Abaddon the Despoiler (WIP)

[Immortan]

Hi guys,

first of all I would like to thank everyone on this forum for sharing their pics, wips and experiences.
As a silent follower of this forum your posts helped me getting motivated again and to actually start a wip by myself. Enjoy!


I picked Abaddon as my very first WIP project.



First I tried to get rid of all the mold lines which took me atleast ten hours. After all cleaned up I started to build the base.
As I want Abaddon to stand out a bit more I raised his base for 2mm by gluing 2 x 1mm plastic sheet circles onto it.
Then I glued the original base onto the sheets and used Vallejo's White Stone paste to smooth the height transition towards the rim of the base.
After the paste was dry I took a dremel tool and carved the landscape with a hill on a battlefield in mind.
Finally I textured the whole base with AK Interactives Muddy Ground and Splatter Effects Dirt. I put alot of it around the Marine to
make him look more sunken into the ground. The base is still not finished as I'm trying to figure out what color to use.



Abaddon himself is actually straight forward to build, and so did I. I used his masked face only to realise that I like his screaming face more.
I couldnt get his face off again so I had to dremel it off. This is normally the point where I leave a model and put it on my big pile of shame.
But not this time. I took the screaming face and aligned it as good as I could and glued it on what was left of his head.
I used some Magic sculpt and filled all the gaps and tried to remodel his neck muscle. As I had to fill many holes and gaps on his head I thought
I could try to do some customization. When I think of Abaddon I alaways have that picture on my mind with lots of tubes around and in his head,
and as there are 4 holes in his armor behind his head, i got the idea of connecting the holes with his head by using copper wire.
So I drilled 4 holes into his back of the head and 4 into his armor. I used super glue bond the copper wire with his head and then bended them
to fit into the holes. That was a pita job to aligne all 4 but i got it. Now all parts are waiting to get degreased and primed.



I want to paint him in subassemblies so it looks a bit messy but all goes on pretty easily after dry building and figuring out the order.


So long that's it for now.
I hope you enjoyed reading and your opinions and feedback are welcome.

Regards

[ten ball]

Great details on the prep, look forward to next stages

[SaintToad]

​Welcome. I'm looking forward to this big project.

[Immortan]

Hello again and thx for your interest.

Small update:
Over the last few days I degreased and primed all parts and they are now ready to be painted.
I must admit that I had a few problems. Dust was constantly getting onto the parts I was priming, not much but enough to make the priming process less enjoyable.
I also had to correct the Talon of Horus as after priming some sort of mold lines appeared I hadn't removed properly. The bolters also got revised, a bit more extensively.

After inspecting the primed bolters I saw that I've made a mistake. As I wanted to paint all details properly, by gluing the bolters together I wouldn't be able to reach the inner side
of the ammo belts. So i took out a thin saw and seperated them again. In the picture you can see that I also worked on the cartridges. With the saw and sandpaper I removed the plastic
between the bullets to seperate them more visually.



That's it for now. Next update should include some painting hopefully.

Regards

[ekipage]

Hey, at least you caught it before painting! That usually happens to me. Looking forward to seeing your interpretation of Abaddon

[Immortan]

@ ekipage

I find using black primer makes it even harder to see small dust particles as they blend in well and are only visible if the light hits 'em from certain angles, especially the tiny ones.

[Immortan]

Hi all,

let me introduce you Bob. Bob is a Primaris Space Marine who has been relegated to be a dummy for my painting exercises.



I am in terms of practically painting a miniature a newb, everything I know is from watching video How To's and articles and reading in forums like this great one.
I dont know why but I've built many miniatures but did not have the bravery to paint 'em. That was also a reason why I started this wip, to get my first miniature painted.
Bob will assist me with this project practically, and you guys hopefully theoretically but I'm sure you will.

So, before I slap on paint on Abaddon I will try it on Bob first. You can see that I've painted his shoulder trim golden, which was a 1:1 mix of Scale75's Black Metal and Elven Gold.
I wanted to achieve a desaturated lighter gold for Abaddon and tested many mixes of more so metallic paints. I shaded it with glazes of Vallejo MC Black and stippled after that
the gold mix onto the shaded area but lesser towards the deepest shade. How do you like it?

Below the shoulder pad I tested how to highlight black armor. I did not highlight up to pure white as I dont want the armor to be NMM like reflective.
Scale75's Graphene Gray was used by layering and then glazing for the highlight. I actually have no idea where to exactly put the highlights so this was done by feeling.
I edge higlighted his arm parts with different colored dots instead of straight lines to give it a worn and not so clean look and added some scratches of a lighter Graphene Gray mix and VMC Black.
I do have to admit that I'm quite pleased with my first try. What do you guys think, what could I improve?

Regards

[Kuribo]

I really like the attention to detail here! It never hurts when you're trying to paint at a high level to be slow and methodical. I think Bob is looking very good and I'm impressed for someone who describes themselves as a noob to be painting so well. Black is a pretty tough color and what you're doing so far looks convincing to my eyes, especially the cracks in the armor. I'd say keep it up with Bob and post plenty of updates for us to see

[Hairster]

Always a great idea to do some test work before a big project...looks like it paid off as well...nice start on that armour plate wear n tear.

My only though would be to ensure there is a dark line to the scratches as well, ideally your scratches would be initially painted in a dark like, then using the brighter tone pick out the bottom edge of the line.

Assuming your light source was from over head this then represents how the light would pick up the sharp upward facing edge of the scratch.

You can also use a more defined spot of highlight on any edges where the scratch meets the outer edge of an armour plate.

[Immortan]

Hi, thx for the nice words.

@Kuribo
I try to translate the theory into practice but without the experience . Most of the really good miniature painters have said atleast once in their videos that its better to plan ahead.
They have the experience and knowledge of most of their paints they are using, like how they will look once dry, how they blend and what they have to do to achieve the look they are aiming for.
And I'm sure they all had a Bob or Bob's when they started getting more serious with our hobby.

@Hairster
There is a black line if you look closely. I painted the crack/scratch highlight first and then above it I stippled a black line so that the highlight edge has variety in thickness.
But yeah it's hard to see as I left most of the armor black. I was thinking about adding a lighter black midtone and leaving pure black only for the deepest/bottom facing armor parts.
I think I will try it and see if I can manage it without turning the armor too much into grey.

Regards and thx for your comments