Imperial Knight, day 7 - armour plates grind

This is where the hard work begins. The chore of miniature painting. The grind: getting the base colours all over the model, to a nice finish, and getting the initial shading and highlights put in. All the work before weathering and getting into the details.

The image does not show a lot. Mainly it documents that I am working my way over the many parts...

So - to compensate for the slightly boring progress - I thought is would be the right place to put up a link to one of the main inspirational sources for getting into this project. On the Legion of  Plastic-blog the awsome Migsula showed the building of his Knight over a few updates in Spring 2014 and I have clearly picked up a few ideas and learnings from this execution of the kit.

If you haven't seen it before go an have a good look right away! Just follow the link below. Now! And if you have seen the project before why not take another look at the great work and also check out his more recent hobby-projects. Here is Migsula's impressive Imperial Knight:
http://legionofplastic.blogspot.dk/2014/04/raphael-freeblade-knight-eternal.html

Imperial Knight, day 6 - first work on the armour plates

Armour plates: I started out on the upper leg sections (and then dabbed some colour onto a few other parts as well) as they are quite small and somewhat insignificent compared to the bigger areas such as the lower legs. The reason for this was that I wanted to work out the technique for painting these big surfaces before getting onto the really big central ones. Also, I still had some doubts about the colours in some areas but knew that I wanted to do the orange.

Working my way over these two plates I tried both copper and ironbreaker/chainmail  (see the picture) on the rims. Although it might look alright as a separate part, I don't think either would work when everything is put together. I think the orange looked too light and bright and I also was considering how the armour plates were to stand out against the metal on all the body. so I when back to an ealier idea: white. However, the white will make trouble on the shoulder plates, since I wanted two black halves combined with a white with heraldry and a checked half with black and white. This will not work, but if I want the white rims I will have revise the plan for the shoulderpads front halves. Here is the revision: Right side will be orange with white heraldry, and the left side checked, but using yellow instead of white against black. This should work and look really strong.

Going back to the white rims the plan is to make them rather clean first and the go nuts with weathering. Getting some light surfaces on the model will help to make the weathering stand out I hope. Works on small models, so it might as well work here...

Imperial Knight, day 5

 
Torben Schnoor's old tip: If you are unsure about the direction of the mini, then paint the head first. Torben gave me this advice a long time ago, and I always go by it. Even if I know what I want I usually paint the head early since it defines a very central visual point on the model.

So, the faceplate: First a layer of light grey. Then some white sprayed on from above. From this I painted the metal rims using boltgun metal. Wash of purple ink and some really dark brown for the rivets. Then some Vallejo Model color (VMC) mahogany sand for rust followed by some more orange rust using that new orange technical paint from the GW range. Now, light brushed of mithrill silver on the rivits and on some of the edges – just where it seems that it will be realistic or look good! The next step was to add some weathering to the white. I used yellow green from VMC and some more mahogany sand. Well, that's it for the faceplate so far. Might need to do some little changes, but I am quite happy with the look.

Imperial Knight, day 4

Metallics. Drybrushed on some Tinbitz first. But realising that I wanted to add a lot of weathering I then airbrushed on a mid-tone metal colour. Actually, I was somewhat worried about using metal paints in the airbrush but after a few tried it went on nicely.

From there I have washed the lower leg to get som contrast in and also simply to get going on all that metal. Lots of weathering to do. First wash was a mix of VMC English Uniform and GW's Ogryn Flesh wash plus some water. Never thought I would find use for that Winsor & Newton Series 7 size 4 brush, but for this kind of work it is perfect!

 This is only the beginning of the work on the body, but I like to make my way around the model and get some colours onto all the parts. Just like blocking in the colours on a standard-sized miniature, I suppose.

Imperial Knight, day 3

Base colour. Orange. Well, first a foundation for the base colour. Before painting the armour plates orange I added a layver of bone colour (Army Painter zombie skin) to works as a warm foundation for the orange.

Following this I applied the basecolour (Army Painter Prison Jumpsuit) with the airbrush.

I was nicely surprised about the surface-finish of the basecolour. The airbrush was so easy to get the paint nice and clean onto the mini. Such an awsome tool. When I think about the considerations and doubt about getting that airbrush from my side prior to finally dishing out to buy one...
Oh, well. Now, at least, I have got it.

Imperial Knight, day 2

Priming the model I used black the main body, and white for all the armour plates. The color scheme is to be orange, black, white, and metals.Just by putting on the main armour plate and the shoulders you can really appreciate the size of the beast.

 
I really hope the piece-meal approach for painting the model will work out.
Well, onto getting some base colour sprayed on tomorrow....

Imperial Knight, day 1

This is my December hobby-grind: an Imperial Knight to be painted before Xmas!

 In the past I have done an X-mas count-down on my old website, www.jrn-works.dk, a few times. An update a day on a project, or sometimes just a series of unrelated models. But an update a day. This year I will try and keep a steady hobby grind going working my way over this big kit.

I have chosen this model for many reasons. Mainly because of the size and complexity, but also because I wanted to have a go at those classic tank weathering techniques. Also, with a model devided into many small armour plates I hope that I simply might be able to deal with the model piece by piece. That should - in theory - ease the process. Finally, the project is an obvious change to work those basic airbrush skills.

Time will decide if I can do an update every day, but I'll do my best. The main goal is to have a nice and focussed hobby-project during December!

2nd Daemonette

Another Daemonette finished. Quick paintjob, quick photo-shoot:

Sometimes it is amazing how much you can get done in half an evening.The model was about half finished, and taking to time to get it to the end was just great. I have got another model at the same mid-stage ready for next week...