The Lichborne - Homebrew Warband - Aspiring Champion Completed

[Volgon]

Hey all, been a bit since I've worked on anything. Always tough for me to start a new project. With the rest of the kill team completed, it was time for me to take a crack at a leader, so I went with this Aspiring Champion. I worked on this guy across around 2 weeks. The first session was really frustrating; I had a lot of trouble with the blending. Even after a few months chipping away at it, glazing still remains a bit of a conundrum for me. Sometimes I get it perfect, but most of the time it's just back and forth, repainting layers as I mess up the previous gradient and have to start over. Overall though I am really stoked with how he came out, I think he is easily my best painted mini so far. I went with a higher contrast paint style this time. As per usual, may not be that evident in the photos but I am really satisfied with how he looks in hand. At first I wasn't sure if I'd like the look, as I felt darker shadows pulled away from the overall tone I was aiming for, but I think it came out great. I also went with no brown sponging this time as it was imperative to me not to mess up any of the blending I'd worked really hard on. I think that is probably what I'll continue doing for these guys from here on out.

 

[Tallarn Commander]

An outstanding model--excellent technique! And the color choices you made here gel nicely.

[Volgon]

@Tallarn Commander Thank you friend! It was a lot of fighting but I think the glazing is the best I've ever done. And happy to hear about the colors. I've been going with the Fire Hawks as the chapter for the unfortunate victims on my bases or as trophies for sentimental reasons but I'm glad their color scheme is complimentary to the blue of the armor. More secondary/tertiary colors is something I pushed for on this mini as I was really happy with the red on the banner of my previous project (the Icon Bearer) so I wanted to continue using the same color and others as well.

Edited November 15 by Volgon

[Rusted Boltgun]

Really lovely. Can see the progression from the previous minis (which were also great!). That head on the central spike is particularly gruesome!

[Firedrake Cordova]

He looks great!  

 

Glazing can be a pain - the paint consistency has to be correct (and different colours will need diluting by different amounts), and also the brush "loading" has to be correct.

[Volgon]

@Rusted Boltgun Appreciate the kind words! I have gotten more compliments than I expected about the spiked head. I can't paint skin at all so it's literally just a base of Rakarth Flesh with an Agrax Earthshade wash that I tossed Blood for the Blood God on to mask imperfections. The rough look is perfect for a head on a pike so I suppose it works out!

 

@Firedrake Cordova Thanks! You are on the money regarding glazing. So many little factors that make a big impact if you are going for a specific look. I like the look of really smooth blends so I'd prefer really thin glazes but that makes them pretty difficult to work with. And then when working with glazes that thin it takes ages to finally break up the transition line between two layers. I need to try stipple glazing and/or stippling layer paints at the transition to fuzz that gradient before beginning the glazing process. I've seen it work well for others. Maybe next project.

[Volgon]

Quick update on the Champion. It was bugging me that I kept him pretty clean compared to the rest of my kill team. My original intent was to have a finished piece that was a bit weathered but clean on the blue panels where I did all my blending. I wanted to ensure that the gradients were present and visible, and for him to function a bit as a milestone/display piece more than anything. However, it was bugging me that he didn't necessarily fit with his own base or with the atmosphere of the rest of the team. He can't be trampling through mud and be spotless except for his boots. I pulled the trigger on doing some light weathering. I purposefully skipped his plastron as I wasn't sure if I could effectively weather that area without really messing up the blending.

 

[Volgon]

Nothing major to report but I will be starting on my next project soon-ish. Waiting on some new paints to come in as I want to try evolving the recipe for my black trim/armor panels a bit. Everything up to now has just been black primer with silver weathering on top (and Vallejo Black to clean up where needed). I like the matte finish of the primer and I can spend very little time having to work on that color other than highlighting. I am not exactly sure what look I'm going for. Right now it looks like armor that is painted black (I find the chipping helps sell this). The other option is to try a look closer to metal that is actually black rather than painted black (this is where the new paints come in). I'll just have to see if I can make anything work.

 

As part of this effort I want to incorporate more complex weathering where I can. Mostly looking at rust for silver metallics, verdigris for brasses/bronzes/golds, and more varied looks for metallics in general (such as scratching, mottled/pitted metals, etc). I kind of want to incorporate a pretty aged, ancient look, like something you'd see from a Wight King or Deathrattle Skeletons from the Soulblight Gravelord range in AoS. Unfortunately it's pretty late into current scope of the kill team to incorporate a brand new theme but maybe I can touch up previous minis with a bit of additional weathering if I like it enough. Here is a very quick tester axe blade I knocked out and am very happy with:

[Rusted Boltgun]

That's  a natural looking rust pattern - I like it a lot! Nice colouring and not OTT. Would you mind sharing the recipe? 

[Volgon]

@Rusted Boltgun Thanks! It was dead easy to do, it probably only took me like 10 minutes. I based the recipe on this video (at the timestamp).

1. My base color was Vallejo's German Camo Black Brown, though to me it doesn't really read black. I think Dryad Bark or Rhinox Hide with a tiny bit of black added would be a perfect substitute.
2. Next I took a gunmetal color (I used Vallejo Air Gunmetal, has a slight blue tint) and mixed it with some Vallejo Electric Blue (I'm thinking Lothern Blue would work here as well). The idea was to tint the metal color more into a blue tone. I don't think it reads very blue in my example, I probably didn't add enough. With this mixture, I used a very small make-up brush with a wedge shape, removed most of the paint as if you were drybrushing, and stippled this irregularly across the blade. My goal here was to make sure some of the Black Brown basecoat showed through for visual interest.
3. Next I took some very thinned Skrag Brown, probably 1 part paint to 3 parts water, loaded my brush, and then tapped it around the areas I wanted it to pool. This was primarily around recesses, so next to the haft and around the arrow shaped piece of trim. I ran it along the bottom of the smaller axe blade attached to the butt of the axe, along the edge of the beard/hook of the axe, and some on the edge itself. There were a few chips/notches modeled in the edge of the axe that I hit as well. I worked in small areas at a time, and because this mix is very thin (it's essentially wash consistency), after applying it I rinsed and dried my brush and then wicked some of the paint off of the axe itself. I don't recall how many layers of this mix I did per area, but the more you do the stronger the rust color should be.
4. Last was a very light drybrush of Runefang Steel but your neutral/bright silver of choice is fine. This was just to hit the outer edges of the axe.

[Rusted Boltgun]

Thinning that Skrah Brown worked so well, I honestly thought it was another paint. Whenever I have tried it it in the past it just looked too orange but I was probably being too heavy handed with it. Thank you for the breakdown, that's really useful.

[Pearson73]

Oh that rust looks ace! Thanks for the recipe.

[Volgon]

@Rusted Boltgun @Pearson73 Happy to help! I don't often make my own washes but they are really useful in certain circumstances. I used it to fill in the red runes on the banner of my Icon Bearer and again on the plasma coils of the Aspiring Champion I posted a few weeks ago.

 

I think I am going to try oil paints again. I found a fantastic looking black armor recipe with a rich rust color using oils that I really like. I had a few issues with oils that put me off from using them again but that was at the very beginning of my hobby journey. Hoping now that I've learned a lot more stuff I'll have a better time.