Vulpa Daemonica Warlord Titan Done!

Finally, the centerpiece of my Vulpa legio is done!

I'm really proud of this one. It's by far the best mini I ever painted, owning mostly to just too many hours spent. I literally worked on him until I burned out, took a ~6 month break while working on other models, and then went back to refine and improve for about one month more. It's not without fault, it's not getting me a Golden Daemon or anything, but I've given it everything I got and it was worth it.

I learned a lot with this project. I switched to using Contrast paints for glazes halfway through the project. I started using FW Sepia as my main shadow color, eventually changing to Wildwood Contrast there the shadow is warm and a mix of black and Space Wolves Gray where it's cold. Contrast thins into a barely noticeable glaze better, is easier to control, and don't dry glossy.

I enjoyed doing chipping on this one a lot. Previously, I weathered mostly by applying enamel dust and grime and removing it with white spirits. On this model it was more or less just chipping. Grime and dust make a model feel old and deserted, which is not appropriate for the energy of this model. Also, the layers of grime toned down surfaces that I worked hard to differentiate between glossy and matte. Instead, I chipped with matte dark lines and silver/gold highlights: because the chips are effectivelly matte, they stand out so well and look so realistic. It looks great on the orange parts, it's only meh on the purple; it's too dark to work well with this approach.

I also took these pics very differently than usual. I spent a lot more time controlling lights, used a black backdrop and edited every single pic to control the background, which was never truly black, as much as possible. Gimp was used, what can I say. I also used a little portable light on the fireball, pointing from below - counteracting the natural shadow that exists in other parts of the scene, making it look like it's glowing even more. It turned out really well.

Thanks for looking!

House Terryn Imperial Knight Done!

This gal was my passion project for a while now. Her name is Silvana, a noble Knight of House Terryn, accompanied by her personal guard/serfs with guns forced on them.

With this model I wanted to create a feel of a true medieval knight, in a lush forest or field, going on a quest. Except, you know, giant killer robot.

The base is my first attempt at basing nature, and to be honest, it's not that difficult if you get the right stuff. And between Green Stuff World, Secret Weapon Miniatures etc, it's not difficult to get the right stuff. Flock, leaves, bark, tufts, cork. Then you just put them on the base, approximately in the right order, and nature happens.

This was also an excursion into freehand, the crest on the shield and the axe.

The crest was scary, as all freehand is at first. You worry that you'll mess something up... But you do, and you fix it. As you go along, it gets better and better, and before you know it, you go from "I'm ruining the model" to "I am actually pretty happy with this". The crest itself is just the Terryn crest, upscaled, and I added some shadows to the horse and 80s non-metallic metal to the eagle as it looked unfinished in pure white on blue and red.

The axe was a lot of fun from the start, but much more time consuming. My approach to painting ice was to convey depth and volume by painting two patterns on top of each other: one was a gentle pattern with squiggly lines and gradients that convey cracks and maybe some energy, and on top of that, I added very thin horizontal lines to represent scratches on the surface. It doesn't look translucent at the end, of course, but it definitely looks deep, not just like stuff painted on a surface.

The colors used on the axe are just inks, Daler & Rowney FW White, Marine Blue and Indigo. The blues are pretty dark, but applied thinly over white, they're very icy. I used an airbrush for the soft underlayers, with brush for the cracks and lines on top.

Anyway, here are all the pics, as well as some WIP pics thrown in for fun. Thanks for looking!