The Big Guy
Tried out a new technique on this one, and I now wish I could go back and repaint all of my older myrmidons the same way. I would like to point out that I don't own an airbrush, and this was all accomplished using spray cans, paintbrushes, and some regular miniatures packing foam which doubled as a sponge!
Obligatory unpainted shot, Bronzeback for scale. Every joint was pinned using paperclips, as this thing is heavy and I've seen firsthand the devastation that transport can wreak on a colossal (if you play in my area, and have a Judicator currently in several pieces as of this writing, my sympathies go to you).
The new recipe I'm using for painting white myrmidons starts with a grey primer all around. This will provide a nice, cool hue which brings a slightly worn look into the mix. Also it makes the whole thing look like a giant hunk of unpainted plastic, which has it's own charm.
Because I'm a bad person, I got too caught up in painting to take photos of the work in progress. To make it up to you, here's a "brief" how-to.
The trick to getting it to look this good was to spray the white at a fairly high angle, probably about 65 degrees all around. This is a great shortcut for establishing shading and some beautiful gradients that I haven't been able to achieve with a regular brush.
The model stood on its legs, with the main body fully assembled, while the shoulderpads and head were kept separate. I spun the model as I sprayed, to get an even coat, allowing the top parts to receive more of the white paint as a highlight. The head was kept off to avoid any weird "shadow" that may have been created when spraying in that direction, and the shoulderpads are so gigantic that they would have obscured too much of the model if left on while painting.
I had planned to use the hairspray technique to do the weathering, but I was unhappy with the results of some tests I performed. My lack of an airbrush may have been the cause, as it may work better with acrylics. The spray paint simply did not want to come off, and the patterns, while slightly random, were too jagged and clumped to look realistic.
While briefly foiled by the failure of the hairspray, I strengthened my resolve and dug out some of the grey packing foam that comes with any miniature. Reaper Cloudy Grey was placed on the palette, and I dabbed my new painting sponge (foam) to avoid any globs of paint. This was lightly "sponged" over areas which made sense to be weathered, especially overhangs and the lower body. The paint was easily wiped away with a clean part of the sponge to further the shading and random weathered pattern.
More pictures will likely find their way here once I've had a chance to get the lighting right.
All in all, even on a primarily white model, it's a world of difference, which will be illustrated better in a subsequent post.
The Base
I did remember to take photos of the base as I worked on it! I used this fantastic tutorial from Bell of Lost Souls as a reference, and while I didn't use any oregano, I'm happy with the results! This was the first time I've used milliput, and I'm now a believer. It turns rock solid in a manner of hours, and can even be sanded if necessary!
Elves usually have ruins and random pavilions that show up in their artwork, and steps make Hyperion stand above and apart from the rest of the army. The steps were cut from a moderately thick piece of plasticard.
Blue insulation foam is dense, sturdy, and served as a great base on which to build up the milliput rocks.
Sculpted milliput with some regular basing sand to fill in the dead space.
Several layers of spraypaint later, using the Reaper variant of Bestial Brown to drybrush the rocks to match the rest of my bases.
Nearly finished, but it was a little too "warm" and yellowish, which clashed with Hyperion, and drew the eye away from the centerpiece. I gave it a few washes with black inks, and some very thinned down greys to bring it back in line.
I was nervous at the outset, as a colossal is a huge undertaking, but after stepping out of my comfort zone (no more straight basing in white!), the finished product is something I'm very proud of. Large models are suddenly less intimidating, and I look forward to the next time I get the chance to paint one up (although if it's a Skorne Mammoth, I'm probably going to hate my life).
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