The Lichborne - Homebrew Warband - Equerry 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, 2024 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.

[Volgon]

Howdy all, been a few months but I've been working on and off on my next project. He is the bodyguard/equerry for my warband's leader so I always wanted a sword and shield look for him. Originally I was going to use a Chaos Warrior shield from the Sigmar range, but I ended up getting part of a Katakros kit for other reasons and he comes with a really cool shield that I thought was perfect thematically for my warband (it also matches the banner I used for my Icon Bearer, which also comes from the same kit). Not quite done with it yet but I worked really hard on the gems and I'm really happy with the result so I wanted to share.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Those gems are really nice - I look forward to seeing where this goes.

[Firedrake Cordova]

The gems are really nice.  

[ZeroWolf]

Those gems are stunning, really nice work!

[Volgon]

Thanks for all the kind comments! I finished up with the project today and I am so pleased with the result. This was easily the most involved paint scheme I've done so far. I really tried to push myself to what I would consider (for me) "display level" painting.

1. I tried for a higher contrast look than previously, going with a much darker color for the blue shadows.
2. I did volumetric highlighting on the blues. Previously it was mostly just shading rather than looking specifically at where light landed on each area of the mini.
3. I did multiple stages of highlights and specular/point highlighting where appropriate.
4. I added rust for additional detailing/weathering. I opted not to do any weathering on the blue as I worked really hard on the blending and I didn't want to obscure any of that detail. I made that mistake on the previous project, and while I think it looks fine, I wanted to keep this one cleaner.
5. The cloak was one of the first things I did and I am super pleased with the result, especially for how easy it was (it was almost entirely drybrushing).
6. Blending was something I had been struggling with previously; getting rid of the nasty gradient line between two different layers was always an absolute chore to get rid of. On this guy I tried setting up a brush similar to a drybrush but using stippling on the layer line and that worked wonders for eliminating the line while also providing a bit of a transition between the two layers via the stippled color.
7. This was my first foray into NMM style painting with the sword. I like the look of metallics though so I used NMM techniques using metallic paints.

All in all I am basically on cloud nine for a bit; it was a struggle with motivation but pretty much everything I wanted to try worked.

 

Let me know what you think!

[Firedrake Cordova]

They came out really nicely - the shield in particular looks great

 

If you're interested, Zumikito has a pretty good video on the various blending techniques.

[ZeroWolf]

That is superb, everything works for this piece and I love the blue colour(s)  you used. I also struggle with transitions  so I'll take heart that you've done great work overcoming that issue 

[Volgon]

@Firedrake Cordova Cheers, thanks for the link. I've watched a number of Zumikito's videos on blending: stippling, stipple glazing, glaze drawing, etc. It's always just been putting it into practice that I struggle with. Specifically it feels like I am just moving the gradient/layer line when I glaze. If the glaze is thick enough to blur the initial layer line, the glaze itself makes a new layer line (albeit a bit fainter) wherever I touch down on the surface. Then I have to go back with the highlight or shadow color and glaze the previous glaze's layer line. Unless the glaze is like, incredibly thin (talking 1 drop paint to 5-10 drops water), in which case it is an exercise in extreme patience trying to eliminate the layer line from the base/layer paints. Maybe that is just how glazes are and it's something content creators don't talk about.

 

@ZeroWolf Thanks! The blues are similar colors I've used before.

1. Volumetric highlights: Vallejo Andrea Blue. This is the color I want the armor to read so I made liberal use of it.
2. Shadow color: Kantor Blue. Because I was going for a higher contrast style I wanted a much darker blue than before. Kantor is perfect for this.
3. Midtone/stipple color: I swapped between a few colors depending on location as I was testing them out. I used Vallejo Magic Blue initially, as I feel this color dries slightly darker than Andrea Blue with a similar hue, so it's a near perfect step down in color. I also tried Army Painter Regal Blue as this is another vivid blue, albeit slightly darker than Magic Blue. Lastly I tried Vallejo Medium Blue, a more desaturated blue. This was a color I hadn't really used before so I wanted to see the results. I used it on the backpack and the shield arm. My takeaway: it really didn't seem to matter much which blue I picked here. I still ended up having to glaze a bit, and due to the way I applied them, they mostly read as the highlight and shadow colors anyway.
4. Edge highlights: First highlight was Vallejo Andrea Blue + Vallejo Deep Sky Blue, second highlight covering less area was pure Deep Sky Blue. Specular/point highlights were Army Painter Marine Mist.

[Firedrake Cordova]

One thing you could try is a filter to try to tie the various steps together? 

[Volgon]

46 minutes ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

One thing you could try is a filter to try to tie the various steps together? 

 

Maybe! I've never tried an all over filter on the armor because I have a very specific blue in mind. I could try using that blue as a filter but then it would lighten the shadows which is not really what I'm after. Regardless I'm pretty happy with the stippling technique for now so I think I'm going to keep refining it. I've also seen more advanced painters using stippling on the edges of layers to diffuse the layer line which I need to try. That seems like the best way to get a smooth gradient. Always something to practice!