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Evil, or just misunderstood?

I’m starting the year with a couple of test models for one of this year’s big hobby projects: the cosmic “Bond Villains” that are the Word Bearers. I’ve kinda fallen in love with how comically over-the-top evil they are, yet also comically inept.

This was just supposed to be a quick and small project using kits I had in my backlog, but it’s since grown arms and tentacles as it turned out I had passively acquired a lot of CSM kits over the years, and Christmas added a couple more… oh well!

The paint scheme itself is relatively simple, though given how much trim there is on Chaos Marines, I hesitate to say it’s “quick”:

  1. Spray the whole model silver
  2. Wash the trim with Gryph-Charger Grey Contrast paint
  3. Drybrush everything with Necron Compound
  4. Paint the armour panels with Flesh Tearers Red Contrast paint
  5. Apply Black Templar Contrast paint to the soft materials between joints and to gun casings
  6. Paint the tabard, horns, and pistol holsters with Ivory
  7. Wash the weapons and power pack with Nuln Oil Shade
  8. Anything golden is given a coat of Nazdreg Yellow Contrast paint over the silver. Bronze is Snakebite Leather over silver
  9. Belts and other leather details like the holsters are given a coat of Garaghak’s Sewer Contrast paint
  10. Shoulders are filled in with Black
  11. Bones and horns are given a coat of Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint, with some Snakebite Leather blended into the base of the area
  12. Tabards are painted with a mix of Black Templar and Dark Angel Green Contrast paint
  13. Eyes are painted with Tesseract Glow, straight over the silver. A little bit was added around the eye, to create a glow effect
  14. Any touch ups to the trim were made with Plate Mail Air by the Army Painter

And that’s it for now… I’m hoping to avoid edge highlighting by relying on Contrast paints doing their thing, and shading down, rather than going lighter. I might add an oil pin wash for more separation between areas, once I’ve done the transfers, but I’m not 100% decided on that.

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This is labeled as a work in progress, but the model is basically done, barring a couple of touch-ups, and actually attaching it to a base.

By-and-large, the process for most details were as per this tutorial from Cult of Paint:

The gloves and many other parts of the scheme were also painted this way. I deviated with the red, trying to get a deeper colour, and the black robes were painted by going from Valejjo Model Color Black > Scale 75 Eclipse Grey > Scale 75 Graphene Grey.

The skin was painted with Scale75 Artist Dark Brown Ochre, blended through Scale 75 Artist Wood, then adding small highlights by mixing in Scale 75 Artist Buff. I tried to paint in the eyes, but my own eyes are no longer up to the task, so I ended up just shading in the sockets. I might give it one last go, when I do the final corrections, but the last thing I want is to be obscuring detail – or worse – make a mistake that means repainting the whole face.

The materials on the model representing a fabric (or similar) material were given a coat of Ammo Ultra-Matte varnish, to differentiate them from the satin finish of the armour.

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Continuing on with my long-neglected Custodes, I started repainting the miniatures I had already started on the project, to match the same process as used on the Shield-Commander. The gold has come out very slightly different to on the Commander, but I put that down to not pushing the highlights as much, and starting from a different base colour (spraying over a gold primer, rather than black).

I’ve really just got the plumes, spear blades, and adding some definition to the gloves, then these will be ready for basing.

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It’s the last belated January post! this time it’s a conversion, and something an extra bit special (to me) – a custom Shield-Captain/Shield-Commander to lead the Adeptus Custodes force I’ve had as “work in progress” since at least 2018.

It’s based on the amazing Bastian Carthalos miniature, with parts from across the Custodes range. The torso, and one shoulder pad, is from Trajan Valoris, the hands and spear from the Wardens kit, and the rest comes from the Allarus Terminators.

This was by far the most complicated conversion I’ve done in a very long time! I had to do some sculpting with Milliput on the cloak, to get parts to blend together, and there was a lot of work to get the torso pieces to fit together. There was lots of gap filling, and more than a bit of swearing as things either didn’t work how I wanted to first time, or turned out to be a lot more fiddly! Still, I’m really happy with how it’s turned out. I’ll have a post soon (in February!) to show off the painted version.

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In a burst of unexpected productivity, I built on the success of clearing some of my terrain backlog by… painting some more, smaller, terrain pieces!

First up was some “Sector Fronteris” terrain. I’d been itching to try our Lupercal Green and Sons of Horus Green, and this seemed like the perfect oppotunity. Both colours were applied zenithally over the black primer, then at the end I gave everything a light drybrush of Sons of Horus Green + Hellbound Flesh by Scale 75.

Metals were picked out in Gun Metal, then had some new rust effects from Ammo By Mig applied over the top as an experiment.

Ruined edges were given a light spray with black, to simulate soot.

I had some small scatter pieces left over from the Azyrite Ruins set, so I painted them in much the same process. The real only difference was I picked out some details as bronze – see the Realmgate notes below – and applied some weathering effects to the fountains – puddles, leaves, and some patinas to the bronze.

Finally, I painted a Baleful Realmgate that I’ve had sitting basecoated since I first bought-in to Age of Sigmar.

Over a Mechanicus Standard Grey primer, I sprayed Reddish Grey and Stone Grey, both by AK Interactive. The magic effect was given a spray of white ink, then given several thin layers of Neon Orange ink, letting it fade out towards the tips. Bronze areas were picked out in Gun Metal, drybrushed with Brass, then given some a turquise oil wash for weathering. Skulls were picked out with Skeleton Horde. The XPVC base was painted German Camo Black-Brown, in anticipation of some burnt/dead grass flock or static grass being applied.

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Continuing on from the Ogors, I Painted up some scenery I’d had lying around for ages (I think these were left over from the previous Kill Team starter set)

The theme for January is very much “just get it done,” and with that in mind, the paint scheme is pretty simple. Back when I came into 40K, around the launch of 2nd Edition, all the buildings seemed to be painted using dark blue-greys, and I was feeling in a retro mood, so that’s what I’ve gone for here.

Everything was base coated with Dark Blue Grey from Monument Hobbies, then highlighted with drybrushed layers of Shadow Grey and Wolf Grey from Coat D’Arms. A couple of details were then picked out with a dark silver. Not the most exciting paint job, but I’m happy with how they turned out. I might go back and add some rust on the metal, but that’s a job for later!

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The assembly line so far
Older paint schemes call for older paint colours

I’ve gone and started another project. This time it’s slightly different. For the last couple of years I’ve been itching to do a retro-inspired 40K Space Marines army in the 2nd Edition style. I’ve gone back-and-forth on how to start this a few times, ranging from completely old models from the era, to completely modern Primaris units painted in the old style.

Well, inspired by a recent Snipe & Wib video, I’ve made a start using older – but not necessarily of the time – model kits. This lets me have the style of the original army, but without being at the whims of the secondhand market, or dealing with metal models – except where I specifically want to. So I’m using the “current” Tactical Squad kit as the base, along with an old plastic Dreadnought (with a multi-melta sourced from eBay), and a few other bits and bobs.

I’m not planning on it being a massive project; I plan on getting the bulk painted over the festive break, and then might add small extras throughout the year… it’s just one of those ideas my brain kept coming back to, so I knew I had to get it out of the way sooner or later!

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I’ve made a start on my Black Templars Crusade forces – the first Crusader squad, Marshal, and Emperor’s Champion have been assembled. Tentatively, I’ve got another Crusader squad, some Intercessors, and 2 Dreadnoughts to build, then I can start thinking about how I want to expand. This is going to be my main project for the foreseeable, and you’ll see one of the ways I’m planning to add some flavour to the army in the pictures above.

Each unit is going to receive a squad banner of some description, reminiscent of regiments standards from older editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. One of the things which struck me from a lot of the Black Templars artwork was the amount of banners, standards, and pennants visible. This one below in particular caught my eye:

So rather than just do “regular” back banners on sergeants, I figured I’d turn things up to 11!

Of course, if every unit has a standard, I’m going to have to do something extra special for the Ancient carrying the banner representing the entire Crusade…

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Nothing much exciting; just getting the initial zenithal priming done on these Aggressors I’ve had sitting around. Half are from the Imperium part work, the other half are from the older Conquest magazine.

The initial layer is Zandri Dust, then I come in from above with Wraithbone… but after reflection I think Wraithbone is too light for what I’m going for and I’ll need to find a more suitable spray.