Antarius' fall project(s) 2024 (presently Death Guard)

[Antarius]

Hi everybody.

I tend to get in a bit of a hobby slump every fall/winter, but this year things are going to be different! Not only have I enlisted the help of the community here, to help me choose what my project(s) will be, I have also made a blog to keep myself motivated. I think and hope this will work out nicely, as I always find the Call to Arms and similar events super motivating, so hopefully some of you will want to follow along and interact with me a bit.

I reckon I'll make (nearly) daily updates to this thread and then post links to my blogposts as I make them. That way more people might actually see them, as the blogs still seem to be very niche. In any case, please feel free to comment either in this thread or on the blog posts - it really helps a lot with staying motivated, as we head into the dark season(s) 

And, just so it's not all about me, please feel free to ask about any techniques, methods and so on, if I do something you might like to use yourself (or just know more about). I'll be more than happy to explain my process!

Without further ado, my first project is a Death Guard kill team (which may or may not be expanded upon, once I'm done with the first 8 models; I've got lots of Death Guard lying around).
The project is basically an exercise in using zenithal priming, drybrushing, stippling and (eventually) oils, as well as some (rather simple) colour theory to really get a lot of "bang for the buck" and hopefully make these minis look really good in a timeframe that'd actually be realistic for doing an entire army.

Here's where we are at present:


And here's where we started: 

(there are four more "chapters", detailing my progress so far, should you care to read them - more will probably be along shortly)
Right now I'm just waiting for the primer on the heads to cure, so I can move on with the helmeted heads and get started on using the oil paints that I've been putting off (and off and off)...

Edited October 19 by Antarius

[Tallarn Commander]

I look forward to watching your progress.

[Antarius]

49 minutes ago, Tallarn Commander said:

I look forward to watching your progress.

Thanks! I am presently pondering whether to paint their capes and loincloths green or purplish.

My general idea with the scheme is that there are "non-colours" (which isn't really a thing, but which I take to mean the desaturated, dusty non-primary colours that you can put on minis without adding to the general feel of "colourfulness" (for lack of a better term). I quite like the heresy DG scheme, because it is dominated by off-white, orangey brown (in the form of rust and bronze) and green, which means there really isn't a lot of strong colours in there, but still a lot of contrast.

So on the one hand, purple cloaks would form a triad secondary colours on the colour wheel, which makes for a pretty strong impact (incidentally, this is actually the same triad that the "official" DG scheme is composed of, just with less green). Leaving the purple out of their clothing means it will only be present in the form of tentacles, boils and some shadows on their skin.

 
Both things should be fine, from a strict colour theory pov, but I am wondering whether too many "real" colours (as opposed to the off-whites, greys and orange-browns that dominate the minis) will make the scheme too "busy" and draw attention from the important things (which is all the gross stuff and tentacles that I think will be where the vivid colours will mostly show up).

I know this might sound like I'm overthinking things, and perhaps I am, but I find a lot of the problems with the new DG models are that the amount of details mean that they can very easily become too busy/confusing to the eye and actually not have as strong a visual impact as they might've had with a simpler scheme. On the other hand, purple cloaks might be cool...

Edited October 19 by Antarius

[Firedrake Cordova]

Could you desaturate the purple, so it's still there, but not quite as saturated and obvious?

[Antarius]

13 minutes ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

Could you desaturate the purple, so it's still there, but not quite as saturated and obvious?

That’s not a bad idea at all! I’ve actually been a little sneaky already and used “Slaanesh Grey” (which is a desaturated purplish grey) on both the cables and tentacles - the idea being that I can then shade the wires with black and they’ll look mostly grey, while I can pump up the saturation on the tentacles with oils and maybe the two different sets of details having the same base colour will keep the end result more coherent, even if they “go different places” from that common base colour (whether it will work remains to be seen, of course).

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I've used a dark brown wash over purple to desaturate it - its a craftpaint labelled "dark umber" though previously I'd used a similar paint labelled "chestnut" so something similar might also work.  It's what I did to tone done the pink (which is otherwise GW's Pink Horror) on these guys.  It also desaturated the dark purple I used for their armour, which I didn't actually want that effect on so, so I painted over it - so I don't see any reason it wouldn't work whatever purple you use, though it may leave it looking dirtier/grungier than you want, because it does do that (its also the wash used on the fatigues).

[Kharn13]

Looking great so far! Not having ventured into oils yet myself, I’m looking forward to watching the progress. Not sure how well it would work, but could you make the fabrics a more reddish purple to give it a gory grimdark look?

[Antarius]

2 hours ago, Kharn13 said:

Looking great so far! Not having ventured into oils yet myself, I’m looking forward to watching the progress. Not sure how well it would work, but could you make the fabrics a more reddish purple to give it a gory grimdark look?

I'll get around to the oils today (only thing else I can really think of doing before that are the eye lenses and I can't imagine that'll take me all day, so now there's no way around it 
My current thinking is that I'll give the fabrics a dark magenta/purplish wash-filter thing, so hopefully that'll be along the lines of what you're thinking of. 

[Rusted Boltgun]

As you mentioned earlier, the official scheme uses purple for cloaks - mauve in the citadel app - and their rotting flesh for tentacles so that the fabric is a much stronger than the flesh.

With your overall scheme being so much more desaturated and leaning towards 30k, I guess the key will be to keep the fabric away from the flesh colour to differentiate them, as you have said, and go the other way with the purple.

The purple in the photos is fairly strong already  (versus the armour colour, looking at the icon bearer) so would the Citadel rotting flesh recipe help? Rakarth flesh, washed with (a little) druchi violet? 

Or would it read too 'fleshy'?

Edited October 20 by Rusted Boltgun
Second thoughts

[Antarius]

Ok, the oil experimentation has officially begun!

I think last time I tried it, I didn't use enough thinner, because this time the capillary effect really was something else (to the point that I think the capes and tentacles might actually need me to go back with a new mix that's a little thicker later, but we'll see)

An now I see I've turned the pictures upside down... Typical  But I hope you can see how impressively the wash has been sucked into all the recesses. It'll be interesting to se what happens later, when I wipe off the excess!

 

[Antarius]

And, just because I am not very patient (or bright, I guess), I decided to just jump in at the deep end and experiment a little on some poxwalkers that I felt were way too dull. One has had a more targeted application and the other an all-over wash. I think both approaches have a lot of potential, but I might need to get some disposable brushes if I want to do more targeted, actual painting.

 

And, because I really am not very bright, I also smeared some all over my GUO, despite being quite happy with him. So here's hoping my confidence that I can easily remove everything again is not misplaced 

Oh, and I promise I'll not turn my camera upside-down next time!

[calgar101]

Great to see your project starting! Even if it's the wrong one  (go Imperial Fists), will be following. Nice work so far.

[Antarius]

Okay, now we're going places! I've wiped the excess oil off my GUO and as you can see, it really is a medium with a lot of possibilities. Notice how completely it is possible to remove the paint from the surfaces and maintain a vibrant (and gross!) gradient and shadow colour!

 

Next up, I also smeared a landraider I had lying around (as in, I completely covered half of it in the same oil wash I used on the marines). Then I came back sometime later and wiped it pretty heavily with a sponge, then experimented a little with dragging some of the paint around with a brush, to create a few streaks)

 

And, just for fun, here is a pic of the contrast between the two different halves of the tank:

[Antarius]

If you want some more shots of my GUO (before and after oils) and some of my thoughts on painting models with a lot of bare skin (nurgley or otherwise), you can find'em here: 

[Firedrake Cordova]

The Great Unclean One looks great 

[Kharn13]

GUO is looking mint. Really want to try some oils/enamels, just need to start a new project!

[Antarius]

On 10/21/2024 at 9:05 PM, Kharn13 said:

GUO is looking mint. Really want to try some oils/enamels, just need to start a new project!

Thanks! And I'd definitely say you should go for trying oils out. Just be aware that they may take a bit of getting used to - I'm a total noob myself, when it comes to oils and my first few tries were a bit disappointing, but I think the learning curve isn't all that steep which is nice (although I've probably got lots to learn still).

I think these guys already look pretty good, even if I had to leave a bit more oil on them than I'd originally planned (due to an issue with the white spirit dissolving the primer slightly, so if you do start on oils, be aware that some primers are solvent based and you should stay away from those! Interestingly, the things I'd primed with my airbrush were completely unaffected by this issue).

[Antarius]

I've done some more detail work on the marines, but I also got started on a tank, with a splotchy stippled/drybrushed basecoat that would normally be absolute crap on vehicles but which I actually think works well for Death guard as a basis for a weathered/corroded look, rather than the smooth coat of paint you'd normally want on your vehicles. Then as an experiment, I added some sand for texture and did my "heavy rust" recipe on top.
Soo now it's just about ready for oils!