Horus The Warmaster: Part 3

Ok, here it is, part 3. You can find Part 1 and Part 2 here respectively. This was a long and painful process, but in the good way like going for a run, you hate it during, but after you feel good/fat/slow. All up it took me about 10 hours to do the entire model, which is saying something as I am known around my friends as a bit of a speed painter. I also have been told I take shortcuts, and I suppose I do, however my shortcuts come from years of painting experience, where I pre-plan a miniature for ages before I commit paint to mini. An example of this is Lorgar. I haven't touched him yet, but I already have 90% of the paints picked out to use, and I know the colours I want for each area already. This will save me a lot of time and experimenting later.

Well, that's enough from me I suppose, I guess I had best crack on with what everyone came to see, Horus, The Warmaster.

So that's it, Horus Lupercal, The Warmaster. If you have any questions, or you want to soul-suckingly tear down my techniques, feel free to comment below.

~Macca

Horus The Warmaster: Part 2

Ok, part 2, lets get straight into it. You will have to bare with me, as this post jumps around a little, I could have edited it, but you might gains some insight from my madness when you see the order I paint in. Or go mad yourself. Either way.

I have a few paints here from Minitaire. These are nice paints to work with, and are advertised as good to use straight from the bottle. They actually need a slight bit of thinning in my experience, but, otherwise, they are very friendly. Anyhow, I primed the base components in the same way as Horus himself, a spatter with the primer can to give me that nice surface texture.

 First up, I used this beautiful colour called Rugged Skin. This colour also worked as my basecoat for the face, so win win. I then mixed a little Tamiya brown into the airbrush in order to create some darker patches. After the darker areas, I emptied and cleaned the airbrush, before moving to a pale pink tone, which I liberally applied. The aim here is that I want a nice pink marble, as I felt white would contrast too much with Horus himself. As marble is a collage of colour tones, this worked well.

Putting aside the base for the moment, I moved onto the cloak whilst the base dried. I did just two colours here, both Minitaire reds. The high points were coated brightly, whilst the low points were coated just enough to give them some colour. This automatically added depth to the cloak and saved on a lot of freehand work later.

Cloak aside, I jumped back into the base. I now mixed Tamiya XF-1 Flat Black with a tiny bit of Fenris Grey in order to paint the marble veins. The blue ever so softly dilutes the black and contrasts well with the pink marble. The important things to remember are a) don't over-vein, and b) on single pieces of marble, all veins go the same rough direction. After this stage, a thin wash made of Devlan Mud was applied all over. (not shown)

I now attached the cloak, and tidied up the metal work on Horus. At this stage, I could start to see my iffy choices in colours coming together. I also took this opportunity to do the small lens and viewfinder on the upper left of the torso armour.

After the first wash, I then picked out all the shoulder pads and steel girders on the base. I then applied some Secret Weapon weathering powder mixed with water, and used it to rust up the girders and blend them into the base, as silver stuck out like Justin Beiber at a  Slayer concert. I then washed then entire base twice with very thin Reikland Fleshshade. I had to go very thin, as GW washes have a nasty habit now of drying in a kind of milky or frosted way. This has to do with the pigment sinking to the lowest part of the wash, and frankly, it's fucking shit. Avoid avoid avoid heavy coats.

Ok, now back to Horus. I used just two colours to paint the wolf fur. I mixed Army Painter Wolf Grey (ironically) and Tamiya XF-1 Flat Black together, continuously adding more grey and very patiently working on the fur.

I also painted the face at this time, however, as I was wet-blending I had to move really fast, lest my paint dried, so I didn't take any WIP shots. I used only Elf Flesh and Ceramite White to do the face, in case you were wondering.

Ok, whilst you weren't looking, I attached Horus to his base. I mixed up a small amount of oil paint and No.1 medium, as you can see, this wouldn't even fill the underside of a 25mm round base. You can also see the small particles of oil in the mix as I was still mixing the oil at the time of taking this photo. The mix isn't strong, and you can tell by the speed of the colour fade. I simply then used an old fine detail brush to apply the wash all over. Now, when I say all over, I mean not like a dip or a kid with a tank brush, I mean I sat there for 45 minutes gently teasing the oil exactly into the locations I wanted it, namely all around the brasswork, the Pturges, and any exposed metal.

That's all, I have to give him 24 hours for the oils to dry, which means that the day after you see this, you'll get to see the finished model. Thanks as always for having a look, Macca

Horus The Warmaster: Part 1

 Ok guys, bear with me cos' this is a big one.

I got home from work yesterday to find this on my doorstep. Ding ding ding! I love reading the Master Minis blogs, so when the Painting Buddha said they were releasing several tutorial DVD's, I scooped them up. Why? Well, I'm not QUITE arrogant enough to think I can't learn something new, and the techniques in these are very European (pastel finishes, NMM etc).

The important part of course was the other two boxes. One of them contained the Warmaster himself.

So, Horus is BIG. I was surprised, I knew he was big, but as Angron was the only other Primarch I owned, due to his pose I was unsure as to scale. Well, here it is.

Resin Prep.

To start with, I  kept him on his little casting base. This gives me something to hold on to, and also lets me sit him down flat when I'm letting him dry without the risk of snapping a toothpick. Now, the key with resin work is that you HAVE to clean it. I use the old warm soapy water, but it is important to remember that due to the porous nature of some resins, the releasing agent can be very hard to shift. If that is the case, don't be too worried, but do invest in a good primer. I like Tamiya ones, but there are a lot out there. The trick, as here, is to not try for a solid coat. You want to have a slight spatter quality, as this provides miniscule surface texture, which future paints will easily adhere to.

Although I cover the base in part 2, I would like to point out some basic things I did here. I have drilled a tiny hole into the base, and placed a 2mm magnet into it, as there is a small rock which hides Horus' base and it just sorta loosely sits there. I thus marked the rock with a small black texta mark, before drilling and magnetising it. This is important prior to painting as I love test fitting. Too many times have I been stung by models which don't fit correctly after I've painted them (1990's daemon princes and chaos knights, arrrrgghhhh!)

 Putting on paint.

First up, I applied a chaos black spray coat over the primer to get my dark base. Over this, I hand painted a 50/50 mix of Orkhide Shade and Stegadon Scale Green. From here, I did a coat of just Stegadon Scale Green which all but covered the previous layer. I also put a small drop of red on the 'Horus eyes' in order to remind me I didn't need to do them green.

 Next, I applied a 50/50 mix of Sotek Green and Stegadon Scale Green in a wet blend. As you can see, the contrast is there straight away (view the chest and abdomen in the first image). From here on, I went to just Sotek Green, 50/50 Sotek Green and Temple Guard Blue, followed by just Temple Guard Blue. To achieve my blends, I am using a wet palette, and I thin until I get a consistency similar to full cream milk.

Once the blues/greens were done, I then started my metallics. I applied silver to the shins, as I wanted to treat them like and embossed metal fresco. I then focused on my golds, with both Balthasar Gold and Auric Gold providing me with me rich bronze/golds.

At this point, Horus had his 'eyes' painted. This was a simple wet blend from Wazdakka Red through Evil Sunz Scarlett, Blazing Orange and finally Sunburst Yellow (yes,I have paints from like 2002 and some still work. Best one is Mithril Silver. Also, Keepy has a bunch of Chessnut Ink which I think he's saving to go on Antiques Roadshow when they mature).

So, at this point, I applied a base of Wazdakka Red on the Pturges (red flappy leather straps). Of course, people at this point saw some of my WIP shots and decided they didn't like blue Horus. Maybe it was really Alpharius, who knows? However, I will let you in on the choice, I chose blues as greens are hard to dilute and highlight without them turning grey. Thus, I stuck with blues which were not far removed from greens, and applied two or three very thin washes of Thraka Green. This then gave me the lovely rich Sons of Horus green I sought.

From here, I then used the same red highlighting I used on the eyes, without going any further then a 50/50 mix of Evil Sunz and Blazing Orange. This now gave me strong highlights on the Pturges.

So, that's it for part one, be sure to tune in for part two, as I cover the marble base, his face and cloak. I'm afraid you'll have to wait until part 3 to see the finished model however.

Thanks for sticking with me, Macca.