Monday, December 20, 2010

Washes can work wonders...


I was feeling guilty about not doing much painting this last week so I had a crack at finishing of my first Death Watch marine last night.


Overall I am satisfied, but am still left scratching my head a bit when it comes to the black armour. I did repaint the black armour with a mix of Chaos Black and Regal Blue (tending more towards the black) so the base coat wasn't pure black. I then edge highlighted with a Chaos Black/Shadow Grey mix and then straight Shadow Grey.


I think the overall effect is very blue and the pictures only serve to over-emphasise that fact. I'm not bothered enough by it to try to redo it, and am just glad I don't have a whole army to do in this colour. Four more guys left and the little squad is done.

And the reason for the heading to this post? After I finished the Death Watch marine off, I turned my attention to my Nurgle marine.

I was a bit slap dash with the base coats (a mix of Knarloc and Gretchin Green foundation paints with metallics done in Tinny Tin game colour) and was thinking I would need to strip and start again as the miniature looked horrible, even at this very early stage.
Instead I looked over my washes and picked out the Thraka Green and Devlan Mud. Two heavy washes later and I have this look.



I am happy enough with how this turned out (the washes actually worked like they are designed too) that I think I will tidy up a couple of the little details, maybe apply a slight verdigris look for the metal, a few highlights and will call him done.

So just a short post today, and now back to the paint table.

Cheers all,

Pom

9 comments:

  1. The Nurgle marine looks fabulous. It's a very rich, deep effect.

    The loyalist is effective, and I think the blue was the right choice for a suggestion of conservative, upstanding character. It seems right too that if you've got a blue power sword, the blue glow would tint the armour.

    If not blue as a highlight, you could use green to suggest pulp sci-fi lighting or an alien space, or deep red for fire or conflict. Brown might give a sense of dirt or age, but I've never tried it. Purple would probably end up making the marine itself look too alien.

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  2. Cheers Porky. I do like how the washes picked up the detail on the mini and made it quite dark and dirty. Exactly how a Nurgle warrior should look.

    I noted that Ron has just posted regarding working with black and his current tests. The one he settles on uses a grey colour which I may just try on a test mini and see how it looks.

    The more I look at the blue tinted highlight the less I like it. I had tried a brownish tint previously but it looked washed out and not enough for that 'pop'.

    Will post on my results when I have something.

    Cheers mate,

    Pom

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  3. The Nurgle marine looks great. The washes definitely made him 'pop'. The deathwatch marine on the other hand, it's good, don't get me wrong; but the highlights on the boots seem a bit stark to me. Overall they both look really good. Keep up the good work! :)

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  4. personally I like the highlighting. The only one I would suggest re-doing is the mouth piece, which is a little thick. The again my camera does that to my models all the time, so I wouldn't be suprised if the actual effect is far more subtle.

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  5. Cheers guys. As i said in my response to Porky I may have a crack at using grey as the highlight and see if I like the results better.

    Otherwise, Smurf, you're right, there are sme areas where the highlight is a bit thick so I will need to go back and tidy that off. And the camera isn't great at showing this.

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  6. Shadow grey has always been a personal favorite of mine for highlighting black, and this model is a good example of that. He looks great--but seems to be in need of 9 friends... ?

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  7. I love the blue highlights on the Death Watch, may try a similar look for my Death Company

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  8. Cheers guys.

    Warhammer39999 - there are another 4 semi finished. Thats my job for this week.

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  9. Will be watching for more then. :)

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