Friday, April 29, 2016

WIPs: Necropunk, Mechanical Rider, Flesh Construct

In preparation for the upcoming tournament on Saturday I've been hacking away at getting my new Leve crew fully painted, excluding summons. I've gotten the whole hired crew completely tabletop ready now and wanted to show the progress. Up first is the Necropunk...




So yesterday I had my civic duty called upon to attend Jury Duty. Unfortunately I wasn't selected for the process, but fortunately I got to go home early enough to get this bad boy done in a timely manner. I spent around a total of 4 hours on him, which is speedy compared to usual, and he's not quite done but will suffice for now. You can see I was in such a frenzy that I didn't even let the paint dry fully before snapping a photo! For tomorrow's tournament though he's more than ready, I just need to matte varnish him.

As always I'll detail the colors and process on how he got to this point:

I undercoated black and started on the NMM. I wanted him to look darker than my usual fare, so I left it predominantly black. I airbrushed 50/50 Black/Cold Grey, then Cold Grey, and lastly White using Vallejo for all colors. Later on when I was done spraying everything for the cloak I came back and blacklined it 50/50 VGC Black/Night Blue, edged it with Cold Grey and White, then glazed with VGC Turquoise in some recesses.

I was stumped on what I wanted to paint his cloak. If the metals weren't so dark I'd have really loved a dark grey and black cloak to keep him mysterious, but it would have looked very bland if I did that. Instead I went with a staple color of VMA Russian Green, my go to Olive that's very versatile. Over black I airbrushed VMA Grey highlights on the cloak to help brighten up the green where it's needed, as since it's a dark color over a black undercoat it will be hard to see. Then I sprayed Russian Green while leaving some areas black. I didn't want to simply add white at that point because it starts to look very flat (I did it before with Viktoria of Ashes, while it looks good I wanted to make it more interesting), so I added VMA's equivalent of Sunburst Yellow 2:1 to the green making it a bit warmer, and added a drop of VGA Wolf Grey to lighten it and airbrushed highlights. Lastly I added lots of white to the mix as a final highlight. Later I shaded it with Russian Green, and highlighted using the previous mixes.

The mask was a simple task of GW Mechrite Red/Scarlet Red/Troll Slayer Orange heavily washed with GW Agrax Earthshade. The gloves were done with my previous red leather recipe, but I washed it heavily with GW Nuln Oil as it was too bright for this model and I wanted the brightest color to be his mask.

The flesh was done using the previous recipe I posted for my Flesh Construct, but this time there was no black in the shading as I painted it all on by hand.

Lastly I used Vallejo Red Oxide pigment on various parts of the metals. The pigment fixer leaves a very glossy finish which is why the model seems very glossy, that will go away once I varnish it.

Overall I'm pretty happy with him, I've still got some work to do but he's mostly finished. I've got to paint the intestines coming out of his midsection and he'll pretty much be done.


Last week I did some more work on the Mechanical Rider. I painted the skin fully, but that was a struggle. Due to the position of her body and the chains/horse being in the way I couldn't get a good angle at her stomach. I also struggled with making the blends smooth. I also messed up where her skin and armor meet, as that line of shading near her armpit and boob isn't exactly right. How it looks now is basically where I decided to give up until later for her skin. I don't know if I'm going to try to fix it or start over again.

The other notable addition was in the horse's mane. Before I only had the basecoat down, and it was rather flat. I decided to take my chances with trying to paint fire, which has always given me fits before and it is a very difficult technique to get right. So far I only have painted the basecoat for the flames, simply adding in progressive amounts of white closer to the source of the flame. It looks okay for now, but honestly I'm stumped as to how I'm going to highlight this, as flames follow certain rules for believably realistic effects, including OSL. It's basically inverse from traditional highlighting, but the application of this is much more difficult than in theory. I've put it to the side for now as it successful in tabletop quality reading it as a flame. I've got to paint the chains before I can do any OSL anyway, but it's still becoming my favorite model. 


I've also gotten my Flesh Construct to tabletop standards. I painted the base and basecoated the metal areas. I plan on making these look like copper, which is very difficult to do as I don't know the colors I want to use yet. Essentially though it is done enough for the tournament.

So that's what I've been working on lately. For tonight I'll be attempting to finish up my Metal Gamin, as they will be summoned throughout the game and seemed fairly easy to start on as the majority of their surface is the same metal color. It is going to be rather difficult, however, as instead of easy shapes like flat armor plates they are more of an organic skin, but it looks like it will be an interesting test. I don't see myself getting anything else done in time for the tournament, but really that's just the Abominations that periodically summon from Leveticus. I'll also have some unpainted elements for a list that may or may not be used, depending on my opponents. 

Hopefully I'll be able to snap some photos throughout the day, and I'll report back with the results!

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