I've recently started to get the big man, Archaon, ready for the South Coast GT in April. He really is a beast of a model and I need to make him tie into my existing warriors army. Therefore I have not been able to follow the excellent Warhammer TV article by Duncan Rhodes like others! However it does have some great tips which I have been employing for different parts of the model.
The first thing you notice is how big the model is! He really is tricky to handle and apply paint to so I knew I would need to break out the airbrush to get him going!
For my warriors I always start with a bright silver undercoat from the Humbrol acrylic range. It gives a really smooth and even base coat that I can work over and it is a key part of the metallic sheen that my warriors have.
The first coat is a dark purple, followed by a a couple of successive lighter coats. This just goes over the back and legs and should leave the underside still silver. I then start to give the model a serious dry brush using a really big soft brush with some lighter purples, and in this case I also went over the back with some Wrack White from GW's Dry range which is a terrific paint. The whole model is then washed with Druchi Violet mixed with loads of Lahmian Medium.
The next step for me was to start adding the green on the underside of the wings. I try to keep this thin so the metallic still shines through. The first stage is a mid green and then a dark Vallejo Air green going on the outer parts.
After this I was able to use the GW video for the tail, but I changed the colours to match my army. Basically I dry brushed on a lot of silver on the tail and then faded in the very ends using greens to match the accent colour I have used across the army.
After this I detailed up the armour plates with the Rakarth flesh to White that I always use. I think this looks great with the purple which is why it has been the secondary colour on the army. I vary the washes but always highlight up with Palyd Wych Flesh to white. I use this for all the whites, so you'll start to see this on the wing membranes and on other areas around the model.
The black armour will match the armour on Archaon himself. All the skulls and hair are just done using the same colours as mentioned before. The Stormcast skulls are just any old gold recipe.
The wings are probably the part I am looking forward to least as they are a real struggle to get right. I have ended up basing mine with rakarth flesh and then airbrushing on some browns before dry brushing with the Wrack White. To start building up definition I am carefully pin washing along the edges of the veins and in the deeper areas using lots of medium to keep it all really smooth. I am pretty pleased with the work so far.
