Another week past, another post. Although there is little work done considering my progress with the Heldrake, I feel a lot more in control now that I work on something without a deadline. Besides, the Dreadknight has become a very nice project where I will have a chance to test a lot of techniques on almost all areas except basing. Find out my progress after the jump.
As you can see, I have slapped on the different base colors to work with the model. Since the Grey Knights are a lot more straightforward compared to more flamboyant armies like Eldar (oh those Harlequins!) I didn’t have to include a ton of colors in my palette, and having a mech with large armor plates means most of the colors will be from the metal range.
I have looked at a few guides and reference pictures for the Dreadknight and found that the version on the White Dwarf issue from Nov. 2013 the look I wanna capture the best. It also provides a lot of spot colors especially for the hydraulics and the armor on the pilot. Thus I opted for a bronze-ish look for the servos and deepened the shadows in the pilot’s gear. Still unsure about going for freehand on the leg armor plates, as I have absolutely no clue about the chapter insignia and don’t want to mess up a good paint job.
The rest of the body, weapons and parts got their respective basecoats as well:
Next item I think about is the blue steel armor. I have 2 options in mind:
1. Highlight the model as usual with the steel colors like Ironbreaker (I got Chainmail instead), Runefang Steel and Necron Compound with a Nuln Oil wash to blend the colors, then apply a Gulliman Blue glaze over it. It might work well but I’m kinda afraid that the armor would look “too blue”.
2. Apply a first layer area highlight of Ironbreaker, mixed with a blue wash or the Gulliman Glaze, mixed in with a lot of Lahmian Medium. This way I get to test mixing metallics with regular acrylics, my long unopened Lahmian Medium and area highlighting. I’m more inclined towards this approach but I have no idea how I will apply extreme highlights afterwards without breaking the immersion of blue steel.
At any rate, I think it will be interesting to try out both on separate pieces and decide on the overall look afterwards.
Finally the red spot color needs highlighting. I can’t say I have a lot of reds in my arsenal, but I think I can get some color transitions by using orange. I will apply extreme edge highlights on the reds of ranged weapons, this should work quite nicely. I’ll also try to implement smoke effect on the chimneys in the back and the muzzle of the flamer. How hard could it be?
Hopefully by the next update I will have some serious headway with the model and the base, except for the melee weapons. Those still need the airbrush booth so that I can properly test the non-metallic metal (NMM) for the force weapons.
Must be a pain to work with brush for this.
I have also decided on the next Chaos project for my workbench: the Maulerfiend / Forgefiend. I have seen a few videos showing fully magnetized versions that allow both to exist on the same chassis, perhaps I can try that out. But I’m really a huge fan of the melee version… so Maulerfiend if all else fails.
This will be fun!
Just when I thought I’d pack up my paints for the next session, I caught glimpse of something peculiar.
Well it seems I’ll have to cover all the old metal parts with Warplock Bronze to get a proper color on them. Just adds to the fun! Then it’s off to complex part highlights (like guns) and assembly of major parts!
Filed under: Grey Knights, WIP Tagged: basing, dreadknight, grey knights, miniature hobby, miniature wargaming, painting, solo figure, space marines, warhammer40k, WIP
