I'm really proud of my transports. They look different to everyone else's, they fit my fluff, they look cool and to get them looking the way they do I had to overcome some creative challenges.
The one above is older and having just completed a razorback I realise I have to go back and do some more highlighting. And looking at this photo as I write this I realise that I still need to do the muddy wheels on the new razorback. Dang it! Before all that though let's just talk about a few things...
The main reason my tanks look the way they do is because I felt that the stock Rhino chassis just looked shit painted all black or all steel. I needed something to break up all those flat panels and give me some texture to work with. After scouring the internet for a week or two I stumbled on stowage, which doesn't work perfectly with black but does a bloody good job. So all my guys are covered in stowage.
Tamiya makes great WW2 stowage kits. Some of the contents is redundant, but a lot of it is perfect for 40K imperium - things like lockers, crates, sacks and stuff like that.
I also use stuff from the Ravenwing kits - saddlebags hang nicely off the back of edges of the roof and the big angels and flowing purity seals break up the side panels really nicely where I'd have trouble affixing bags in a realistic looking manner.
Finally, I bring in a few items occasionally from the scout kit and tank bits like genestealer heads, spare bolters and hunter killer missiles.
For the painting I start by spraying everything black, then I basecoat anything that would be made of leather in mournfang brown, anything that would be made of some kind of cloth in tallarn flesh and anything that I want to look stoney in mechanicus standard grey.
On the leather stuff I then wash brown, drybrush mournfang and then drybrush snakebite leather. On the sacs I wash brown, drybrush tallarn then drybrush karak stone then wash yellow and then drybrush karak stone again.
The stone stuff I usually just drybrush codex grey and fortress grey and then wash it, but on this razorback I just painting those two colours progressively closer to the edges.
The most important steps are the ones that would be critical even if you didn't have stowage - edge highlighting. I start by mixing black and dark grey 2:1 or thereabouts and painting it onto the flat panels that would catch light, leaving pure black in quite thick slabs in recesses.
Then I get a sponge and sponge dark grey onto raised areas. The sponging mutes the colour and makes it much more shadowy. If I had a spray gun I would use that, but in my small painting space the sponge will have to do.
Then I get a thick brush and do a rough edge highlight in dark grey going over all the 90 corners.
Finally I get codex grey and a very thin brush and put another edge highlight onto bits that I think would definitely catch light.
This step by step gradations give the black box a bit of depth that makes it stand out on the tabletop and helps to make the details, like all the stowage, stand out better as well.
Remember to varnish! Matt varnish acts weirdly like an ink and makes contrast more pronounced. Be aware that it will dull bright spots though - good for these tanks, not so great for orks.
No comments:
Post a Comment