Life goes on! So it’s time to catch up with my blog posting again! 

I said ‘frenzy’ earlier and so it was because I completed all the painting for the stone in a single day after nine hours of solid painting!

These are the colours I used to create the green/grey tone for my rocks.

A few examples of the clump foliage on my base.

Why a Kastelan Robot?

• had lots of armour/hard surfaces;
• was lighter and easier to handle than the warlord (he’s very heavy!); and
• was more economical to use as a workshop model.

 

Preparing the model.

To prime or not to prime!

The ugly truth! These are my basecoating brushes. I've used them on all my slayer sword winning models!

Please note that our (devilishly handsome) model is not picking his nose. He is pondering the mysteries of colour theory. Although this might explain where he get's his snot green from!

Colour Theory.

Hue.

Saturation.

Tone.

Temperature.

The Colour Wheel

Coming next...

What is a colour scheme?

Colour hierarchy.

Used in equal quantities the three colours are rather garish and clashing.

Red (primary) with blue (secondary) and green (tertiary)

Blue (primary) with green (secondary) and red (tertiary)

Green (primary) with red (secondary) and blue (tertiary)

What is a colour palette?

Building a colour palette.

• Base colour,
• Shade,
• Highlight,
• Mid-tones,
• Spot colours,
• Nuance colours,
• Metallic colours,
• Neutrals.

Choosing a base colour.

Using global highlight and shade colours.

Mid-tones.

Spot and nuance colours.

Metallics.

Neutrals.

Build your knowledge.

Coming next …

 

1. Fix the model onto a plain plastic gaming base, possibly with some minimal terrain detail. This basic option would serve the models function as a demonstration piece; or,
2. Build up a more elaborate base to create an environment and narrative for the model. This would have the added advantage of turning the model into a potential competition piece.

Let’s be honest option two was always going to win out as that’s what I always end up doing. But I did seriously consider option one.

I think it’s best practice to consider your basing options right at the start of a project. That way your ideas for the environment and narrative can play a part in the development of the overall scheme. However, though not perfect, it is possible to paint a model and then think up a base for it.

The model had been painted to demonstrate weathering so I wanted to continue with this approach and feature some heavily weathered architectural elements on the base. I decided to build the majority of my base using Games Workshop’s Sector Imperialis Administratum kit.

My starting point was one of the broken columns and I built out from this using a selection of other ruinous elements. I wanted to have the Kastelan Robot framed by a combination of broken arches and windows. By using one of GW’s own kits I would also be setting my Robot in an apropriate environment.

Instead of using a plain gaming base I chose one of the Sector Mechanicus bases and then built a raised floor above this to give the base some extra depth. The entire base was then finished off with some dirt and rubble.

I was quite pleased with the resulting base. But please take note of my use of the word ‘quite’. I had a few doubts about the overall proportions and composition of my base. This is in no small part down to the base being something of an afterthought to the painted model. However, I went ahead and began painting.

As usual I painted my base using the same palette of colours as the model but switched around the proportions of those colours. For example, I used a base/shade colour of Rhinox Hide but switched around the green and off white so that, on the base, the green was a dominant colour while the off white would only feature on the scattered skulls.

Painting was off to an OK start but my nagging doubts were now in full flow! Something about the base just felt wrong to me. It was time to stop work and think very carefully. If you are a long time follower of this blog you’ve probably guessed exactly where this is all going because we now get to the ‘oops I did it again’ bit.

The overall composition was too busy, obscured the Robot from several angles and was in danger of overpowering the model. In addition the design looked slightly clumsy and inelegant. I also felt that my decision to use pre-made building elements was a bit lazy and had influenced my design choices too much.

My solution was to start over again. This time I would construct a far simpler base that was less reliant on the Sector Imperialis Administratum kit. Construction began in the same way as the first base with a column. But the new base would not feature any of the wall or window elements. Instead I used plaster and Milliput to build a surface of broken slabs and rubble. I used a few bits of window frame from the building as further wreckage that, along with the column, would frame the Robot.

Straight away I was much happier with this more streamlined approach and, once I began painting, I found a whole new energy and enthusiasm for the project.

After painting the base, I pinned my Kastelan onto it and began work on the finishing touches. These consisted of the inevitable skulls and grass tufts but also some barbed wire to help give the base the feel of a warzone. The very last thing was the addition of some fine dirt and rubble around the feet and some subtle brown washes on the green slabs.

So once again I went over the top with my basing plans and then had to rein my ideas in. This doesn’t bother me too much because I think it’s preferable to tone down an OTT design than it is to have to go the other way.

The finished base feels like the same sort of environment that I tried to create with my first attempt; but it’s now done more simply and I think it’s more effective for it!

At the start of this post I mentioned my new weathering workshop. Sadly the current situation with Covid-19 means that I’ve had to cancel all of my workshop dates this year. I thought very hard about this but with the best will in the world, and as I have asthma, there is no way I could deliver a workshop to the standard I expect while keeping socially distanced.

Hopefully we can all get back to meeting at workshops and competitions some time next year but, in the meantime, let’s keep safe and keep painting!

It’s been just over a year since I last posted anything about my Nurgle Tank Project. I had, of course, no idea of just how turbulent and troubled that year was going to be and all my, and everybody else’s, plans were turned upside-down! However the Tank was not forgotten and the project was on hold while other things took priority. It’s been sat on my desk all that time and I’ve often given it some serous consideration. Not least while painting the Kastelan Robot because I can now confess that the focus on extreme dirt, damage and decay that I put into the Kastelan, was in preparation for painting my Tank.

But before I can get (finally) down to painting the Tank I have to finish building it. This involves resolving the back of the model and, although I had a vague notion that it would involve chimneys and an engine, I was uncertain of exactly how to proceed. In truth I was dithering!

The answer was to break out the blu tack and experiment with the parts I was considering. My initial option was to have two chimneys bursting out of the Tank’s back as shown below. I liked this very much but it didn’t feel quite right. 

I definitely wanted to use the chimneys but I also wanted to have a bit more of an engine element to the rear. My gut feeling was that, in addition to the chimneys, I wanted some sort of exhaust and something that looked like it might be a fuel tank or boiler. So I continued to experiment with a combination of elements some can be seen below.

The part I chose for this was a section from a dome in the Alchomite Stack kit. I’d considered this part right at the start of the project but thought it too big to use. Now, with more of the model constructed, I could see how it would perfectly match the existing curvature of the body I was building. But with this element selected the chimneys would now be far too big and bulky. The solution was to cut the chimneys down into smaller elements. 

The cut-down chimneys are, in my opinion, a better fit with the new back section. The two large chimneys have become three smaller ones and I prefer the asymmetrical arrangement, which creates a more interesting composition of the elements at the back of the model. Three is, of course, a very Nurgle friendly number!

With my choice finally made I got on with the job of putting everything together properly. To do this I had to cut away a large section of the back using my Dremmel. This was an unpleasant job and had to be done very carefully to avoid cutting away too much material. However, the cautious approach paid off because I managed to achieve a near perfect fit.

Rather than trying to create some sort of smooth transition between the flesh and the metal, I decided upon a bubbly molten sort of texture for the flesh where it’s engulfing the engine section. This matches other parts of the model and keeps to a consistent palette of textures.

 That’s where I’m now at with this model. The next step is to incorporate the chimneys and, although it’s likely to be a fiddly job, I’m looking forward to it. After a long hiatus Project P30 is rolling forward again!

So here we are in 2021 and let’s all hope it’s a better year than 2020! For the last few months I’ve been very quiet with regards to painting sculpting and being online because I simply wasn’t ‘in the mood’. That’s not to say I was down or depressed but rather my energy and enthusiasm were directed elsewhere. I rediscovered my love for Lego and spent a lot of my time building a version of Hogwarts Castle to sit on the top shelf of my desk. I didn’t especially need a new hobby but lockdown seemed like a good time to start one. 

I chose a crazy time to put my tank onto the back burner because I was on the verge of completing the construction/sculpting phase. However, I think this pause proved to be an unexpectedly good thing because this was exactly the right time to stop and think. Not that I haven’t spent an awful lot of time thinking about this model already, but this was different. 

Up to this point my design for the tank had existed as an idea but not a completed three-dimensional object. But now I was able to have the entire model in my hands and, as a result, my plans began to evolve.

With the addition of the long awaited chimneys I finally had the overall composition fixed. This meant that I was able to consider all the elements of the model in context. I quickly decided to adjust the angle of the arm swinging the bell. By doing this I was able to raise the bell up. It was a relatively simple change but it opens up the overall composition and makes the pose look more active. After all, if your model is ringing a dirty great bell you want it to look like its giving it some welly! 

My idea had been to paint an updated version of my 1990 Nurgle Predator’s paint scheme. It would consist of a stippled green flesh tone with metallic details. However, I began to feel that this would not be enough. Regardless of how well I painted the model I think it would look very basic in the 1990 scheme.

Miniature painting has come a long way since 1990 and I need to reflect that in my new paint scheme. I want to create a scheme with more drama and contrast than the old one. The new scheme will reflect the range of materials and surfaces present on the model and most especially the transitions between machine and flesh. These areas will be treated differently in terms of colour and texture and the transitions between them should help to tell the story of a Demon engine manifesting itself as flesh.

The next step was to create an initial colour palette. Things will probably change as the project progresses but I need a starting point. The colours in my palette need to fulfil the following roles:
Base colour,
Shade,
Highlight,
Mid-tones,
Spot colours,
Nuance colours,
Metallic colours,
Neutrals.

Bearing all of this in mind I began by lining up the colours I thought I might use. I then set about testing different combinations in my notebook. You can see my test swatches in the photo below. The first is at the bottom and they progress up the page. 

As you can see, it was during this process that I moved away from my mostly green 1990 colour palette. My new palette gradually became more varied and saturated as my ideas developed. I’ve decided to create a much paler flesh tone than I’d initially planned and graduate this into a dark (almost black) colour on the tank parts. I will also use a cooler palette of greens than I did on my old tank. The overall colour palette will have a lot more variety than my 1990 one but this is a large model and it can take it.

The next step was to paint a full-page colour swatch to see all my colours together. My initial reaction was to realize how similar this scheme looks to the one I used on Gutrot Spume. However this is a misleading impression. It doesn’t reflect the intended paint scheme in terms of the relative proportions of the colours or how the colours will mix together. Many of the subtler relationships between the colours will have to be resolved during painting. I think my colour selection will give me a good starting point to work from but it’s important to be flexible! 

My tank is now in the final stages of preparation for painting. I’ve photographed it for lighting reference. Washed it to remove any dust and grease, left over from its construction, and mounted it onto a painting handle. The final bit of preparation is to give it a light spraying of primer.

Then, finally, I will begin painting the tank! 

I wondered if I’d ever get to this stage but, at long last, I’m painting my Demon Tank! However, before the ‘fun’ could start, there was one last little bit of preparation to be done. I had to wash the model prior to priming it. This was to remove any grease and dust that had built up during the construction of the model. It’s essential to have a clean surface before you apply any paint. I first masked off the belly-mouth and then set to with an electric toothbrush and dish soap. Once I’d given the model a careful scrub, I gently rinsed it off under cool running water. This was a terrifying process as it had the potential to do quite a bit of damage but everything went very well.

The size of this model presented a challenge to me in that I would have to handle it quite a bit during painting. That, combined with the large surface area, meant that priming the model would be essential! I first gave the underside and deeper recesses a coat of black and then sprayed the whole model with several light coats of Tamiya Fine Surface Primer. This is another potentially tricky job but the primer gave me an excellent result!

And so to painting!

Painting this model feels like going on a bit of an adventure. The physical challenges presented by the size of the model are something totally new to me. Add to that the nostalgia, and expectations involved in revisiting my first great success, and the result is a project unlike any I’ve taken on before! That’s the main reason why my colour palette uses a lot of tried and tested favourites. I do believe that stepping out of your comfort zone provides a positive challenge, but I like to pick my challenges carefully. The size and scope of the model is a major challenge in itself. By using a tried and tested palette of colours I’ll be able to draw on my experience with them to resolve the overall paint scheme. After all the entire point of this project is that it’s a coming together of old and new.

As I’ve said I’d expected the size of the model to be something of a challenge and I wasn’t wrong! I started off by attaching a painting handle to the model but took that off straight away. It shifted the centre of balance and made the model too big and awkward to hold during painting. So I am carefully holding the model in my gloved hand while I paint it. The tank weighs very little, which is a great help, but I’ve had to adapt my painting technique and posture to its size.

I’m used to working up close to the surface I’m painting. I usually brace my hand by holding the model on my desk and my brush hand is usually also braced on the desk, or sometimes against the hand holding the model. It’s a very stable set up and allows me a lot of control over my brush. However, in my usual painting position, there isn’t now enough space for the model and my hands between my eyes and the desk! I’ve had to get myself a taller stool so that I can sit a little higher. I also have to adapt to bracing my brush hand against the model rather than my desk.

This new set up is taking quite a bit of getting used to as it’s far more difficult to keep my hands stable during painting. There are some tricky angles involved in getting my brush into contact with the model’s surface and I have to handle the model while I paint it. Challenging as this may all be, I’d anticipated these issues as a part of the project and, so far, there has been nothing that a little patience and perseverance can’t overcome. In fact, I’m enjoying this project because of the challenges not in spite of them!

As usual I decided to start off by painting the face. This is going to set the tone and character of the model. It’s also a relatively small area that contains a lot of contrasting surfaces. So it will give me the opportunity to decide how I am going to resolve many of the material contrasts at an early stage. My usual habit is to work on a fairly small area at a time but, on a model of this size, I think that would be a mistake. Therefore, I decided to work over a larger area, which included the face and chest, by starting out fairly roughly and then gradually refining the painted surfaces as the project evolves. 

After painting a base of Rakarth Flesh, my first layers of paint were applied with a size 4 brush, roughing out the areas of light and shade. I then began to lay down a series of glazes to add and adjust the colour nuances. My next move was to focus on smaller areas to begin refining my work. However, I made sure to keep moving around the overall area I was painting, and not to linger on one spot for too long. This enabled me to balance things out over a larger area than I might normally do and resolve the overall skin tones.

By starting out big and bold I’ve been able to avoid getting stuck on one small area. My overall approach is one of going back and forth between different areas and different tones. This is a very different way of working from a structured step by step approach but it feels appropriate for this model.

I’m very glad that I’d taken the decision to think through my colour palette in advance because it saved me a lot of time and helped me to work swiftly at the early stages. However, as expected, once I started to work with my chosen palette I felt the need to adapt it. I had some definite ideas about the direction I was going to take but, as my work progressed, so did my ideas. As I’ve said before, the good thing about starting out with a plan is that it gives you a structure to work within but it also enables you to vary from that structure in an organised way.

I’d planned to use a cooler blue/green hue on much of the model but, as I progressed, that felt wrong. So I’ve used more of the yellow/green hues from my palette in the flesh tones. I turned to my old favourite of Bering Blue to bring some subtle blue tones to the flesh. I think is a more successful choice than my original option of turquoise. However, I think the blue/green hues will come into play as the project progresses. 

I’d thought that the overall look and feel of my colour palette would be very different to anything I’d done before but, in reality, it’s turning out to have a familiar feel to it. As has already been pointed out on Instagram, my flesh tones have much in common with both my Plaguebearers and my Troggoth. Although it’s not what I’d intended to do, I’m actually very happy with this. It feels like a more natural progression from my earlier work and a truer reflection of my style and instincts.

This project has been in planning for many years so it’s been on my mind as I’ve worked on many other models. Consequently many of my models contain things that I was trying out in preparation for the Demon Tank. My Death Guard, Horticulus Slimux, Kastelan Robot and Sloppity Bile Piper may all have an influence before I’m finished. I don’t want this project to nothing more than a ‘Sproket’s greatest hits’ but it is intended to look back over my past work while, hopefully, continuing my journey to be a better painter. 

I think I’m off to a good start but there is a long way to go yet!

 

 

I’ve made a good start at establishing the flesh tones on my Demon Engine but, before I get too far into the project, I want to turn my attention to the metalics. The contrast between flesh and metal is a big part of what this model is all about. So I want to establish that contrast at an early stage. I’d decided quite some time ago that true metalics were the way to go on this project. The difference between the shiny true metalics and the flesh would add to the overall material contrasts on my model. The large size of the model lends itself to the use of true metalics as there will be plenty of space to play with the effect. 

 

I prefer to paint my metalics over a dark base so I blocked out the eyepiece with Black Leather from Scale colour. I find that using a brown hue for my base colour helps to give the metalics a dirty and corroded look. My plan was to paint the main box as dull steel and the lens mounts and other parts in copper and bronze hues. To get things off to a start I painted a layer of GW’s Leadbelcher. 

 

As I painted the flesh tones I’d begun to wonder if true metalics were the correct way to go but this was nothing compared to my reaction to the colour I’d just applied. I loathed how the metallic paint looked on my model! Normally I’d stick to my guns and persevere, to resolve any issues, but this time I decided to switch to painting non-metallic metals (NMM). There was no deeply thought out reason for the change, I was simply following my instincts.

I decided to paint all the NMM colours using the palette I’d already devised for the flesh tones. I think my negative reaction to the metallic paint was, in part, because it looked very artificial and separate to the rest of the model. By using the same overall palette for the flesh and metal they will sit together more comfortably on the model. 

I was still going to use a dark brown base colour and would, for the most part, paint my metalics from dark to light. This approach, along with the use of sharp highlighting and strong tonal contrasts, will create the material contrast between the soft flesh and hard metal. In short, although using the same colours, I’m using different techniques to represent different materials.

I don’t want to get too bogged down while painting one small area at this early stage. However, my painting needed to be slower and more detailed than anything I’d done on the flesh so far. I needed my work for the eyepiece to be crisp and precise to emphasize that material difference. It took me a couple of days to resolve things but I am very happy with the result and I’m now sure that NMM is the correct approach for this project. Of course this means that I’ll now have to repaint the belly cannon at some point!

Once the eye was painted I turned my attention to the teeth as the next step in completing the face. I usually paint teeth with a warm ivory hue but I felt this would be to clean looking. For the highlight colour I would use Flayed One Flesh as usual but I decided upon a dark base colour of Black Leather, which also serves as my global shadow colour. In the mid tones I’ve used a variety of blue, yellow, green and brown hues all mixed with Rakarth Flesh. This creates a subtle greenish/grey hue to the teeth and creates a slightly rotten look that feels appropriate.

It was especially fiddly to get my brush into all the areas where I needed paint on the teeth. Without a doubt this model, due to its size and shape, is tricky to paint; and it’s going to involve some awkward brush angles! The solution requires patience as I’m spending a lot of my time making repeated passes to gradually refine my, initially crude, painting. I’d already painted and varnished the tongue as a sub-assembly so once the teeth were done I could glue it into place. The mouth is now fully painted although there will be a layer of drool effects added at a later date.

It’s easy to lose track of the overall balance within the paint scheme on a model of this size, especially when concentrating on one small area at a time. So this was a good time to step back and take stock. I decided to extend my painting to the upper belly/torso areas so that I could get a better feel for my overall scheme. Where necessary I’ve adjusted the colours and tones I’d painted with a combination of stippling and glazing. 

I’ve also begun to tidy up and smooth out some of my earlier painting. The intention is to refine and adjust my painting but not to smooth everything evenly over the entire model. There is a lot of sculpted texture on my tank but I want to add painted textures too. This will add interest and variety to the surfaces and enhance the material contrasts. Rather than adding painted textures as a separate stage I am trying to incorporate them as the scheme develops. 

This project continues to challenge me both physically and mentally but that’s the entire point of it after all!

Skulls, Nurglings, Tentacles and a spot of bother with my microbeads!

Since I started painting my Daemon Engine at the beginning of February, I’ve made very good progress because I’ve managed to paint for a few hours almost every day. In fact, at times, I’ve almost gotten ahead of myself. I went into the painting stage of this project with a plan, of course, but I had many different options. That’s because I’ve spent years thinking about this project so I have a lot of ideas for how I could paint it. Far more ideas than I can (or should) incorporate into one scheme! 

So part of the challenge I face is to sort through all the ideas I have and edit them down to those I’m going to implement. I have to make just as many choices about what I’m not going to do as to what I am going to do. This is where my notebook and a file of reference/inspirational images have come to the rescue. They help me to keep track of my changing ideas and make sure I don’t forget any of them when the time comes to make a decision. This is an ongoing process because the more I paint the more resolved my ideas become but they can also develop in directions I’d not anticipated.

Every now and then I need to pause, sit back and consider my work. Which is just what I hadn’t been doing so it should come as no surprise that I found myself working on a part of the model for which I had no firm plan. The back of the left arm featured the sculpted detail of three skulls, forming a Nurgle icon, set into a large open wound. Very gruesome and apparently straightforward, all I had to do was paint what was in front of me.

However, I had a nagging feeling that I needed to do something with this area other than just paint it as it is! The skulls are a great detail in their own right but were too distinctive a detail from the donor model (Great Unclean One) and in the new context seemed a little fiddly. Whenever I’ve had doubts or problems with this model I find the best solution is nearly always to be bold, so I decided to replace the skulls with something a bit more dynamic!

I chose to have a Nurgling popping out of the wound. I painted my Nurgling, stuck him in place and filled the surrounding wound with microbeads. As it turns out this was not a good choice because I had replaced one fiddly detail with another. In addition to that the microbeads looked very artificial. It was time to follow my own advice and be bolder! 

I scraped away the microbeads and prised the Nurgling off the model. Then I took my Dremel and ground away all the detail of the wound to make a deeper recess. This was nerve-wracking work, and it made a horrible mess, covering the area in tiny plastic flecks that were very difficult to clean off the painted surfaces. But no pain no gain!

I decided to see how the model looked with a tentacle hanging out of the wound. This was a much bolder element than the skulls or Nurglings and it also tied in to the other tentacles on the model. A quick test fitting confirmed that this was a move in the right direction but I decided to add two tentacles because that was a little more dynamic than just one. I pre-painted and varnished the tentacles before I pinned and glued them into place. Next I had to deal with the wound and microbeads. 

I’ve covered the use of microbeads on this blog before and you can find my tutorial HERE. However as time has passed I’ve gained more experience with my technique and materials.

I still recommend applying the microbeads one at a time as this gives far more control over the final look. If you fill or cover an area with a mass of microbeads in one go the finished result can be formless and bland. Taking care with their placement will enable you to ‘sculpt’ with the microbeads and create some form and structure to your effect.

In my experience water effects is the best medium to fix your microbeads in place and bind them together; but it can also be mixed with a range of differing materials to tint it. Of course quantities used can be varied to adjust the finish but the examples bellow show my favourites. 

Water effects finished with a coat of gloss varnish will give a crystal clear finish.

To varnish or not is a big question because it can radically alter the final result of any water effects. I use Vallejo Still Water which dries to a clear shiny finish but that may change over time. I’ve noticed that over the course of a few days the finish will become a little duller and eventually take on a matt/frosted look. This may be a result of my products being out of date but it has eventually happened in all cases where I’ve not varnished over my water effects! 

However all is not lost because I quite like the frosted/translucent look. It’s an interesting and useful variation on the effect and the frosting doesn’t occur if the water effects have been varnished once they are dried. Where the frosting occurred and was unwanted it was easy enough to fix. I think the frosting is caused by humidity so I take a hairdryer and apply a gentle stream of warm air to the model. The frosting will disappear and the clear gloss finish will return before your eyes - like magic! It is then possible to apply a couple of coats of gloss varnish for a permanent fix. My preferred varnish for high gloss effects is Tamiya clear X-22.

The final update to my use of microbeads and water effects came as a direct result of how they looked on my Daemon Engine. I’ve always intended to feature a quantity of slime and goo on my new model, as it was a prominent feature of the old one. I felt that the semi-opaque look and more muted colour I get from using pigment powders was the way to go because I didn’t want my slime to be too bright and ‘cartoony’. But as soon as I started adding water effects and microbeads to this model it looked very artificial and didn’t feel like a part of the whole.

The solution was to apply some subtle red glazes over the green slime once it was dry. I usually build up a stronger red in deeper areas and along the top edges of my slime. This has the effect of toning down the slime and blending it into the surrounding areas. Even when it has been glossed over the slime now feels like a part of the whole scheme.

It’s time for a long overdue update! An interruption in my posting usually means that, for one reason or another, I’ve not been painting but that’s not the case this time! I’ve been happily painting away to a regular schedule and making steady progress. Quite simply when faced with a choice between painting and writing about painting I’ve opted for the former. 

I’ve already written about the physical challenges presented by this model and they haven’t lessened. However I’ve now become used to handling and painting a model of this size and I’m coping quite well with this aspect of the project. I think the greatest challenges remain the psychological ones! The scale and level of expectation for this project, both from others, and myself are through the roof.

However, in spite, or perhaps because, of these challenges I'm very happy with how my Tank is going at the moment! I've had so many ideas and options to consider that the project’s overall direction has been a bit open-ended. As I said in my last post, I've had to editing my ideas as I go. That’s involved making as many choices about what I’m not going to do as to what I am going to do! Because of this my vision for the paint scheme has become much clearer over the last month or so.

My experience of this project is unlike anything I’ve had since I returned to painting. I regularly feel that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew and this strongly reminds me of the years when I was first learning my craft! Although I have a wealth of experience to call on, I can’t take it for granted that I will succeed. This is because this work is truly challenging me and I’m having to work my very hardest to resolve every aspect of this project. All of this can only be a good thing and so far I’m loving (almost) every minute of it. I’m getting more satisfaction from my hobby than I’ve had for some time!

In my last post I’d just finished painting the arms. The next area I turned to was the top of the model where the neck, back and shoulders meet. This proved to be a far more complex job than I’d anticipated! This part of the model is a major junction between other areas and involves transitions between different forms, textures, tones and hues.

I’d initially considered painting the back, neck and shoulders with a dark green to create a counter shading effect similar to that on my plague bearers. I’ve retained an element of this but less pronounced than in my initial plans. My Tank is painted as though the light is hitting it from the top left. Broadly speaking there is a light (left) and a shade (right) side to the model. The upper back features the most obvious transition between them. In addition to the tonal transitions the hues on the shade side are cooler than those on the light side. 

Figuring out these transitions took a lot of going back and forth to adjust and balance all the factors but it was well worth the effort. With this area painted the separate areas I’d worked on previously are now connected and the paint scheme feels more unified and consistent. 

In the course of resolving this part of the model, I had to go back and adjust some of my earlier work. I’ve worked more of a purple hue into many of the shadows and strengthened the yellow/green hues in the mid-tone areas of the arms. Both of these changes were made by building up a series of controlled glazes over the appropriate areas. I fully expect to make further adjustments to my earlier work as the project progresses. I don’t consider any part of the model to be finished until the entire thing is finished.

I was then at the point where I needed to start addressing the boundaries between flesh and metal on my model. The upper area I had just painted is in contact with the large boiler/plate in the back of the model. The sides of the torso also connect with this area. When sculpting I’d decided to make a feature of this boundary and created an area of swollen bubbling flesh.

Coming soon…

To get re-started I decided to paint the bell, which I’d been keeping back for just such an occasion. The bell was perfect to paint as a sub-assembly and, as it features distinct areas of flesh and metal, was also perfect to help me get back up to speed with the colour palette and techniques I’m using on this model.

Although this model will feature a variety of non-metallic metal (NMM) effects the majority of my metal will be painted in bronze tones. Often used for bells, cannon and in ancient armour, bronze seemed like the perfect choice for a model that features all of these. It also works very well with my overall colour palette not least because of the opportunity it gives me to use cool green hues in the verdigris effects.

As with all metals the colour of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, will vary depending upon it’s exact composition, age and the conditions it’s been exposed to. Broadly speaking, bronze is a warm metallic hue along the lines of gold or brass; but slightly darker and browner than either, and less ‘orange’ than copper. In reality the colour bronze includes a wide range of tones and hues and can be achieved in many different ways.

So far I’ve painted two distinct areas of bronze on my model: the back plate (including the shoulder) and the bell. Although both areas use colours from the same overall palette they have been treated quite differently. 

The back plate.

The use of Ice Yellow was a little risky as my global highlight colour is Flayed One Flesh and the introduction of a new highlight colour could cause a colour clash with previously painted areas. However, Ice yellow has, compared to Flayed One Flesh, a cooler more saturated yellow hue that works very well for bronze.

The final result for the bell is a bronze colour that is cooler, more desaturated and with shadows that are more blackened than the back plate.

The base/shadow mix of Rhinox Hide, Boreal green and Black Leather that I’m using on this model is one that I’ve often used before due to it’s flexibility. The mix gives a surprisingly dark result that I like to think of as ‘almost black’ and I can easily shift the temperature and saturation of this colour by altering the mix. 

A page from my notebook comparing my 'almost black' Black Leather/Boreal Green mix with Black

I’ll be adding more areas of bronze as my paint scheme progresses and I’m looking forward to creating more variations of this colour.

After painting the bell I turned my attention to the hand holding it; and what I thought would be relatively simple proved to be quite a challenge. As I said earlier part of my reason for painting the bell was to help me to get back up to speed with the colour palette. And it’s a good thing too. I forgot that my base colour for the flesh tones was a mix of two parts Rakarth Flesh with one part each of Bugman’s Glow and Sahara Yellow. Instead I used only Rakarth Flesh and it made a massive difference! The flesh tones were all far too cool and I had to glaze a lot of warm tones over this to balance things out. I’m now happy with the hand although I will almost certainly adjust it a little more once I glue it into place on the model.

As I’ve said before with this model nothing is finished until it’s all finished!

So just when I though I’d be getting back into the swing of things, with a regular painting schedule, life had other ideas! We’d been planning some long-overdue house renovations (by long I mean 20 years!) and had scheduled them in for 2022. However the chance came to get the work done earlier and we took it. As a result our home was in complete upheaval, from October until mid-January, and there was no way on earth I could do any painting. Stressful as the disruption was it’s been great to finally get our bathroom and kitchen sorted and things are now getting back to normal, whatever that is.

The enforced hiatus has given me the opportunity to take stock and realise that I’ve undergone a big shift in attitude towards this project. Up until now I’ve been very focussed on getting the paint scheme for my Daemon Engine up and running. It’s been a sign of my uncertainty that I’ve concentrated on establishing the colours, textures, overall contrast and direction for the scheme but haven’t really looked beyond that.

Over the last month that has changed and I quite suddenly realised that I’ve now painted the bulk (no pun intended) of the flesh on this model. I have no firm idea of how long it will actually take to complete, but it feels like I’ve reached a sort of halfway point in the painting! I’m well aware that much of what remains to be done features fiddly mechanical details but I’ve most definitely moved forward into a new phase of the project.

When I started work on this project, back in February 2019, it was with the final model very much in mind. But as I’ve progressed, and especially since I’ve started painting, my thinking became more wrapped up with the process rather than the end goal. I think this was necessary because I needed to make a lot of decisions about what I was actually going to do with my scheme, but it did overwhelm my thinking.

With some major decisions made (I’m sure there are many more to come!) and considerable progress under my belt, I can now see my way ahead. So much so that I’ve started to work on a base for this model. The end of the project may be some way off but I think it’s a good time to start planning for it. The overall composition of this model and its base will make or break this project so there is no room for a last minute solution! I have plenty of time for planning and preparing a base and I fully intend to use it.

My thoughts on basing the model have greatly evolved over time. I’d thought of something quite large and elaborate, inspired by the type of basing you often see for historical tank kits. Thankfully I saw sense as that would have taken the project into diorama territory. What I now intend is to base the tank as though it were, and in many ways it is, a character model.

I’m not going to say too much about my basing plans until later in the project. But I must say a huge ‘thank you’ to Byron Orde who, through the course of a general discussion about basing, helped me to clarify my ideas. However, Byron went above and beyond that with some significant practical help towards getting this model onto the right base. I don’t like to blow my own trumpet but, with the help I’ve had from Byron, and if I can pull off all my plans, it’s going to be epic!

But all of that is in the future and for the moment I need to crack on with painting. I will go into more detail in my next posting but for the time being I will bring things up-to-date with a summary.

Back in October I painted the large horns on the Daemon’s head. This was straightforward but very fiddly. I then moved onto the mechanical left hand and arm. I’d made a good start on these when everything ground to a halt. 

At the end of February I was able to pick up my brushes again but decided not to go straight back to the hand. I decided to paint a sub-assembly to help me get back into the swing of things. For this I chose to paint the large chimney which I first had to detach from the model! This was not a fun job but well worth the bother as the chimney was much easier to paint as a separate element. 

With the chimney painted, I’ve now returned to painting the mechanical hand and arm.

It's done!!!

It’s been an intense few months of preparation and painting but I’ve finished my Daemon Engine in time for Golden Demon UK 2022, which is now upon us! I’m very proud of how this project has turned out because I’ve done the very best I can. It has been a brilliant experience but it’s now out of my hands and into the GD cabinet for judging. Fingers crossed!

So it’s time to reveal the finished Tank in its entirety. 

My planned pre-GD blog updates fell by the wayside. Once I’m back home and the GD dust has settled, I will upload a series of posts detailing the stages of this project to its completion.

The End is Nigh!

It will come as a great surprise to anyone if I state that a lot has happened since I last posted regularly on this blog! Not least the long anticipated return of Golden Demon UK at Warhammer World on October 1 & 2. I posted some finished pics here during the weekend of the competion but it’s time to indulge in a little time travel as I bring things up to date.

For some time my gut feeling was that I’d finish the Daemon Engine this year but there’s nothing like a deadline to boost momentum! I felt that, with some effort, the October deadline might be achievable so I decided to go for it. The last few months have seen some adrenaline fueled painting and I now feel more confident about that deadline. Things have been coming together well and the end is in sight!

As I move towards the closing stages of a project I usually create a checklist of things to do. This helps me to keep focused, stay on target and avoid missing anything out in a rush to get finished. It’s been especially useful this time around as there have been many steps to complete. In my next few posts I’ll describe that list of jobs in the order I did them.

Finish the mecha arm.

This arm has been the most physically difficult area of the model to paint so far! In retrospect, I wish I had found a way to paint the arm as a sub-assembly, which would have made things a lot easier. 

However, the more interesting problem was to address the transitions between areas of flesh and metal. The arm came from the Forge Fiend kit and as such already depicted a union of monster and machine. This was a good starting point. I especially liked the hand as it matched the size of the fleshy hand holding the bell. However, some of the fleshy parts of the arm lacked the definition and texture that I wanted. I built up these areas with a combination of greenstuff, texture paste and microbeads. This had the additional benefit of helping to integrate the arm with the overall scheme by the use of common textures. This applied most especially to the bubbly/blistered texture I’d added elsewhere.

The next task was to address the stump out of which the mechanical arm protruded. Microbeads (of course) provided much of the texture, but I wanted something more. I wanted to create a semi liquid, ragged texture, as if the flesh was in the process of flowing into a new form. My greatest inspiration for this was the writing of Michael Moorcock, and most especially ‘Stormbringer’, which has had a huge influence on how I see the forces of Chaos and their effects. To create the flowing flesh, I used a variation of the cotton wool and water effects splash effect (shown HERE). In this case, however, I used a PVA glue and paint mix instead of water effects. 

I was very pleased with the final effect but the overall look of the arm didn’t feel right to me. After some thought I decided that I needed more metal and machine parts in proportion to the fleshy parts. Taking my nerves in hand, I clipped off the large green tentacle (I was to later use it elsewhere) and added the spikey guard rail from the Plague Burst Crawler. It was a nasty job but I was much happier with the arm once it was done!

Paint the sides of the tank.

I regarded the sides of the tank as three distinct areas: the side panels, the tracks and the entropy cannon. The side panels are especially significant because it was here I wanted to create a major transition between flesh and metal.

I’d decided upon the colours for this transition as a part of my ongoing work. The fleshy parts of the side panels were to be a deep green, transitioning from the lighter green upper parts. I felt that a flashy NMM effect would be inappropriate for the metal parts. So I used a brown hue inspired by patinated bronze. This was the same treatment I’d used on the ‘boiler’ at the back of the tank. It is a colour that contrasts with the green but not in a way that draws the eye away from the focal points of the model.

The transition is created through the use of a freehand texture. This was based upon the painted texture of the upper flesh areas, so it felt like a part of the overall scheme. I’d not been looking forward to painting this transition but, by the time I came to do it, things had become fairly straightforward. All my choices had been made as an on-going part of the project’s evolution, so I was able to focus on executing them rather than worrying about what to do! All in all this was one of the faster parts of the paint scheme to complete. 

Now I could paint the tracks. Once again my choices were informed by my earlier decisions. I kept the scheme for this area fairly simple. I painted the tracks and all the associated wheels, gears and general gubbins in the same dull grey NMM I’d used elsewhere. This would contrast with the adjacent parts of the model but fit in with the overall scheme. I had some plans for adding lots of mud and dirt but decided against this. As things have progressed, I’ve been editing my plans as it is easy to go OTT with this project. There is already a lot going on with the overall scheme. 

Rather than adding heavy layers of dirt, I painted some fairly subtle rust effects and blended them into the brown shadows to give a grimy feel. My global shade colour is Black Leather from Scale Colour which helped with this a great deal. I am particularly fond of shading cool or neutral greys with brown hues. As always, the photographs I took for lighting reference were extremely useful when it came to placing my highlights and shadows!

The final job for this overall area was to paint the two entropy cannons. These were painted as sub-assemblies and provided a nice little sub-project. 

The sides of the tank were the last significant areas of the tank to be painted.

The remaining work consists mostly of finishing things off and bringing together previously painted sub-assemblies.

The End is Nigh - Part 2.

Fix the hand holding the bell into place.

This was a far more straightforward process than the mecha arm. I simply glued the bell hand in place with plastic glue. Once that had set, I filled the seam with dilute PVA and then retouched the paintwork. This felt like an enormously significant step as I was finally adding the sub-assemblies to the model. At long last it was all coming together!

Fix the chimneys back into place.

Now things really started to near completion as the re-addition of the chimneys would complete the model’s silhouette. I’d removed the chimneys earlier to make them easier to paint and I’d expected their reattachment to be a tricky process. In the end it went very smoothly. The chimneys were pinned, then glued back into position, leaving relatively minor seams to cover. For the smaller chimney, there was a matter of adding some corrosion over the join. A little corrosion can hide a multitude of sins! 

For the larger chimney, I had to re-sculpt some of the bubbly flesh texture over the join and then fill some hairline cracks with dilute PVA. I also added a few bony spines to this. Overall I’m very happy with the result. In fact, I think this area works better than it did before I removed the chimneys! Painting this area was a matter of matching up the colours to my existing scheme.

I was now finally able to add a long planned feature to the model. Some time ago I decided that I wanted coarse bristles sprouting from the Daemon’s back and shoulders. I’ve used grass tufts and paintbrush bristles to create similar effects in the past. 

My first attempt, using grass tufts, was an instant fail! The ‘hair’ looked too fluffy. Fluffy is not what we want or expect from Nurgle! For ‘plan B’ I used false eyelashes for the hairs which have a curve to them and taper to a point. They proved to be perfect. I cut them into small clusters, or individual hairs, and glued them into place with PVA. Once again this was tricky work but the final effect is exactly what I wanted!

4. Painting the Tentacles

I’ve a notebook with seven years worth of ideas written down for this project. As my plans developed and changed I kept notes to make sure nothing was forgotten. But, by the time I started painting, there were far to many, sometimes conflicting, plans for one project. Much of my decision making has been around which ideas to implement and which to reject. As the scheme developed the process of editing my plans became easier.

The tentacles are an example of the ‘less is more’ approach I’ve taken in the later stages of this project. I’d initially envisioned them as a larger version of the tentacles on Gutrot Spume, complete with stripes and dripping slime. But I felt that the stripes would bring an unnecessary new element to the scheme which would make the tentacles stand out from the rest of the model in an unsatisfactory way. 

Rather than stripes, I’ve painted the same freehand texture as used on the sides and back of the model. This adds interest to the tentacles but ties them in to the overall scheme. I’ve used colour to make them pop against the rest of the model. Starting from green hues at the base they graduate through a pinkish flesh tone to blue tips. The blue is my old favorite Bering Blue, which I’ve used throughout the scheme. It’s at its most obvious on the tentacle tips.

5. Add drool.

I rejected the idea of slime dripping from the tentacles as being just too much! This also applied to most of my plans for adding extra slime and goo to the model. My tank from 1990 has a liberal application of slime made from PVE glue and then painted. I strongly felt that I already had enough slime and goo on my new model and any more would begin to dominate the painting.

But there was one area where I very much wanted to break out the microbeads and water effects. This was the mouth (the one in the Daemon’s head) where I felt the addition of drool would be beneficial. The mouth was one of the very first areas I painted and its been a long wait to be able to finish it! 

I decided to focus the effect to one side of the mouth rather than filling the jaws with stringy drool. This was done with that old favorite UHU glue. Once the glue had set (it goes rubbery rather than hard) I built up several layers of water effects and microbeads. Once dry I gave it three coats of gloss varnish.

In the final of these updates I’ll describe how I made and painted the base for my Daemon Engine.