Almost mutant skin.......

As Half & Half are borderline mutants, I wanted to give the big fellow a twist to the skincolor. I also wanted it to be something else than the WAT grown AdMech skin I have done in the past, so I decided to work out of a yellowish base and then just play around and experiment...as follows:

Base: very old GW orc brown - lovely color :D

Then a wash of GW serpia

Next step was a skin drybrushing

It was then time to work some other colors into the skin, so he was given a random stippeling with a dark brown color and orange as well. Needed plenty as the next step would cover up most of it.

Another lighter fleshy drybrush.

Then I worked in some shading by adding ogryn flesh wash to "under sides" ie. non light exposed parts of muscles and fattybits. A purple was was added in the deepest recesses and in random patches to add even more depth to the skin.

Orange wash was applied on recesses and around implants/rusty bits.

Top layer drybrush of the skin - quite light coat of drybrush.

Finishing touches included picking out details and adding purple, orange and reddish washes around implants to make the skin look more irritated.

Color experiments

Not really knowing exactly how I felt about the paintjob so far, I decided to do a bit of experimenting yesterday.
The bronze on the emblem was given a stippling of orange before the final wash was applied - though it washes out somewhat in these phone photos, the effect is quite radical and good. Really adding a second layer of depth - I believe that even in these photos  you can see the difference between the arm and emblem, which have otherwise been painted in the manner.
The other experiment took place on the red armour on the left arm. I was trying to use the bold-highlights-washed-down-method, it wasn't really working though as I kept getting either soft pinkish highlights or getting the highlight too red after washing. Then I decided to give the old complementary color a go and added some green wash, initially as shading, but soon I splashed it on the edges/highlights as well - worked a treat I think.

Mechanicus Ranger armour

For the rangers I wanted muted, dirty colors - like the good old rangers of elves and Middle Earth. Hence I wanted to loose the shiny bronze armour of the vanguard and the reds of others, these guys aren't meant to be seen imposing on the battlefield. So I decided to try out something new, worked pretty well I think.

Base color is a 2:1 mix of VMC leather brown and VMA olive drab.

Next is a medium heavy drybrush of leadbelcher from GW.

A wash of GW Nuln Oil

Then a wash of GW Agrax Earthshade folowed by a wery light drybrush of GW leadbealcher

How I paint red.

What a day yesterday - at least blogwise. I was mentioned/had a mini feature on Faeit212's "What's on you table series" and had the crazy amount of more than 2300 visits to the blog - quite surreal, considering the normal number is around a 100 on regular days. Quite thrilling though and thanks to Nafka.

I have had a few requests on the red, so here's an overview on how it's done. Nothing is 100% as I keep experimenting a bit, but this is how it was done on the Hunter Robots.

Base: black
Baselayer: GW Mecrite red
Shade one: VMC Burnt cad. red
Shade two: VMC Black red
Highlight one: watered down VMC red
Highlight two: watered down mix og VMC red and GW Mephiston red
Highlight three: watered down GW Mephiston red
Highlight four: watered down mix GW Mephiston red and GW Evil sunz scarlet
Highlight five: watered down GW Evil sunz scarlet
Highlight six: watered down mix GW Evil sunz scarlet and GW Wil drider red
Edge highlight: GW Wild rider red.

and rounding off a fine line of black wash in the deepest recesses around the armour.

Xenos Biology 1.01

A good friend and one of my oldest gaming buddies, who I unfortunately don't see as often as I would like, paid a visit the other day. With him he brought a bunch of beautifully painted nids from Space Hulk. 

Last time he visited we played a game, and decided to paint up the minis. He would, as he has an entire superbly painted nid army, paint the nids - and I was to paint the termies. Well I guess we can agree, you haven't seen many termies here, so that much for my end of the bargain. Luckily he faired much better. The nids have been painted in the colors of his army, and they do look really cool. Check out some more pictures of his minis here: Gallery with Nids and other cool things

Will they just be for Space Hulk - or are we looking at some Magus' forbitten biology project? Release the Hounds................

Verdigris

Finally got a bit of time to add some more paint. Worked a bit on the weapons, darkened the bronze even more and added some verdigris. The bronze ended up looking slightly more worn than the test model, which suits the overall quite well I think.

The bronze is:

Vallejo Bronze, GW Devlan mud wash, GW Dahab black/catachan green/water mix wash, GW Hawk turquoise/water with a tiny bit of dishwash added.

A bit of paint

Actually got some paint slapped on one of my planned buildings. The GW Manufactorum - pretty sweet building actually. First one of the GW terrain kits I've build, and I think they have done quite a good job. Loads of detail, easy to clean up and fits fine together. Going for a battered industrial look of greys, rust and metals - spiced up with a few strong/spot colors.

PAINTING CHIPPED PAINT EFFECT

Some time ago I made a short tutorial for painting chipped paint. Thought this would be good place to share it as well. Click on the pictures for larger version, or download at the bottom of the post. I've used it with excellent results on especially my Iron Ghosts space marines, there is a set of pictures displaying a bit further down the page if you want to see how they turned out.

Link: Chipped Paint tutorial.pdf