Legio Ventus & House Qattara - or - 'How to hide a Titan'

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Progress! My walking Acastus, 'Spitfire' is all in one piece and looks really menacing:

Even just a little movement in the legs adds a lot of dynamism to the whole model. So much so that my other Acastus looks positively statuesque in comparison.

This also wasn't too hard to do, so I'd really recommend giving it a go.

[Gillyfish]

Stunning. I love the dazzle schemes on the knights and the titans. I also really like the pose you have achieved with the Acastus. It definitely chimes well with the background you have outlined for your Legio.

 

Overall, great stuff. More, please! :D

[schoon]

You actually got some movement out of that model. How much chopping and gluing did you need to do to get that far?

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Not as much as I feared, I cut one leg apart at the knee to straighten it, but there isn't a lot of range of movement even then thanks to the knee guard.

The other leg just needed the toes bent, the extra height added by the straight knee was almost exactly matched by the height of the other leg on tip toe. I then just had to make the panels and the lifter arms fit.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Ok, I take back that last comment somewhat... I sat down this afternoon to finish off the last touches to the base. As I leant across my desk to turn on my laptop, I knocked poor Spitfire to the floor. Breaking the body from the legs, snapping one piston (I never found half of it) snapping the other piston off whole, and breaking one of the groin cables into three parts. Without the pistons for support, I could not get the hips to glue, so now it's pinned in place to compensate. I had to replace the fractured cable with one from a Warhound and I don't think I got the pose as neat as it was originally. Anywho, here is my last knight for now, next up is a return to the titans proper:

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Progress update!

Many will have seen these new titans on the Facebook Page. (Seriously, we're all on it, anonymity here is useless!) But I decided to update the blog with more detail as to the progress.

After painting all of my Knights, I went back to my Titans, A welcome break in fact. First up was Percussor. (Headsman) This was my first foray into digicam, something I've always been fascinated with after I visited Nijmegen as a cadet in 2006 and saw Cadpat and ACU in person for the first time. (It also was one of the things that really got me into the science of camo, as I wanted to know why ACU was so bad!)

Here he is in all of his glory:

I could have purchased the stencils, but the first Youtube video I found had a free template. I managed, (at great cost to my poor printer's lifespan) to print it onto some Tamiya transfer paper, and then spent about a day cutting out little digital shapes. The first pass was awful, and was stripped. The second pass was better and required minimal touch up, which is what you see here. I've largely not painted the weapons in any particular scheme, so they can be swapped out. (Something i have learned to regret with the carapace weapon on the next titan:

Arbiter Ultima (Final Judgment)

After painting all of my knights in pure Caunter, I thought a modified caunter using my chosen colours would be a nice change of pace, less fiddly stencilling and no hours with a modelling knife. Unfortunately, I seemed to forget while painting this lady how to use an Airbrush, So after basically spraying the whole thing twice, i gave up and essentially this titan is painted entirely by hand. The consequence of this cock up is that the colour intensity on this titan is much stronger than the others. I therefore decided that she would be the 'new' titan, and weathered her far less than her brother engines to reflect this fact.

The most difficult aspect of her scheme was getting the colour balance right on the carapace. This is actually the third attempt, and while she is not my favourite, she is growing on me. I plan to paint the carapace Vulcan Mega Bolter I have on order from FW to match her exactly, as the current random carapace weapons just don't work with her paintjob.

The final new titan, was finished today. This is Umbra (Shadow)

I am really pleased with how this one turned out. The digicam has much more intensity than with Percussor, and is much crisper. I just hope I can replicate this success with his unnamed brother, who is getting a caunteresque scheme like Arbiter. I'm also really pleased with my teeny Epic White Scars Rhinos, which arrived recently.

With the final Warhound done, I will then begin work on what will be the final titan for a while, while my Black Templars return to the top of the queue, My Warlord Titan, Fine Dierum (End of Days.) Which I plan to try a proper Dazzle stripey scheme. Just to see how much I can screw that up too!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent work on the Titans and their digital and dazzle camouflage patterns.

[Sherrypie]

Very nice, Arbiter Ultima in particular. Nice to see those age old transfers in use :D

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Very nice, Arbiter Ultima in particular. Nice to see those age old transfers in use :D

I wondered if anyone would recognise those!

[Mandragola]

I'm a big fan of this stuff. It would be really interesting to see other models in digital camo. I think it could actually be somewhat practical on titans - though the gold edging would probably defeat it somewhat. Good work.

[Fajita Fan]

The digital camo looks awesome, I’m doing the same thing with the industrial terrain if/when I finish my bases.

[Mendi Warrior]

Gorgeous stuff, I love them.

 

For the "new" titan, the carapace weapon might have been recovered or temporarily borrowed from another engine, but I totally agree it is nicer to have matching colours.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

It does now. I bought a Vulkan Mega Bolter.

Which is, btw, massively overpriced for what you get compared to Warlord weapons.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

With Indomitus less than three weeks away, I have set myself a deadline to complete my final titan by that point in time. After which, I'm going back to Black (Templars), so I want to clear the decks a little.

I say 'final' because I think that with what I currently have I have enough models to play games of a reasonable size: 4 Warhounds, 3 Reavers, 2 Acastus, 6 Questoris and 2 Cerastus. Looking ahead, I can only really see me buying a single Warbringer and maybe some more Cerastus to round out that banner. WIth my Legio, fluff wise, focussing on the lighter titans, and only using Warlords and Warbringers sparingly as fire support, I just don't need anything else. (Now watch as Rapiers get announced and I have 4 of those as well!)

That just leaves my Warlord, Fine Dierum (End of Days). She's currently on my painting desk and she will be finished by the 25th. So far the skeleton is essentially done, and the panels are all base coated in the lightest blue. The plan is to conquer the most difficult type of vehicle camouflage: Proper Dazzle. This means lots, and lots of stripes.

When I first had this idea of dazzle camo titans, this was what I actually had in mind for them all, but the more I looked into it, I just couldn't work out a way of doing it with my beginner's level of airbrush knowledge; particularly when I wanted to have more than just two colours in the scheme.

But now I have a vague plan, and it's inspired by this image of the French WW2 Light Cruiser, La Gloire:

What I noticed about this pattern is the way that the use of a darker shade of the base colour gives the false impression of shadow. If you look at the prow for instance, around the anchor, the shift in the direction of the stripes, combined with the shift in colour, makes it look as if the hull is bent around a corner.

The other trick I've seen to confuse the eye is to mess with perspective. This is used to great effect on other ships, such as this one:

As you can see, unlike the Gloire, which continues the same, mostly parallel stripes around the hull, shifting colour as they change angle. This boat alternates the striping, changing angle AND changing width. The effect is quite striking, meaning it's really difficult to tell, at a glance, which way this boat is actually going.

This has given me the following idea for the stages to paint the Warlord.

First, paint the whole model the base colour, in this case my lightest blue.

Second, paint sections with the darker base colour, in my case this is the darker blue I use on the other titans, it won't have the exact same effect as the Gloire, as the colours are further apart shade wise, but it should work ok, while maintaining the sense of continuity with the rest of the Legio. By this stage, I should have a titan covered in light and dark blue polygons, of random angles and sizes.

The third step is to then mask up the stripes on both of the other colours, then spray everything with the dark grey.

I have two rules I want to use with the stripes. Where the stripes cross onto a different colour, each one needs to continue as one stripe, but shift direction. In other places, I will shift angle mid panel, but then alternate the stripe, and change the width.

Once the third stage is all masked, I can then spray the whole titan with the dark grey, and that should be it. It will either look awful, or look epic. Only time will tell!

Thanks for bearing with me this far. I find it helpful to plan things like this out in advance, and also I might get some useful feedback to help me in my quest. It also helped me to really think it through stage by stage, as it made me realise where my test panel went wrong. In the test panel I sprayed in two colours of blue, and changed the angle of the stripes as they crossed from one blue to the other. My mistake was to also alternate the stripe as I did it, (in effect accidentally combining both styles of camo,) It just didn't work, and now I know why!

[splayedpaintbrush]

Look forward to seeing the Warlord painted up. The rest of the battlegroup look ace, I imagine the warlord will too.

[Sherrypie]

Yeah, countershadows were a thing to make an unwary observer confused about the direction of motion. Eager to see how it works out on a Warlord sized chonker :)

[Fajita Fan]

 

 

That just leaves my Warlord, Fine Dierum (End of Days)

First off that's a cool name!  And with thin modelling masking tape this is going to look pretty awesome, heck even using three or four stripes and keeping them pretty broad will still give you the effect.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I hope so. I want to get the panels down relatively quickly so that I can start in the miles of trim.

 

The model itself is already helping the process. One of the tricks with good camo, is ensuring the pattern neatly crosses between the panels. On the Reiver this meant endlessly offering things up and judging it by eye. Whereas with the Warlord it's possible to glue a lot of the panels together off the model. I've glued the shoulder panels together on each side, and I glued the main leg plates together and ensured I could get them on and off without issue. this will save oodles of time in the long run.

[noigrim]

Postmodern camo

[Interrogator Stobz]

Man that digicam is awesome!

You don't need to hide the pics lol.

[Mendi Warrior]

Impressive camo, very effective, I nearly feel dizzy looking at the pictures of ww2 boats 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I'm hoping that will be the effect upon my opponents, if I can ever get this blue to stop bleeding!

 

Next step, two coats of varnish on every piece of tape!

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Progress!

This has been a bit of a slog. But I'm pretty much there. (Just, trim then... Sigh.)

The process has been largely as anticipated, and by applying a ton of varnish over the tape, and almost dangerously underthinning my paint (both to reduce tape bleed) it's been pretty painless. (There is nothing more anxiety inducing than the moments before the first tape pull!)

I am really pleased with how it's turned out. This was a dry fit to get an idea of how it looks together, it was also nice to have a picture of the pattern before I 'ruin' it by painting the trim.

[noigrim]

https://media1.tenor.com/images/e9499c3a6514737bfdf6bd18243108f0/tenor.gif

[Sword Brother Adelard]

https://media1.tenor.com/images/e9499c3a6514737bfdf6bd18243108f0/tenor.gif

Exactly. ;-)