THE TITAN WALKS

It's done!! ITS ALIVE! And it has crushed (and been crushed by) its first enemies. 

A few small parts to finish and it's 100%. Banners, some powder. 

Him being packed up by my friend and mechanicum sherpa Sasha! And crushing fools!! 

This was the Ichar IV campaign weekend hosted by Bristol Vanguard where my club HATE (Hackney Area Tabletop Enthuiasts) were beaten! But I walked off with best painted so we definitely won in my eyes.

 And it was my first proper few games of 30k which was a blast! Roll on next week! I'll be crushing traitors left and right! 

For more of my work you can find my general hobby blog at

www.4gotowar.blogspot.com

Freehand and grills.

Fell in love with the beta head from Forgeworld. The grill reminded me of the old Blanche illustrations and it looks meaner and grumpier than the other one. 

As for the shields. 

I've left the name and the honour badges blank to fill in after actual battles that he's fought and when I come up with a name of corse. 

Fist of fury

Really it's the Saturnyne Lascutter of fury! From concept to completion this thing has been a bugger. But I really wanted a smashy hand soooo yeah. 

So here was the concept 

And the claw mid sculpt. 

After much messing around I finally decided the eagle wasn't going to fit with the asthetic so after sculpting and drawing and planning it's now back in my  draw lol. 

The weapons of war

This project has taught me a huge amount about big models and painting towards a goal. 

The biggest lesson has been painting rough layers to refine. Testing quickly and with colours that contrast and complement eachother. 

At this point I have finished the Titan to around 90%. Missing a couple of bits of freehand and some interior detail but apart from that it's done. So here are the weapons!

Mock build.

I need to rethink some things on my warlord. Here's how he stands right now. 

So what don't I like. The head and the crotch are really throwing me. They break up the pattern too much. The base white is too clean. And the contrast at the top is too heavy. 

So I'm breaking it down and moving stuff around. 

Not on a computer at the moment so apologies for the short posts :) 

Happy painting people!

Henry

Warlord Claw Scratchbuild

Where the "F" stands for FIST!

Now, as of this moment there is only one weapon for the warlord, and that's a travesty that I felt needed to be rectified. But not just any fist, because that would be boring, but a Saturnyne Lascutter. You don't see one of them everyday. Infact what does one even look like? Well I was thinking something like this.

I'm going to have to sculpt certain parts and hand build the majority from plasticard but it will be worth it. The cutter itself will be inset into the fist itself, much like an iron man style gauntlet.

So from my sketches there are certain parts that I can grab straight from FW kits with minimum fuss

The majority of the claws and main armament, that sits in the palm, are from a dreadclaw drop-pod.

 The eagle will have to be completely sculpted. I managed to find a rough wing sculpture on the cheap from ebay that I could press mould, then I sculpted in the feathers and details with dental tools. You can see the level of detail from the press mould at the bottom of the wing in the first picture.

I think I can use the main chunk of the Belecosa Volcano cannon as a large part of the biceps structure.

And the vents to sit above the fist as its power core.

The rest of the fist will have to be plasticard and greenstuff. Which is terrifying.

Happy painting all!
Henry

Hail to mars

Well that was nice! Summer is now over, no more BBQs

My dog can finish his first brit pop album

And I can paint without it drying on the way to the model.

So I thought I would ease back into it with a little distressed metal, some custom plasticard mechanicum logos and some classic hazard stripes.

Lessons learned doing this, Vallejo Air White is piss water. Which is a shame because the rest of the range is incredible. Maybe I've got a bad batch but 4 different bottles has put me off for life. Get a terrible spitty haze no matter how much I thin it.

So here is the process, with minimal narration.

Cut out logo and used tiny slices of plasticard rod for the bolts.

Then paint it silver and give it a coat of AK interactive chipping medium once dry.

3 types of red used, 4 types of yellow and orange used. For hazard stripes over a black undercoat.

 

Now I didn't leave this to dry properly. And the room I was working in was still too hot so the chunks came off in big rubbery lumps of paint. Which made me swear. Always let your layers dry.

A little orange wash on the stripes and a couple of little underhighlights and im done! This plate is edged with silver to make it pop a little more. While the rest of the titan is all soft colours and regal pomp, the party definitely stops with the Mechanicum. Business time.
Logo?
COG.
Colours?
RED. MARS RED.
Safety hazard markings?
LITERALLY FUCKING EVERYWHERE.
Wait? Why!? Have you seen the size of that thing?
People need to know its not a step and has moving parts.

So here it is! Going to go over the white again and the final weathering will be done when its actually finished.

Happy Painting!
Henry

Heavy Metal, soft colours.

I'm back from two weeks of wedding and honeymoon and stag weekend. Feeling refreshed and inspired!

So many new ideas for the titan.

But this post will be focusing on what I've done since my last update

So lets start with the super-structure. The giant-lumps of iron and steel that wont be replaced because they are basically indestructible.

These are usually painted for a few reasons, the iron and steel are usually pretty mangy looking after the process of shaping them. Its not shiny and pretty its brown and black and looks rubs. Secondly by painting it you can tell quite quickly if it has been damaged or if oil is leaking out of components.

So here is a breakdown of how I approched this section.

I started by looking at JCBs and other heavy machinery, diggers, wrecking balls etc. You'll usually find that while the super-structure is painted the "business end" is not, the ball, or dozer blades. Simply because it would be a massive waste of time.

So ive gone at my titan with that in mind. Legs painted, the feet are ancient solid iron. It's lasted 10,000 years it should be fine for another 10,000.

 There is no technique to speak of for this. Spray it silver and go at it with yellow and brown and black ink. Dont be precious about it. Maybe a little thought as to where the oil would come from but just slap it on. the more the better. There wont be much on show once its finished.

 The feet are a little more involved.
Paint with tin-bitz or equivilent of brown dark copper colour.
Dab, with a sponge, gold and copper over the top.
Go over the whole thing in a light brown glaze. Like Serephim Sepia, mix with water to give it a dry dusty finish. To tie it together.
Then pick out the edges with some dark metal and light metal on the sharpest parts, again with a sponge.
And your done! Powders will be done at the end when EVERYTHING is painted.
(re-write this its boring)

Next up is the chipping medium from AK interactive. Applied over the dry leg sections straight through the airbrush. Two layers. Wait for the first to dry before applying the next.

Then when both of them are dry (about 2 hours. Very important not to rush) it's time for the paint. I've gone for an off white as it will show up the chips while at the same time show up the oil and wont detract from the fancy armour. Again through the airbrush, Vallejo Air Hemp and Vallejo Air White.

Again wait at least an hour to dry. You have about 6hours of working time for the AK interactive chipping liquid before it stops working and you can no longer chip your paint off.

So your layers are ready and your prepared for chipping this is where my secret weapon comes in.
The bastard brush. Everyone has their brush that has been abused and broken. But if you want to chip metal you need something chaotic. So my "bastard brush" is my go to. After getting a medium dry brush, having it pressed out for a day or two so it's nice and frayed I dip little clumps into superglue. That way you have hard sections and soft sections to tear away paint after the chipping liquid has been applied. Or just putting random chips that don't look too uniform. Embrace the chaos of the bastard brush to achieve truly random results.

Dip your gross brush in CLEAN water and slowly drag it along the surfaces until the paint starts chipping away. Absolute magic and the most satisfying thing ever. The staining around the larger sections is a completely incidental thing that happens with this technique. Usually its just tiny clumps of pigment that havent dryed yet and starts to saturate the white paint. It's little thigns like this that really bring out the realism in a model. The weathering is far from finished on this but its a great clomping step forward. I'll do the upper body before I move on to engine oil and powders and rust and stuff.


Next up is the blue sections of armour. Exactly the same as above in terms of technique, except I've gone for a dark heavy brown metal to reveal to contrast with the blue.

And I under-highlighted EVERY. SINGLE. SCRATCH. If you want to do this get a box-set of something you've watched already and settle in. There is no magic technique for this.

Heres what I used.

The one interesting thing I did here was make my own little mini stencils for the patterns. With masking tape, some thin card, and a sharp knife.

This isn't my final gold. That will be much darker. With silver studs.

Have drink with Jeffrey the lizard.

You've earned it. This post is too long.

 

So here's what's in the pipe... Get it?

Well while on my honeymoon I read Titanicus by Dan Abnett. Which was epic. And I need to do my floating Princepts. This was my first little kit bash but I've decided on doing a shallow pool and a fully converted little princepts to go in it.

 This is what lead me to that conclusion. How cool would that look. semi submerged with the nice glowy light and paint. lots of sketching and working out to do.

And here is tonights fun little task. AAAAAllll the rest of the marble. It took me a whole day to do the sholder plate in the background so I'm saying 3 days for all this rubbish. As you can see I am following my own tutorial on the iPad to keep me on track to achive the same results. This blog is as much for me to remember as it is for anyone else!

Then for this...

Thank you for reading!
Sorry for the EPIC length of this one.
Love and happy painting to all!
Henry

TLDR: Metal, silver. Paint, White and blue.