PAINTING: Blood for the Blood God!

All good things must come to an end and after a good few blogging days I hit the wall. My pre-Christmas fitness regime is taking it's toll, work has been hectic and I feel like I'm coming down with a cold. Harrumph.

Nevertheless, I managed to scrape some gaming time together yesterday and settled in to do some serious painting. I put the Blood Angels to one side to concentrate on my Brass Scorpion conversion.

The first thing I did was slap some Mechrite Red onto the armour plates.

I built up the red with Red Gore mixed with Blood Red. I didn't want to have the bright, clean red I have on my Blood Angels so I washed the surfaces with Gryphonne Sepia. Looking at the photographs now it is clear that I need to highlight the hard red edges to make them 'pop.'

I was planning to stop there as I had a battle report to write up but I pressed on, trying to make some significant progress on the model.

My next task was to highlight all the black parts. This wasn't going to be a traditional grey highlight - I wanted something more sinister and degraded.

Instead I took some Chainmail and dabbed it on all the hard edges. I was trying to simulate wear and tear. This Mantis stalk tank has been in a few skirmishes already.


What a long and tedious job it was! I couldn't believe just how much detail there was and the sheer surface area I had to cover.

The end result was worth it, though. All that detail, which was previously just lost in matte black paint, leaps out.

The model is now at the stage where I'd be willing to play it in a game - all the main blocks of colour are done - but there are loads of little details that are still to be painted. You might be able to spot them in the photographs, things like the stablight eye, the cabling, the trophy poles and further weathering.

Still, I've achieved a lot and the end is in sight. I'm really tempted to forget all about my Blood Angels for now (knowing that I have the Death Company and Chaplain up my sleeve from last month) and go full steam ahead to finish my super-heavy. There's a balance to be had from simply getting the model done and getting it done well - after all it is the biggest and most comprehensive conversion I've ever done.