NiftyVT's Xana II Mechanicum

[NiftyVT]

Table of Contents

Page 1 Post #10: Painting Walkthrough - Knight Tutorial and the General Army Wide Process

 

Page 1 Post #17: Painting Walkthrough - Knight/Ancient Ruins Bases

 

Page 2 Post #47: Painting Walkthrough - Skitarii Infantry Part 1: Step By Step, Everything Except the Oil Wash

 

Page 2 Post #50: Painting Walkthrough - Skitarii Infantry Part 2: Oil Wash to Complete!

 

Page 6 Post #126: Model Call Out: Knight Castigator Complete!

 

Page 6 Post #141: Model Call Out: Scoria and Moirax  with Taro Model Maker Alternate Arms Complete!

 

Page 7 Post #169: Model Call Out: Pain Train Done!

 

More to come as I get around to it!

 

If anyone has any questions about whats in the pictures please feel free to ask anything. Even if its about something in the background thats half in frame and out of focus. Since I usually just push current builds out of the way in order to make room when I paint/take pictures there is usually something going on in the background. 

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I have been reading BC for a long time and decided to finally post a progress log here after the traffic/interaction on another forum I frequent (and where I have lengthy mechanics and blood angels threads,might port the BA over too) basically dried up to almost nothing. I am going to start off with where I started my Dark Mech obsession.

Please enjoy and feel free to ask any questions!

If anyone wants any step by step guides or recipes just ask.

Note: Most pictures are just right off my hobby desk or somewhat bad pictures of things in my display cabinets. If I feel particularly motivated I might take a day and set up a real camera to take better pictures.

 

And take the time to glance at the background of the pictures. Sometimes there are weird and wonderful works in progress back there!

First up I started off with a generic plastic Knight. I used him to practice several different Xana 'off white' techniques, hence the various colored shoulder pads.

With base.


He is, of course, fully magnetized.


Then I moved on to a start collecting box which I assembled and fully painted in a single month! Picture with some other goodies like some forgeworld robots (I really like robots), some custom spider Breachers and a really old GW Skullz program tech priest. I have the whole set that I got back in the day so more of them will be popping up as I paint them!



After that I fell into more GW plastic and more Forgeworld (if only the FW had 40k rules!). More pictures to come!

Edited October 10, 2021 by NiftyVT

[Ryltar Thamior]

Looks very cool. Well done with the off-white on the Knight - it's some good blending and shading on them large panels. It'll be interesting to see how the really old metal Mechanicus hold up aesthetic-wise next to the more modern plastics; Were the spider-breachers conversion-work or parts sourced from a third party ? 

[NiftyVT]

Looks very cool. Well done with the off-white on the Knight - it's some good blending and shading on them large panels. It'll be interesting to see how the really old metal Mechanicus hold up aesthetic-wise next to the more modern plastics; Were the spider-breachers conversion-work or parts sourced from a third party ? 

 

For the breachers the legs where sourced from ebay, "Robogear spider  legs" might find them for you, and I made a ton of tubes out of green stuff to fill in the undersides. Their guns are also magnetized but I just havent painted any of the others yet.  I made the tubes using a Green Stuff World tube/tentacle maker.

 

The old metal guy in the above picture I usually use as a Datasmith. He has the little interface spike gauntlet thing! 

 

 

Edited May 25, 2019 by NiftyVT

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Beautiful works, all.

[brother_b]

Dark mechanicum? Heresy! Vile tech heresy!

 

Your stuff is amazing, very well done.

 

I have a set of the old skulls stuff as well and added one of the engineseers to my army. I’m working on adding an old tech priest dominus too.

 

I do love your color scheme, I can’t wait to see more.

[NiftyVT]

After I finished up the above Cawl was released so I grabbed him and made him a good guy. 

 

 

 

Base wasnt finished in this picture but everything else was. Then I figured Cawl needed some robot friends to push into battle so in came Forgeworld. Even though they dont have 40k rules so basically never get played with they are super cool models. Sometimes I proxy the Thallax as Breachers and the Castellax and Kastelan.

 

Here are some better shots of the Thallax, squad red and black.

 

I then kicked out 4 Castellax. 2 Cannon, 2 Bolter and a Thanatar. I think the Bolter/Thanatar picture was pre matte varnish. . .still look sweet!

 

 

After that I needed another big robot so I picked up an Knight Acheron!  I did mention I love robots right? 

Edited May 26, 2019 by NiftyVT

[NiftyVT]

Better shots of the spider bots. I really love these guys and I have enough legs to make 6 more. . . but the tubes took forever! 

 

 

I think some kind of tutorial is coming up next. I have lots of step by step shots of the plastic knight being painted. 

[brother_b]

Man if 30K stuff ever gets a port to 40K you’ll be set.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Well done.

[NiftyVT]

Knight Tutorial and the General Army Wide Process

 

Ok, first things first. Basics. This was my first big vehicle in probably around 6 years. I took a break from 40k in college and played old school Warhammer Fantasy instead since that had a larger more involved group at my school. So, I needed some knowledge on how to paint one of these 'Knight' things! So I turned to one of my favorite youtube painters Doctor Faust. If you havent seen any of his work go ahead and do yourself a favor and go browse through his channel. 

 

[flash=640,480]

 

After watching that a few times I decided to dive in.

 

First thing was to figure out what color to paint the chassis. First try was straight Vallejo Metal Color Copper via airbrush.

 

Which turned out way to bright! So next I tried a mix of 50/50 Vallejo Metal Color Copper and Vallejo Metal Color Exhaust Manifold via airbrush.

 

Ok, I liked that a lot better and decided to run with it.  

 

Next up was trying to figure out how to do the awesome Xana II off white. First go was to prime with Vallejo Brown primer via airbrush. I searched diligently though every paint makers line and came upon a paint from Vallejo's Air line called Aged White. So I went ahead and airbrushed all the armor panels. I tried to keep it a little darker around the edges. Turned out pretty bright and not that nice cream off white shown on Forgeworlds website but that all comes together later. I then tried glazing some washes over the shoulder panels and that lead nowhere and I didnt even bother to take pictures of my mess ups. I, however, did just leave the glazing as is and just kept moving forward vs re airbrushing them with the Aged White.

 

Next up was to try and mimic the Forgeworld trim color. I again turned to Vallejo's Metal Color line with the Exhaust Manifold and hand brushed a few bits of trim. 

 

I then moved on to the weapons and sprayed them a brighter silver than the trim. In this case its a 50/50 mix of Vallejo Metal Color Aluminum and Jet Exhaust. I have since switched to just using Vallejo Metal Color Steel for most things.  

 

In order to get nice smooth silver trim on larger bits like the carapace I used Humbrol Maskol liquid mask and blue painters tape to mask off the carapace. After doing this knight I learned Silly Putty also works as a great masking aid while airbrushing. I gave it a try on my Dune Crawler and it worked great! Silly Putty only sticks to itself and is very easy to form around whatever you want.

 

 

I then finished picking out details, gloss varnished EVERYTHING (chassis, weapons, armor panels) and then put on decals using Micro sol/set followed by another gloss coat over the decals. I have had great results with either Vallejo Gloss Varnish (only thin it with water!) and Pledge Multi Surface Finish floor care. In this case the first total gloss coat was Pledge and then I used Vallejo to seal in the decals.

 

 

Alright, now for the fun part that could also ruin everything done thus far because, at the time, I had ZERO idea what I was doing. I just went for it and hoped for the best. Going back to the Dr Faust video. I took his 50/50 mix of AK Interactive Streaking Grime and Brown Blue and just sprayed it over everything. Note that these are Enamel washes! So, if you want to try this please wear a respirator,  use a spray booth and have mineral spirits on hand for clean up. I actually have mineral spirits in a dropper bottle ready and waiting for airbrush clean up. Do not use a cheap dust mask but use an actual fume rated respirator. They are only $20-40 USD . . . your lungs are worth it!

 

Yikes! Looks like a hot mess for sure! I waited a nerve wracking 45 min - 1 hour and pulled out an old cotton T-Shirt. The plan was to just wipe it off . . .  . . . and see what happens.

 

I started with the chassis and weapons.

 

Sweet! It worked fantastic on the chassis!

 

Next up was the main course. . .the armor panels.

 

After that all that was left to do was give a final gloss coat followed by a matte coat (Vallejo again) and assemble him! The trick to the wiping off of the enamel wash is to try and do the streaking/weathering as you go. Also, it turns out that I needed around 500ish (not exaggerating) cotton swabs to do the detail wipe off and to get into the little areas. I quickly learned to wear rubber gloves while doing this!

 

 

Everything turned out fantastic! And so the over arching technique for painting my entire force was born. In short - block in colors, gloss varnish, oil wash with the AK Interactive Enamel wash mix, wipe off. Thats basically it!

 

Next up will be a little walk through on the Knights base. 

Edited May 27, 2019 by NiftyVT

[Magos Takatus]

That's a really good off white you have managed. It seems to be a popular Knight livery in B&C. I bet the weathering stage was pretty nerve-wracking!

[Charlo]

Beeeeaaauuutiful!

[NiftyVT]

Next up are some basic Kastelan robots.

 

 

Complete with an actual Datasmith and a random extra Skitarii sergeant that I happened to batch paint at the same time.

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by NiftyVT

[Maxei]

Wow, they look awesome!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job on the Skitarii and the war robots.

[Reigart]

I love the white ad mech

[NiftyVT]

Now for the knights base I used a base from Dragon Forge Design. He makes fantastic bases and I used them to base all of my Knights so far and just about an entire Blood Angels army.  

 

Everything is airbrushed except the enamel wash step.

 

First step is a basic prime. In this case its Vallejo Black primer. Brown works too.

 

 

 Airbrush first shade of grey: Vallejo Game Air Cold Grey.

 

 

Airbrush a lighter grey but keep the previous layer showing to taste: Vallejo Game Air Wolf Grey.

 

 

Next step is to paint the dirt. Simple brown plus a dry brush or 2. 

 

 

Then its time to gloss coat. For bases and such I use Pledge.

 

 

Now I use a standard brush to apply the same wash I use on the knights to only the stone portions of the base: 50/50 mix of AK Interactive Streaking Grime and Brown Blue.

 

 

Give it 45 min to 1 hour or so to dry and wipe off the wash with an old T-shirt. Do any fine clean up with cotton swabs.

 

 

When wiping off make sure to blend/weather as you go.

 

 

After that let the enamel dry overnight and then go over it with a matte coat to seal everything and kill the shine from the gloss coat. 

 

[Magos Takatus]

I hadn't really thought of doing enamel/oil washes for bases yet. They turned out pretty good. :)

[NiftyVT]

Next up, some more infantry. I present some of the awesome FW Peltasts! If you look carefully at all of my infantry I tend to mark them with decals in groups of 10 using either black or red to denote the sergeant. Then if need be, in the case of the FW units, I can still combine the squads into 1 giant unit of 20.  

 

 

And some of my favorite models in existence is the amazing FW Hoplite. 

 

 

Here are the last 4. For some reason they got left out of the first batch. . .cant remember why. 

 

 

And a cool GIF of the sergeant. It took some effort to get that huge decal on there but o man was it worth it!

 

 

If any you decided to count the above Hoplites you might have noticed that there are only 19 of them. . .but dont they come in groups of 10? The answer is yes they do come it groups of 10! So, where is the 20th guy?  Well, he went into the labs and came out a bit. . .different. 

 

 

Still just a basic sergeant on the table top but he/it looks amazing doing so!  Couple little notes about the mini: Chest and head decal is from the Adaptus Titanicus Knight box. Base model is the free Slaughter Priest that was included with a White Dwarf. I used guitar string and home made tubes (Green Stuff World tube maker) and a skull from the GW big pack of skulls. His red eye optic is a very small glass bead from Green Stuff World.  

 

Here are a couple behind the forge pictures of the build.

 

 

I am almost caught up on the finished portion of my Dark Mech! 

 

Thats all for now. 

[brother_b]

Vile heresy!

 

OK, I love this.

 

Question: Where do you get those great metal/brass wires? I've got some old guitar strings I was going to use. Do you have something different?

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent works.

[Charlo]

That Hoplite sarge is QUALITY.

[NiftyVT]

Vile heresy!

 

OK, I love this.

 

Question: Where do you get those great metal/brass wires? I've got some old guitar strings I was going to use. Do you have something different?

I go to a local music store and they have a small 'junk string' bin where they sell all sorts of instrument strings for 50 cents to a couple $ USD each. I just rummaged through the bin and bought a bunch of different sizes plus a couple nylon guitar strings. So they could be from a mix of gutar, violin or other string instruments. Just make sure to use actual wire cutters on them and not your hobby sprue cutters! And I do the bending with 2 small needle nose pliers.

 

If I remember when I get home from work I will see if any of the strings are still in their original packaging and I will post a picture of them.

 

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Edited June 4, 2019 by NiftyVT

[NiftyVT]

That Hoplite sarge is QUALITY.

Thanks! I had a TON of fun building him and his paint job came out much better than I thought it would. The Titanicus decals came out just after I finished blocking in all his colors so it was PERFECT timing and those decals make a huge difference in his overall look!

 

I hope to make many more crazy things in the future. I have lots of plans but I just need to come up with a couple hundred bucks to buy kits/bits to smash together!

Edited June 4, 2019 by NiftyVT

[Clingy]

Daaaaaymn dude I’m liking this +1