And what do you know, we’ve reached the 100th post in the Workshop! Time really does fly when you’re having fun. You’re in for quite a treat today. After quite a few weeks of inactivity I decided to get back to the hobby front in full force and start completing some projects at hand. And as promised, the next showcase following the Dreadknight is the Necron Lychguard, intended as a birthday gift to my fellow hobbyist Xasf. Took my sweet time on the models but in the end I’m content with the results. I also have some further news regarding the position I’ll take on the blog as well as some nice last WIP and showcase pics of the Lychguard, but for that you’ll have to make the jump!
So why the long silence? Well I’ve been away on quite a few occasions that took me physically away from my workbench for longer and longer periods of time – either business or travel related, and in between some good old procrastination took root! Not to mention the release of some AAA grade video games that proved a very effective distraction.
Back to topic. On my last WIP session I had completed the brunt of the metal and gold work on the model and I needed to make a move on the green energy fields on the shields and blades of these futuristic bodyguards. Having considerably less space to move around paints for wet blending I decided to test out a few new techniques for myself. And that technique was using glazes for smooth blends between color transitions. Watching numerous videos and following a few tutorials I decided to man up and give it a go. I have to admit that the first few steps were really scary – but I’m pleased to say that I’m never going back! More on this in a minute.
The stingy painter I am, I decided to try and prevent wasted paint by building myself a wet palette. The first one I made seemed to overflow but the second time I got the hang of it. A vast improvement on painting I tell you – make this a priority if you don’t already have one and work with brushes most of the time! There will be a separate post about the wet palette later on, so stick around if you’re interested in that.
On to the progress with the Lychguard. I first covered the shields and the blades with a nice smooth cover of Caliban Green as I found the black primer to be too dark a shade to work with. Following the basecoat I started applying two different colors in glazes: Warpstone Glow and Scorpion Green (the new version is Moot Green I believe). To dilute the colors I first worked with water – worked fine with the comparatively darker Warpstone Glow at first but turned into an absolute horror show with Scorpion Green. Not for the faint of heart:
At this point I was about to scream like Arnold but kept my cool somehow.
Water alters the composition of the pigments in the paints. This is why it’s OK to thin colors slightly with water to improve flow of paint or maybe even make washes where you don’t really care about full control but in order to have glazes where you work in a specific area and push the paint around, you have to use painting mediums. The lighter the color in question, the more risk you run at patchy paint jobs unless you use mediums to smoothen the colors. This proved evident especially with Scorpion Green, a particularly phosphorous green that is very thin to begin with. So, I rummaged around with my paints and found the stash of Lahmian Medium. Believe me when I tell you that this stuff is pretty much magic – brings the paint to such a smooth quality even at 1:1 dilution you’ll never look elsewhere. I used a very thin mix of 1:3 Lahmian Medium with Warpstone Glow and a slightly less thin mix of 1:2 for the Scorpion Green.
Here’s the progress on the shields and weapons with the Warpstone Glow.
And here’s the blend after applying Scorpion Green.
Even with the thin layers it is difficult to avoid brush marks or join lines forming since the paints have quite a bit of difference in contrast. Thus I used the GW green glaze, Waywatcher Green, to bring everything together. While it didn’t eliminate the marks completely, it improved the paint job immensely.
Aside from the glow on the surfaces I used the same trick of Caliban Green, Warpstone Glow and Scorpion Green on the “nexus points” in the shields and swords as well as the Necron insignia, gradually becoming fainter the farther away from the source in the middle. I wasn’t working 100% cleanly on this so I did some cleanup on the metal and gold areas afterwards.
Next I switched parts and started working on the base. I mentioned to Xasf that I would use something like a desert theme and for that used cork topped with fine grain sand on the bases. I also sprinkled a little bit of the sand on the feet to simulate the stride on the desert (to questionable effect). Applied a strong orange on the black primed bases and applied to 3 layers of drybrush: Zamesi Desert, Flash Gitz Yellow and Pallid Wych Flesh. All these light colors were brought together with the yellow wash Casandora Yellow and the yellow glaze Lamenters Yellow. Not an ideal desert solution as the sand particles are still too big for the scale but it could substitute for a yellow-ish desolation for the Necrons to occupy.
Last thing to work on after the green glow and bases was the scariest part – the white heads. I studied the shop picture as well as the box art a lot to accomplish a similar look. Needless to say I still have a ways to go to reach the ‘eavy Metal paint job but I’m happy with the smooth application of white on the heads. Used grey primer, topped with a smooth coverage of Mechanicus Standard Grey, shaded with Nuln Oil and highlighted to off-white with Pallid Wych Flesh. Unfortunately I was rushing a little at this point and forgot to take progress photos. Finally added the green dots and the OSL on the eye lids and assembled the models fully.
Here is the group photo of all 5 models and the traditional 8-pointed shot of one of my favorite guards, hope you like them! Photos courtesy of my wife who worked with a DSLR and the light box.
They stride to protect their lord.
More showcase pics of the other Lychguard will be on the appropriate tab soon™ as I’ve received my Foldio2 in the mail yesterday and still need to play around with it to get some pics. I’m also experimenting a little with some iPhone camera apps so things may get interesting. Expect to have some white background pics on this space as well as soon as I pull off the image corrections.
That’s one box off my mountain of shame! Looks like with the latest improvements on my painting through the wet palette and the glazes I’ll work a lot faster with the awaiting WIPs without having to spend uninterrupted hours on painting! It gives me purpose to move forwards to the next project and then on to the next until I burn down the pile of shame to give way to finished works. This is important as I’ll have a much more delicate point to focus on, coming this November:
Yes! I’m gonna be a daddy to a baby boy! 5 months in and counting. The thought is both exciting and a little frightening… but to think that I’ll be doing my best to raise him to be a hobbyist like me is lifting all doubt away. Just have to endure for a time until he gets of age! I’ll have to remember not to name him Horus and all will be fine. Right?
That said the time spent on the hobby and the blog will be significantly lower when my boy is born – I’ll be on and off for sure but don’t expect me to churn out WIP and showcase posts like I did thus far. Let us make the best use of the time left at hand and hopefully I’ll decorate this place with more and more showcases before winter comes.
See you on the next post!
Filed under: Lychguard, Necrons, Showcase, Special Occasion, Updates Tagged: basing, lychguard, miniature hobby, miniature wargaming, necrons, painting, photography, showcase, special occasion, warhammer40k, WIP
