PAINTING: Mantis Stalk Tank finally finished!

The beast is here!

I've been working on and off, mostly off, on my Praying Mantis Stalk Tank since March last year and I've just finished it today. I've put a Khorne Berzerker in the photos so you can see the scale.

In my last update back in December I had blocked in the main colours; the gold and silver metallics, the red armour plates and the black. There were still lots of fiddly little details to complete.


A good example is the piping on the legs, neck and head. I painted all the piping a dark green colour as I wanted it to look functional and because there was so much of it on the model I didn't want it to stand out too much.

I went for a bright, industrial yellow on all the flamer canisters. This was Iyanden Darksun (god bless the foundation paints for painting yellow) and then a couple of Bad Moon Yellow layers. I then washed Devlan Mud liberally over the canisters.

I found the decaying corpse difficult to paint because the detail was a little muddy on the model and I couldn't tell what was supposed to be flesh, bone or hair. Still, I eventually got some Charadon Granite, Adeptus Battlegrey and Astronomican Grey on the bones in successive layers. Some Badab Black pulled them together.

I used Tallarn Flesh on the skin, mixed with some Rotting Flesh for that unhealthy green tinge. I mixed in more Elf Flesh for later layers. Then I washed the lot with Ogryn Flesh. When that had dried I added spot washes of Thraka Green and Baal Red. The intestines were painted Mechrite Red and had some Elf Grey highlights. A couple of Baal Red washes again pulled the layers together.

The rope is Khemri Brown followed by Bleached Bone and then a Devlan Mud wash.

Every time I turned the model I found some details I had previously missed. All the spikes had heads, helmets and skulls impaled upon them. I painted all the skulls with the same bone recipe as I used on the corpse. The Necron head (why doesn't this just phase out?) got a wash of Asurmen Blue over drybushed silver and I called it done.

The Tau helmet was painted Hormagaunt Purple and then highlighted with Warlock Purple. A little tentacle Pink was added to edge the helmet. I washed it with Leviathan Purple and then tidied up the gaps between the plates with some Chaos Black.

The eye lens I painted Orkhide Shade then Snot Green. I washed the eye with Thraka Green. I added a line of Scorpion Green at the bottom of each part of the lens then a white reflection on the top.
The daemonic face was painted with the same palette as the corpse. The eyes are pure Rotting Flesh.

You can see the weathering I did on the red armour plates in this photograph. It was a tip I picked up from the Imperial Armour Modelling Masterclass book from Forge World. I got a sponge from a blister pack and tapped it in some Boltgun Metal. I then lightly dabbed this on the plates to make it look like the red paint had been scrubbed off so the metal underneath was showing. The advantage to this technique is that the sponge leaves tiny, tiny flecks of paint in a random pattern which you could never achieve with a paintbrush.

It's probably not clear from this photo but the whole model sits well off the table on its four legs. It is very back heavy and I was initially concerned that the battlecannon, which is mounted underneath the Mantis on the abdomen, would be dragging along the ground, but the paint on the leg balls and sockets has kept everything nice and tight.

To give a further idea to the size of the model I dug out my other Superheavy, my Baneblade, and took a photo of the two together. As you can see the Praying Mantis is far bigger than a Defiler and easily matches up against the Guard tank. I can't wait to have an Apocalypse game with these two monsters facing off against each other.

Painting points = 20
Total painting points for 2009 = 20

I know I painted a lot of this model in 2008 but in last years' total I also included several Chaos models which I had started in 2007. The rule is that the model counts for the year it is finished.