darker end of the greyscale is pretty crowded already, but so is the region close to white, and going off-hue can easily put you in Death Guard or Luna Wolves territory. I was glad to find something that was safe from all that without becoming cartoonish, and could also sell the "moonlight over ice" feel that their colour is described as in the novels.

Also nice to hear that surfacing the metallics with the drybrush step stands out.

A little progress for this evening:

To warm up I decided to do the wash for the gold trim.

While prepping, it occured to me that I should have just thinned the devlan mud for my earlier recess wash so I could be accurate with it, rather than slopping it on like an all-over wash and then blending away the mess. I don't usually do recess washes (and don't really like using thinned wash for all-over shading), so it didn't occur to me at the time.

I used 1 drop water + 1 drop glaze medium to thin 2 brushfuls (#2 round, natural fiber) of devlan mud. This mix was used shade the gold trim and also to improve the recess shading across most of the model.

With the thinned shade it was really easy to be accurate and tidy while still getting colour down into the cracks. Hopefully you can spot differences in the shading compared with the last post, particularly around the face, shoulder, and leg plates.

Then I put a bit of work into getting the unglued parts more caught up. I used Dark Sea Grey prepared the same way as before (2/2/1 paint/water/medium) to lay the base colour for the backpack and the gauntlet (on the weapon).

However, I chose not to apply the general base colour to the exhaust ports on the backpack. Instead I opted to build up a metallic base colour there by drybrushing Leadbelcher directly onto the primer. I did this because I wanted to give the ports a buffed metal finish, but didn't want to create a very eye-grabbing effect in that area.

With that done, I used the remaining devlan mud on my palette to start putting a sooty/exhaust-stained colour near the edges of the vents, and to do some very light recess shading. I'll end up going back over the shading to darken it, but this step was honestly more just tinkering around with the last few drops on the palette than anything.

In mildly irritating news, the paint I had planned to highlight the trim with has dried out. I might try mixing Gehenna's Gold with some Ironbreaker and see if I can brew up something appropriate. Then again, maybe I'll just pick up some paints tomorrow instead. I already needed flourescent red anyway (for eye lenses).

Also: what should I do for the sword?

[jumai]

Today was interesting; I got out into unfamiliar territory and promptly began hitting snags. Between some unsuccessful attempts, a fair bit of fixing up said unsuccessful attempts, the trip to the store for less unsuccessful paint, and taking it nice and slow once I *was* making progress... well, the detailed post might get wordy, so I'm putting it off for a bit.

A small teaser though. How's it look?

 

[Noctus Cornix]

Hurrah! Some one else who doesn't paint eye lenses on their MK III marines! Or atleast, that's what I hope you decide to do. Seriously, this guy is coming along great but I seriously recommend against painting in eye lenses on plastic Mk III helmets. There's just something about that dark, hollow socket effect that evokes a grim visage and reminds you that this is a nice thick layer of extra plating over the helmet. Just my thoughts, but that was always something I loved about the FW Mk III helm that just never sat right with me in the plastics (even though otherwise I love them)

 

Can't wait to see this done!

[jumai]

@Noctus Cornix

I do plan on painting in eye lenses, I'm afraid. It actually always bothered me that the classic design didn't show them. The empty sockets make me forget that I'm looking at power armour riddled with advanced technology and think of a guy wearing metal plates and a rustbucket pot helmet.

I might try doing them subdued slightly, though. They do seem a bit over-prominent somehow on the 'eavy metal figures.

Anyway, let's try and get up to date on the painting while I mostly remember stuff. I started with applying the base colours to the weapon; Chaos Black to the rifle casing, Regal Blue to the plasma coils, Tin Bitz to the barrel enclosure and Leadbelcher to the grip. The black and blue were thinned in my usual 2/2/1 proportions.

For the Tin Bitz, I chose to try thinning with glaze medium only. I believe initially I was using 2 drops medium + 1 small brushload paint, but as this mixture dried it wanted to form a thin, glossy, transparant layer on the surface (the pigments were noticeably below this). I wasn't a big fan of that, so I added a bit of water and paint to normalize things on the latter coats.

I honestly don't remember how I prepared the leadbelcher (I do remember feeling indecisive about it), but I think it might have been just straight from the pot with a very wet brush. Given that this area is clearly a mess in the photograph, that would actually make sense.

Next I started layering on the coils and barrel enclosure.

The coils received several layer coats of Flourescent Blue (daler rowney system 3 acrylic). I believe I used 1 drop water + 1 drop glaze medium to thin 3 toothpick scoops of (softbody) paint... I kinda doubt that "toothpick scoops" mean much as a unit of measure, but either way it was a totally non-covering preparation with extremely loose consistency. I applied it as a layering glaze, avoiding recessed corners and using multiple passes to build up colour.

The intent here was to achieve something similar to a highlight. I also paint my eye lenses this way: the idea is to try to leverage the increased light value of a flourescent colour in the same way a highlight layer leverages the increased brightness of a lighter colour. The effect is limited and subtle, but I feel like it has some impact and helps if you're trying to create the impression of a luminous surface.

The barrel enclosure's surfaces were layered towards the center with Ironbreaker, avoiding any areas near edges and corners. The paint was unthinned and applied by drybrush.

...At least, that was the plan. However, at some point, I didn't get enough water out of my brush after a rinse, and shortly afterward I had an extremely fine, thinly dispersed, and yet screamingly obvious silver brush mark right across the whole bronze area. Welp...

...Ahem. The barrel enclosure was given a strong all-over tint using Ironbreaker. The paint was unthinned and applied by drybrush.

After that I tried giving the black rifle casing an edge highlight with a 2:1 mixture of Vallejo Game Ghost Grey and Vallejo Model Dark Grey. I applied it as a ^@#$ing mess, wrestling again and again with the lumps sticky gunk my pigments congealed into as soon as they were on the model, practically during the brush stroke they arrived on. The paint was thinned using a long series recipies, to a wide range of different consistencies. The sticky, lumpy stubbornness persisted.

As a last resort, I doubled down; I deliberately overdid all highlighting instead of trying to make the paint handle, then tried to take it back down by covering over with Chaos Black. This was the most successful strategy I tried, and matters improved from "ruined" to simply "disappointing".

One of the new things I've been trying out with this model are actually the vallejo paints. I've only used them on this mini and some small sections I did beforehand. I've been really enjoying the model colour paints and plan to continue buying them, but the game colour line... I bought two to try, and and every time I try to use one I have a bad experience. I've repeatedly stirred and shaken them thoroughly, but the pigments still form these sticky, tacky lumps that don't flow, won't move, gum up what I'm trying to paint and pull up more pigment into even more lumps if I try to get rid of them.

I could have hit a bad batch or something, but after checking out some reviews I suspect otherwise. Every reviewer who even mentions doing glazes seems to dislike game colour.

So... I went shopping. I needed the gold highlighting colour and the flourescent red already, and now I needed options for highlighting my greys. I looked at the colour charts for the vallejo and citadel paints, made up 5 or 6 colour shortlist to look at in person, and went down to the store. They were, naturally, out of stock for the whole list of colours >_>.

I didn't even think it was a very good idea, but for the highlight colour, what I actually came home with to try was Pallid Wych Flesh. Unexpectedly, we seem to have hit a winner. I know my execution is a little rough (as I've mentioned, my edge highlights need work in general), but actual colour has definitely surpassed my expectations. I actually rather like it for this.

(I changed the paint preparation a couple times while doing those and haven't settled on an exact recipe, but it's narrowed down to free-flowing, more glaze medium than usual, and optimized for painting lines with the tip using in-line strokes [as with a liner brush], not painting corners with the side of the brush by rubbing it along the edge. Plasma gun not shown, as I'm not sure how much of it to redo)

[jumai]

I did some highlighting on the trim next. I used Liberator Gold Layer, thinned with 1 drop water + 1 drop glaze medium. I changed the amount of paint in the mixture a couple of times as I went.

Then I shaded *some* of the trim with Reikland Fleshshade, thinned one drop water to one drop shade (no medium).

The shoulder trim received light glazing all over, additional shading stippled into the lowest part of the curve, and further additional shade over the rivets. The collar trim received glazing only. I left the rest of the trim alone.

The shade isn't totally dry in these pictures, so it looks a bit glossy in places.

Ok, time to cop to something.

It started with some minor error correction, but over the past few steps I'd also been using steadily using small glazes of Vallejo Model Air Light Grey to blend the edge highlighting with the main armour colour. In this last set of pictures you can also make out that I'd been doing the same thing to brighten the center areas of some of the larger, more prominent panels in a layering fashion. I know I said at the start that I wanted try to use edge highlights instead of blends and layers, but the colour change just felt really stark to me with nothing to smooth it out. One day I may learn to relax on my perfectionism a bit... may.

I didn't thin the paint at all for any of these glazes, though I did get a less heavy colour sometimes by simply not shaking the bottle. This paint has been a real treat to work with. It's the best flowing, most finely pigmented paint with the best balance of colour opacity/transparency I've ever used, at least relative to what I prefer. I'll definitely be looking at the Model Air paints again.

Please let me know what you guys think of the difference. If it looks good, awesome. If it doesn't help, I'd like to know. If you don't like it, that's useful to hear as well.

Anyhow, the next thing I did was catch the backpack up with the rest of the model and attatch it.

While I had the Pallid Wych Flesh out for the backpack highlights, I used a very, very thin preparation of it to stipple a faint stonelike effect onto certain parts of the most prominent armour panels (center of chest, groin guard, and top of head, edges of shin guards, glare highlight on left vambrace, kneepad, parts of backpack panels). I can't really share the exact preparation, because for this type of thing I kinda thin each brushload independantly. I use a drop of water and a spot of paint on opposite sides of the palette well, and dip into either/each as needed, always being sure to mix what's in the brush by flexing the bristles against the side of the well. I didn't use any medium for this, and would probably advise against doing so.

I know "clean" painting styles are pretty popular so hopefully this effect doesn't rub people the wrong way. Here's how it looks.

We're nearly there folks. Aside from some error correction, I think it's pretty much the personal rune, eye lenses, and weapon left. For now anyway, I might still return to some other details later, I have a hard time calling a anything "finished"... just look at my posts in this thread. All edited.

[jumai]

I was kinda in the mood to get 'er done, so I didn't take pictures during the last few stages. Sorry to anyone who was enjoying that.

These last bits also used such small amounts of paint that I can't really give exact thinning proportions. I rarely used even a full brushload of any colour, and did the thinning on the fly from drops of water on my palette.

Final stages then.

In part based on Noctus Cornix' feedback, I decided to do slightly dimmer eye lenses than I had initially intended. They were painted first with a slightly transparent layer of Liquitex Quinacridone Crimson (showing some of the black through from underneath), then the a small line of Demco Acrylic Flourescent Red in the centers of the lenses.

The gauntlet on the weapon was recess shaded with Devlan Mud, tidied with Vallejo Model Air Light Grey, and highlighted with Pallid Wych Flesh.

The rifle casing was repainted Chaos Black (to get rid of the old highlighting attempt) and highlighted this time with Vallejo Model Air Light Grey.

The barrel enclosure was highlighted with Leadbelcher. The deep recesses were shaded with Chaos Black, and a thin glaze of Badab Black was applied to the top and front parts only (where reflection was bringing out the bittiness of the metallic pigments).

The plasma coils were layered beginning with Hawk Turquiose (the one of the blue-er iterations of this colour). For the next layer the Hawk Turquiose was mixed with a bit of Sunburst Yellow. For the next layer, used mostly on the top, a bit of Skull White was added to the previous colour. The coils were finished with a *very* thin glaze of Flourescent Blue (using 1:1 water/glaze medium to thin it down) and finally a wash with Leviathan Purple.

The personal rune was done in Pallid Wych Flesh.

...and with that, I'm feeling about ready to move forward; any minor changes I decide to make later I won't count as part of the test model process.

Once I've gone over the notes above and compressed them into a recipe, I'll post that here as well, but other than that, this is the finished look. I'd love to hear any thoughts.