While this is certainly not the last WIP as I foresaw in my last post, I did have a lot of realizations about the model, the Dreadknight, to not consider this spent time as wasted. I had several ideas to apply on the model but it seems luck wasn’t on my side. Check out my struggle over the weekend and some WIP shots after the jump.
Let me first start by saying that operation “paint-all-servos-and-hydraulics-an-old-looking-bronze” failed miserably.
Yeah, that was definitely not what I had in mind when I started out painting the piece. Contrary to other metallics I have this color actually got a lot shinier than I like and that’s definitely not good for worn out equipment. So I had to opt for a new color to take its place, and I’m already a lot happier than before. Check out my “gun metal” solution to old parts:
Be aware that if you’re working in a hot climate like I do (30 degrees Celsius during the day) make sure you have ample supply of your newly mixed paint and dilute it properly. I used water this time and it worked well, but I suggest giving a medium (Lahmian or Glaze, whichever) a go to see how fluid the paint becomes without being compromised.
While I was fiddling with the new paint to apply it to the torso actuators, I saw to my demise that the moving parts were very close to their joints and with every movement the layer of paint was being scratched off! Talk about bad design when it comes to instruction manuals! So, if you like painting sections and assembling last, be very careful about what the assembly manual states. Either wait until the end of assembly to basecoat and paint the model, be ready to reapply paint after taking care of sub assemblies or kit bash the connecting piece in a way that allows you to insert it in the socket even after the torso assembly. Otherwise you’ll have to wait for painting after all assemblies like I do now.
Careful with the manual. Always dry fit and check where you do not have to paint.
I cleaned up the rest of the pieces from any excess paint I applied in my last session and gave all pieces a bit of a wash. I have to say, Nuln Oil really does wonders for extreme contrast over metallic surfaces. Also, it provides a perfect black “glaze” if applied over the surfaces in excess. Thanks to Duncan from GW for showing how to work with Nuln Oil in his “How to paint Imperial Knight” video on YouTube. However I still don’t think I have perfected the wash phase and feel like I spend way too much to properly blackline everything. Even when I controlled the amount of paint on my brush with a palette, I realized I reloaded the palette with Nuln Oil a lot more times than what I expected. At least I do not get pools of paint on the models… yet. We’ll see how everything looks like in the morning when the paint properly dries.
After the wash phase I went about assembling the arm mounted weapons. This should allow me to skip some work and highlight just the guns, without paying a ton of attention to the details underneath the guns. Besides, it gives me more space to hold on to when I work my way from the tip of the barrels all the way back to the arm joint.
This will be fun to paint. I especially like all the shades on the lined details on arms.
In a last-minute decision I got about assembling the legs with the chassis, along with the pilot legs too. This put me in a difficult position to shade the pilot but since the backside will not be very visible from relevant angles, I thought I’m not losing much at this point. I still can reach the important parts with my brush, like the servos between cables and such, so I assume there won’t be any difficulties with highlighting the pieces. The legs will get the Runefang Steel work on the three moving pistons and some scratches on the dark metals. Didn’t decide yet if I want to dry brush the scratches or layer them individually, ‘eavy Metal style. Will see.
With the messiest parts done I can go about highlighting the pieces and proceed to final assembly it seems. I hope to finish the model before the Eid Feast, where I will have a nice break from pretty much everything. I expect the coming week to be quite busy too, hopefully with everything going well at work and with no serious overtime involved.
See you all on the next post!
Filed under: Grey Knights, WIP Tagged: assembly, basing, dreadknight, grey knights, miniature hobby, miniature wargaming, painting, solo figure, space marines, warhammer40k, WIP
