Sunday, September 27, 2009

Painting Space Hulk, Part 2

More on Shading
One of the nastiest pitfalls I encountered while learning to shade was the feeling of zomgwtf-have-I-done when applying a wash for the first time. The thing to remember is that you'll be going over the raised bits again with the base coat colour, so after that, the overall effect is of really sharp, dark shadows where you'd expect them. Observe:

Brothers Zael (left) and Goriel

Zael has just been washed. Goriel has been touched up again with Blood Red. Here's Sgt Lorenzo showing what the three stages look like:

L to R: Blood Red base coat, Scab Red + Chaos Black wash, Blood Red touchup

Patience is key here. At this stage, the quality of shading here far exceeds anything that could possibly be achieved with dip methods. Truth be told, a well shaded mini is already quite worthy of shop display standard, especially if the base colour is already quite bright, like Blood Red, Ultramarine Blue or Sunburst Yellow.

Another method of shading is blacklining. Again, this works better if the base colour is bright. Simply put, blacklining simply means taking Chaos Black and drawing in the shading yourself, putting black lines in all the recesses. This is a technique far, far beyond me, since it needs a steadier hand than I have, but the effect can be quite stunning.

After this, we'll be working with 2 highlighting techniques: line highlighting and drybrushing.

Order
I think it's worthwhile to insert a brief note on order here, i.e. the order in which you lay down the colours on your mini. Ordinarily one should base coat every part of the model, then wash every part and highlight and so on. However, as I mentioned, these marines have an insane amount of bling on them. Hence, as I mentioned earlier, I'll start with the most difficult colour to reach first, then work my way upwards. Take a peek at Brother Deino:

Deino's a little further along than the rest. Alas, I rather stupidly jumped the gun and painted the chains and bling adorning his nadgers, blocking my way to his loincloth. So, tough luck to Deino, he's going to have to make do with a black loincloth. It will be highlighted, of course. You know, to make it look blacker.

Current progress
Here's how Squad Lorenzo looks like at this point in time:


Note that until every part of the whole squad is base coated and shaded, I won't be moving on to highlighting. What I've done here:

Metal bits: Base coated with Boltgun Metal, then washed with Chaos Black.
Gold bits: Base coated with Burnished Gold, washed with Chestnut Ink.
Seals: Midnight Blue, and still thinking what I'm going to do with them. I've decided to deviate from the GW colour scheme and do the jewels and seals in blue, for sharper and more interesting contrast against the armour and the bling.
Crux (that thing on the left shoulder pad): Codex Grey, washed with Chaos Black.
Parchment: I figured the parchment in the GW scheme didn't look old enough, so I went with a basecoat of Snakebite Leather, washed with Chestnut Ink, touched up with Bleached Bone, then given a super thin coat of seriously watered down Snakebite Leather. Here's a closer look courtesy of Brother Zael, who appears to be the man to go to in case of unscheduled toilet breaks:

There's still a few bits on Zael that I haven't quite decided on yet, like the crests on the left... pauldron? I'm sure that's a pauldron... and right greave. And the lenses on that doohickey above his head, to the left, which for some odd reason is on the right on every other squad member.

Next update, Squad Lorenzo should be completely base coated and shaded and I'll be starting on highlights. Also, I'm going to have to get started on those Genestealers, otherwise Brother Goriel will look a right muppet:


Hum. A thought just occured to me. Many of the Genestealers have dismembered bits of marine as part of the bases. I shall paint those in the colours of another chapter. Ooh, I am cheeky...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

I don't know what you used (maybe was Generic Viagra ... no I'm joking), but you did a fabulous job painting this space Hulk. I have to do the same with mines, but I have not enough time at this moment.