Phoenix Myrmidon Wip

[adam dup]

SO I'm painting up the Phoenix kindly donated to me by a friend at my local gaming club. I have stripped it, removed the shoulder pads and arms and ended with this (he used the hydra arms instead of the phoenix's):

Now what I am going for is actually inspired by Giganticdark completely unreal forgeworld space marine.

However PP also did a great demo of this in a No Quarter magazine and that is where I have recieved the inspiration for what I will do with the shoulderpads.

Salt weathering is the name of the game! I'll also be using some pigment weathering techniques and a resin cast base from back to bas-ix. All my Retribution models will be based on these.

So first step after stripping was giving it a quick scrub and removing a couple of extra mould lines (though there are still some left as this is kinda my practice model and I can't be bothered removing all of them! Plus the guy I got it off left his fingerpint in superglue on the top of the hull so yeah.)

I then primed the model with VMA Grey Primer using my airbrush:

Then I went to bed! Sorry about the bad lighting in those two picks, there isn't much detail anyway!

This morning I got back to it. Step Three was deciding on the basecoat to be used. This is effectively what the chipped paint has revealed. I toyed around with a few red and black mixes (the colour I wanted to use was the one Giganticdark used, however I'm awaiting some extra paints to be able to mix that.) not liking any of those I settled on gw boltgun metal thinned 50/50 with Vallejo Thinner and with 5 drops of VMA Black (ratio was probably 8:1 BGM to Black). I figured if it didn't look worn enough that was what Devlan Mud was for! Applied vie trusty airbrush this was the result:

Close Up:

And then I had to go to work!

So I have been sitting at my desk letting my muscles atrophy and thinking about the phoenix I'm gunna keep working on when I get home. The undercoat is nice but I want a more random effect to come up for the weathering. I will give it a heavy devlan mud wash. When that is dry I will sponge over some VGC charred brown.

 

[tonyzahn]

The airbrushed silver looks really smooth. One of these days I'll have to try my hand at airbrushing.

 

[adam dup]

It is so lovely and smooth get on to ebay! My set up (compressor and two airbrush's) cost me less than $200 aud!!

I have just removed the salt, will post pics tomorrow when there is good light!

 

[adam dup]

Righto so I let this drift for a while! I have been working on the Phoenix, just to busy to post!

So next step was to improve the undercoat, give it a more weathered look. I decided not to go with devlan mud and just sponged charred brown over the entire body.

Example on a shoulderpad:

Salt had to be applied to the body next. I used sea salt, crushed to give differing sizes. Sprayed each area with hair spray and sprinkled on the various areas.

full shot:

Shoulder close up:

So with the salt added I needed to let it dry to allow for a good seal. I then applied my desired colour using a three stage zenithal highlight. It's hard to see in the photos (and I need to practise it more!) But I started with VGC Ghost Grey. Then a 1:1 VGC Ghost Grey and VMA White mix. Finally VMA White

Full model:

Arms close up:

Ok so next step was to remove the salt. I stuffed up here in two ways. 1. I should have let the model dry overnight 2. I shouldn't have used a toothbrush to remove the salt (it has been suggested to me to use a cheap, stiff pony hair brush which I will do infuture)

Result:

full body:

Shoulder pad A:

Shoulder pad B:

As you can see the toothbrush was a bit rough and removed too much salt. I think i might also use a mix of table salt and the finest crushed sea salt next time.

More to come, its still not finished I need to add detail of course and some weathering for mud will be added down low. The base also needs painting!

 

[CreganTur]

I found that table salt particles were too fine, so I use sea salt as well. The biggest suggestion I could make is to use a medium stiffness brush to remove the salt- be sure to do this under running cool water. Be very gentle- it'll be a slow process, but slow is good.

Looking forward to seeing your progress.

 

[adam dup]

Cheers I'm going to try the paint brush instead of toothbrush for the next one And I'll do it slowly, thanks for the tip!

 

[adam dup]

Ok well I have made so improvements to the model: it has arms now!:

 

[adam dup]

And close ups of the shoulders (right one is not a great pic sorry!)

Left:

Right:

Left again:

No there are some successes here and some problems. The success was the weathering, much better than last time, I used less salt and a drybush to remove it. The problem stems from the original weathering, in that it was too intense and it looks like the insignias have been sprayed on afterwards. So my story is the 'jack has seen heavy combat, resulting in the original wear and tear and removal of the initial insignias and it has since come to Rahn Shyeels attention that his house sigil has worn of the 'jack. Every reminder the retribution gets of House Shyeel's support is a must in Rahn's eyes so the sigil was reapplied (and so he didn't look bad the scyrah sigil was reapplied to) either that or they are out of white paint!

Comments?

Base is nearly done as well, though I doubt I will get much painting time in for a week or so!

 

[NightFallArts]

I like the randomness of the weathering effect but it is just too much of it rather than less of it.
It is nice but too much... I also noticed that the white paint looks to be a bit on the thick side...