Valourousheart's 2019 Painting Project - IK

[ValourousHeart]

Well, my 2019 painting project is coming along and it is past time to start posting some pics.

First up - Helverin

[ValourousHeart]

Next up is my first Questor Class, which will most likely be run as a Warden.

But I like to keep my options open.

[ValourousHeart]

Group Pic

[Bjorn Firewalker]

No decals or hand-painted coats-of-arms, kill markings, honor markings?

[ValourousHeart]

Derp... Yeah, I was just so happy to be done with painting yellow.  LOL.

 

Well, I know what I'll be working on tonight.  Stay tuned.

[ValourousHeart]

Update on the Helverin.

Green one.

Update on Warden.

Yellow one.

Both together.

[ValourousHeart]

Update - Helverin

Crest

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent works. What does the Helverin's crest symbolize? A stylized "Y" for House Yutani?

[ValourousHeart]

The theme for my Knights is Voltron, so the symbol on the Green one is taken from the Netflix Legendary Defenders series.

The green lion in that series has a silver and black shield on its back with what looks to be 2 yellow boomerangs.

This thing.

 

 

Beyond the Green one I didn't have a clue what to do for crest for any of the other Knights.

I watched the original series when I was a kid, and the Netflix series as an adult, and neither had anything other than the House of Lions crest which is on yellow's shield.

And the toys had numbers on them which seems a bit lame to me.

 

A google search brought back this image, but I have no clue where it came from.

I don't remember these from either the original series or the Netflix series, and I haven't found them mentioned in any of the Wiki's I've read.

 

 

Well I'm working on the blue one now so hopefully I'll have something to post after the weekend.

And I can always revisit the crests as I progress with the project.

[Link2edition]

Bold of you to paint an entire knight in yellow.

I don't hate myself enough to attempt that, trying to do yellow "caution" stripes on house raven was tough enough for me!

Great work

Edited April 11, 2019 by Link2edition

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The theme for my Knights is Voltron, so the symbol on the Green one is taken from the Netflix Legendary Defenders series.

The green lion in that series has a silver and black shield on its back with what looks to be 2 yellow boomerangs.

This thing.

Ah, a man who appreciates the classics. I applaud your good taste.

A google search brought back this image, but I have no clue where it came from.

I don't remember these from either the original series or the Netflix series, and I haven't found them mentioned in any of the Wiki's I've read.

These look vaguely like the Chinese characters for the five classical elements in Chinese mythology: Water (blue), Fire (red), Earth (yellow), Wood (green), Gold/Metal (black). Makes sense, as Voltron is an adaptation of a Japanese cartoon, and Chinese culture is strongly felt on those islands.

[ValourousHeart]

Bold of you to paint an entire knight in yellow.

 

I don't hate myself enough to attempt that, trying to do yellow "caution" stripes on house raven was tough enough for me!

 

Great work

 

Well once I announced my plan I had a lot of advice from my LGS about painting Yellow.

Most of the advice focused on tackling the Yellow one first, and just sticking with it until it was finished.

I also cheated a little bit... I used GW's Yellow Primer to base the model.

I was able to base all 4 other nights with a single can of silver, but the Yellow one took 1 and 1/2 cans of Yellow primer to get a good base coat.

After the primer I used an extremely simple method to finish the yellow... Heavy Yellow Dry brush all over, Yellow Wash, then yellow dry brush again to pick out details that were toned down to much by the wash.

 

I then blocked in the whole model with black for all of the parts that weren't going to be yellow.... that is what took the longest time.

I hate painting black... it feels depressing.

 

 

The theme for my Knights is Voltron, so the symbol on the Green one is taken from the Netflix Legendary Defenders series.

The green lion in that series has a silver and black shield on its back with what looks to be 2 yellow boomerangs.

This thing.

Ah, a man who appreciates the classics. I applaud your good taste.

A google search brought back this image, but I have no clue where it came from.

I don't remember these from either the original series or the Netflix series, and I haven't found them mentioned in any of the Wiki's I've read.

These look vaguely like the Chinese characters for the five classical elements in Chinese mythology: Water (blue), Fire (red), Earth (yellow), Wood (green), Gold/Metal (black). Makes sense, as Voltron is an adaptation of a Japanese cartoon, and Chinese culture is strongly felt on those islands.

 

 

Oh man, don't let the Japanese here you say that, them's fighting words.

 

But I agree, these symbols feel more like Ronin Warriors, power rangers or any of about a hundred other shows from Japan that had an element component.

Or any one of the countless clumsy English adaptations that combined metal and stone in earth and added wind as the 5th element.

 

Maybe this is just the Rorschach effect but to me, Green looks like a Tree, red like fire, blue like a snow flake, black like clouds or wind and yellow seems to be an Anvil resting on a stone.

Then stylized to look like they could be characters from the alphabet.

[ValourousHeart]

The blue one has proven to be a little more difficult than anticipated.

 

I started with the green one and primed silver for the main body, green for the armor plates, and then created a frame so I could prime the top of the knight green without getting too much on to the parts I wanted to be silver.

So I inadvertently bypassed the issue that came up with the blue one.

 

For the Yellow one I primed with GW's Yellow spray, and then went back and blacked in all of the framework, before painting that part silver.

It was long and tedious and because I didn't think ahead, I had already glued on the armor plates.

So as I mentioned painting black is depressing for me and I have trouble keeping motivated when the models that color.

Also having to paint 2 colors around all of those armor plates meant that I was even more likely to mess up the yellow.

 

The blue one already had the armor plates attached, just like the yellow one.

So I thought I would learn from my previous experience and prime the blue one silver and then paint the armor plates second.

The accessories that would end up mostly blue were primed blue, the one that would be mostly silver were primed silver.

I had got to the point where the blue was supposed to be finished but it still looked like crap.

 

It turns out that the blue I was using is not as opaque as I thought and the metal flakes in the silver spray were preventing an uneven base coat.

 

So I'm starting over and going to put a black base over the silver before applying the blue on the main knight body.

Even on the accessories that are mostly silver, the hardest to reach spots are going to be blue.

So for the accessories I'll be priming them all blue, and blacking out where the silver will go.

 

Stay tuned.

Edited May 6, 2019 by ValourousHeart

[ValourousHeart]

Well Blue is finally coming together, looking forward to getting some pictures taken later this week.

The main body is almost finished with some small details left to sort out.

Next up is getting started on the the weapons and base.

I made some changes to Green and Yellow to base them more in the theme of their dens from the 1984 series.

I'm planning to do each one with a different theme.

Green in the Forest,

Yellow in the Desert

[Magos Takatus]

That red trim is really bold! I had just got used to the idea of the trim being painted in metallic colours that it didn't even occur to me not to paint them like that. Nice work.

[ValourousHeart]

Thanks.. Yeah I only intended to use the red trim around the shoulders.  When that was done it felt like it needed a little more.  So I added it to the rim of the shield and the shields of the guns, but then it felt lopsided.  So then I decided to paint all the trim that color and was secretly dreading that I was ruining it and going to have to start over.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Your painting skills are most enviable.

[ValourousHeart]

Sorry it has been a while since I updated. Struggled with blue a lot more than I was expecting, almost got burned out. Still have some finishing touches and the base. But here is where we are so far.

Red on the other hand was supper fun and fast. Still a couple of details left to add, and then the base.

[ValourousHeart]

And the army so far...

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job on the Knights and Armigers. Are they Freeblades from different Houses, serving in the same army?

[ValourousHeart]

Good job on the Knights and Armigers. Are they Freeblades from different Houses, serving in the same army?

Actually I was basing them off of the Voltron Lions

[Bjorn Firewalker]

 

Good job on the Knights and Armigers. Are they Freeblades from different Houses, serving in the same army?

Actually I was basing them off of the Voltron Lions

You have good taste. Will the Black Lion equivalent be a Dominus Knight Castellan?

[ValourousHeart]

No, I went with the Valiant.  I really liked the imagery of the harpoon smashing vehicles and then the chain slowly dragging the weapon back and reloading.  Plus it feels more like "Blazing Sword" in that it is a finishing weapon.  I just wish they would have given the harpoon a CCW profile.

 

I think that the Freeblade rules make a lot of sense for the Voltron Pilots, because I can treat them all as characters with unique personalities.  But I don't think that you can run 5 Freeblades nor do I think you can make Armigers Freeblades either.

[Whitelion]

really wonderful, I like how you painted the mechanical parts, really realistic.

[Focslain]

No, I went with the Valiant.  I really liked the imagery of the harpoon smashing vehicles and then the chain slowly dragging the weapon back and reloading.  Plus it feels more like "Blazing Sword" in that it is a finishing weapon.  I just wish they would have given the harpoon a CCW profile.

 

I think that the Freeblade rules make a lot of sense for the Voltron Pilots, because I can treat them all as characters with unique personalities.  But I don't think that you can run 5 Freeblades nor do I think you can make Armigers Freeblades either.

 

You can make any knight a freeblade, you just don't get the house traits/warlord traits/relics.  Just the basic ones and of course you'll have to roll LD for everyone each turn. For ease and to show them working as a 'team' it might be best to pick a house.