PAINTING: Baneblade rolls off the production line!

The behemoth is finished.

I was supposed to be playing Blood Bowl with Gary last night but work interfered and he couldn't make it. That gave me the opportunity to complete my Baneblade.

I had already painted the hull and repainted the weapons and tracks black. I went over everything metallic with Boltgun Metal then washed it with Black Ink. Then I highlighted the black on the weapons and fuel holders with Charadon Granite.

I really enjoyed painting all the lenses and lights. I chose a red base colour for the lights and blue for the vision lenses. The searchlight was blended from Mechrite Red through Blood Red right up
to Fiery Orange. I feel like I'm 'getting my eye' in with the gradation of colours and subtle painting effects now, having had a bit more practice in the past few weeks.

I've also deliberately gone out of my way to try the Foundation paints and I'm liking them a lot. For the blue vision lenses I started with Necron Abyss, mixed in some Mordian Blue and ended up with Ice Blue highlights. I'm really looking forward to getting some gloss varnish on these bad boys.

It was only when I came to paint the fuel tanks that I discovered I had stuck one set on upside down. Ooops. Still, it's a very minor detail that no-one will spot. Will they?

I spent a bit of time on the exhausts to make them look like they have had some use. I dribbled some Chestnut Ink on there then, when it had dried, I drybrushed some Chaos Black on the ends. I kept the shrine fairly simple with a Boltgun Metal drybrush. I picked out the skulls and figure with Tin Bitz, Brazen Brass and Burnished Gold and then completed the purity seals using Dheneb Stone and Calthan Brown.

You can see how much weathering I added to the tank on the close up of the Baneblade rear and on the sides of the tank. Stuff like this adds so much character to the tank it is well worth the extra work. I drybrushed Calthan Brown around the tracks and bottom half to show dried dirt, then went for Scorched Brown over the top to represent recently churned up mud. I used an old brush to flick Brown Ink all up the sides and bottom of the Baneblade to add yet another layer of grime. The final touch was to add a few clumps of static grass to represent clods of earth trapped in the tracks.

Last but not least I had to name the Baneblade. Normally I'm great at this sort of thing but I had a real mental block this time. I Eventually settled on Gladiator and painted it on the name plaque. It didn't look right; both the name itself and the way I had painted it. I painted the name out and had another ponder. Next I chose Goliath and carefully painted that in. It still looked pants. I also discovered that my Basilisk was named Goliath. Again I painted the name away.

In desperation I searched through all my old transfer sheets and found Justus Extremis. I liked the font and the name seemed to have some gravitas so I went with that.

Justus Extremis. That'll do.

Now I need to come up with a history for it and get it out onto the Apocalypse battlefield!