So I may have gone a bit wash crazy! Totally overdid the black wash on both the jacket and the boots I think, but then again I keep telling myself its just a test model so next time I will water the black down. Straight ogryn flesh onto the bleached bone of the face and hands. Don't think I will bother painting the helmet next time before putting white on as the belts look quite good straight on black.
Here he is almost done, belting and helmet painted white, scorch brown around the helmet and used black wash to pick out the helmets grooves but not entirely happy with that.
Finally a bit of drybrushing boltgun on his belt and strap clips and painted in the white of his helmet strap. As I said, he is not going to win any awards and he is a bit to dark because of the heavy washes, but I'm pretty happy for my first model in over ten years and if my platoons look all to this standard I won't be too ashamed.
As I said before any help or critiquing is very welcome, I know I'm not the best painter and want to get better.
Looking good! A pretty impressive DIY praetorian. I think you should be happy with the paint job, a whole army like this would look very smart indeed. It's quite a dark scarlet which works well, give the base a go and it will really finish the whole thing off.
ReplyDeleteI think with painting a big guard infantry army you need to balance speed of painting and quality. In my army the grunts are never going to look as good as the Command HQ or rough riders. What you have achieved is a pretty straight forward colour scheme that won't kill you trying to paint a whole army, by the time you have finished one squad you will be painting them in no time at all!
Just personal taste but I wouldn't bother painting eyes on the vast majority (I certainly don't on just about all my models!). The VL heads do have eyes sculpted quite well so they arent too bad to paint however. What you can do is try to pick out the top and bottom of the eye (where it meets the eye lids) with a line of black wash. It will help to finish the eys off as those lines are already sculpted. Give it a try if you dont like it you can rinse it off no harm done.
One final tip, (actually two, 1- water them down, you can always apply a second or third, and with flesh in particular its definitely the way to go. 2-) with the washes think about what you want them to achieve; if it is shading then think about where you are shading and as such apply it to the areas that need it rather than the whole thing. So with the tunic, just the folds and where it meets the belt etc. Or an extension of that could be a watered down over the whole thing then a less watered down, darker wash in the recesses, this will shade it much better and make it look more natural.
If you have any specific painting questions I will be happy to help!
Thanks very much, a whole army is the plan! Paints and sand arrived today so base will get finished off over the next couple of days and I will post the finished model up.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the black wash eye tip, I will give it a go as the eyes look a bit cartoony at the mo, didn't use the best quality brush and they ended up too big so some definition might cancel that out.
Yea I realised much too heavy handed with the wash and will water down in future, like the idea of heavily watered down wash all over then picking out shadow areas with a normal wash after, thanks will give that a go.
I don't like the boots so I am waiting for Victoria Lamb's Victorian legs to become available, which unfortunately doesn't look like it will be for a few weeks. In the mean time though I have some ideas for converted paratroopers (Storm Troopers), two squads of penal troopers and converted Leman Russ' from chimeras so have plenty to play around with.
Thanks for your comments and advice, always welcome.
Any time! With regards to the Victoria lamb legs, they aren't that different to the IG legs. Removing pockets is the way to go but you might give changing the boots a go yourself.
ReplyDeleteI have thought about doing it myself but then the two economies of cost and effort just seem against it. I can get Vics legs already done much cheaper than buying bitz on ebay or buying complete infantry squads from GW. I'm still wavering on what rifles to use so that may be the deciding factor. I had planned to use Vics arms/lasguns for penals and standard infantry and then use the Cadian arms for Vets and Paratroopers to show them having better kit. But I'm not sure whether to give the standard troops Cadian weapons, in which case I can use the legs and arms but it also means loads of cutting off shoulder pads and pockets if I do that. I'm undecided at the minute. What do you think?
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