It’s becoming increasingly difficult to rest in this time of the year due to crazy deadlines at the new workplace, let alone spend time on the hobby like I do. Having seized at least some time in this weekend I wanted to get the brunt of the work done on the Dreadknight, since all there’s left is the painting. Find out what I’ve taken care of and what my plan is for the rest of the year.
As can be seen on the title pic, I managed to cover all the pieces with Imperial Primer, and some with Leadbelcher on top. That’s right, I primed the model pieces by brush… and I have to say, never more! If you ever have the option of spray priming your pieces, opt to do so, otherwise you’ll go crazy with the paint pot and spend hours trying to cover everything. My poor Imperial Primer pot! All the pieces I’ve worked on required at least 2 coats of cover until I was satisfied with the uniformity of the black paint. Luckily, most of the model will be metallic and will have very few exposed areas that will be black, so I could get away with a few places uncovered by brush.
Another note I can make is that before attempting any kind of assembly try to figure out how much of the model will be visible on the separate parts. I made the mistake of fully assembling the legs (save for the armor plates) only to realize that many of the pistons and inner cabling can still be seen inside when looked at up close. This applies to any other piece you’re trying to mount on cork, check very carefully where to pin them, otherwise you’ll get an unseemly hole on your model that needs a patch of green stuff.
The pins I have applied for the pilot knight’s head and arms worked pretty well. I’m also pretty sure I’ll have a nice time painting in the details on the helmet! For some reason I was unable to find the rest of my cork bottle caps and got impatient with the other smaller pieces, and painted the shoulder pads without mounting on something else. Didn’t create too much of a hassle aside from black stained fingers until the end of the session, but still I recommend either mounting them on something or painting them on the sprue. I did later put them all on cork caps, I recommend doing so whenever possible. A word of caution if you opt for painting on sprue: the bits are held on sprue in the top part of the shoulder pads (I am not sure why this was implemented, it was very difficult to separate the flash after clipping) and will need reapplication of primer on the clipped piece.
I haven’t touched the mêlée weapons yet, as I intend to have some non-metallic sheen on them with a gradient from deep blue to pure white, so they will be primed white and I’ll handle them when I get access to the spraying area. Covering the magnets with primer, as I expected, did not affect their performance at all, so that’s a bonus.
And lastly I primed the main body by brush. This was probably the hardest step as there are plenty of large surfaces for my small brush and I feel I have wasted the most paint at this stage, even though I am quite stingy with it and always use from the cap and dilute with water. Since the whole thing took 2-3 coats to cover sufficiently I needed to go through the model and check the details multiple times. Remind me to leave those damn armor plates separate next time, they will be a pain to highlight. Speaking of painting sub assemblies, I really would like to know the secret to GW’s painting tutorials. Almost all the time they have a fully assembled model that they start painting and it must be a pain to highlight all those little surfaces on models. Oh well…
So the next step will be to apply the metallic bases, washes and highlights. I will attempt the bluish hue that is the trademark for Grey Knights, and maybe some weathering on the legs and armor. We’ll see how it goes. The golds will be with Vallejo Liquid Metal series once more, and will be much less dominant compared to the Heldrake. If there are any Grey Knights players out there, I’m open to suggestions to make the model more authentic but I guess the default color scheme doesn’t really lend to being imaginative. Ugh, so much for the boring “good guys”.
Last thing I need to take care of after the model is the base. I’m thinking of something in lines of my Heldrake, with cork building the majority of the base and some pieces from the GW’s 4ok basing kit I had acquired a few weeks ago. There I’ll have to think about the height of the model since it will be used in games and I don’t wanna expose the unit to fire just because I want to have a giant waterfall under it as a base. I don’t think I’ll be breaking any grounds with this model in that regard.
After this project I’ll be focusing more on the CSM pieces I have acquired over time, and I’m thinking of the larger models again. So that means either the Maulerfiend or one of the Helbrute models from the new kit or Dark Vengeance set. If I don’t opt for the CSM large scale models, perhaps I’ll be able to spoil myself with a different kit… who knows?
Filed under: Grey Knights, WIP Tagged: basing, dreadknight, grey knights, miniature hobby, miniature wargaming, painting, solo figure, space marines, vallejo liquid metal, warhammer40k, WIP
