Raine's Iron Warriors

I'm doing some work to help my friend Raine get his Iron Warriors army up and running. Before I commit to painting anything big, I was going to do a test run on some second-hand bolter buddies I got a while back (trading in purity seals for chaos back packs). Also a great chance to try out the new air brush paints that arrived a while back.

I blended up a mix akin to leadbeltcher, washed with nuln oil, and dry brushed with runefang steel.




The plan is to hit it with a coat of transparent blue (from the same brand I got the green for my termies) with the hopes that it will give me a blue steel effect. After that, it's hazard stripes on the left shoulder, right boot, and on the bolter. A little bit of trim and some colour in the eyes, and we'll be able to see if everything holds up.

Blue has been applied. I think the luster of the metallics underneath holds up reasonably well. Now to see how much everything pops once some trim and contrast is added.

I know its not fair to judge based off super up close pics of figs, but man, we gotta do better with mould lines. I never put paint on any fig until i've gone over it twice looking for lines with a hobby knife or a putty scraper.

Also, on beaky. i understand wanting to shave off the purity seals on his leg, cuz its going to be a chaos guy, but unless you take some time with it, his leg just looks... wrong?

I am a super fan of the blue metalic though. is that a candy wash from Minitaire?

the mold lines, they burn my eyes so!!!

  

Yeah, it can sometimes be hard to get mould lines off of already assembled figs. though I tried to get some of the easier to get too ones off (on the bolters and legs). They aren't too bad from a distance, though. As for the seal remnants, the more pronounced ones will get turned into blotches of gore or radioactive waste or some other form of battlefield weathering.

The blue I used was Golden brand Transparent Phthalo Blue (Green Shade), which I ordered from Curry's over in Ontario. I think that brand is going to trump Tamiya for my future transparent purchases.

And Paz, what did you paint those guys with back in the day? They smelled like DEATH when I went to strip them! Big fan of the over the shoulder bolter sling conversion you did in that batch, what did you use for the strap?

wat? Over the shoulder bolter holder? Not mine bruh.

Oh, wait, no, it was Ginger Balls I got those from. How'd I mix you two up?

Good question!  

I'll go with the "Tom is bad with names" defense.

Lol. Plus I would never paint with anything but the sweetest smelling of gw paints!

Back on topic, I just put two thin coats of Palid Witch Flesh in all the spots I want the hazard stripes to be. It should make for less work when applying the yellow/orange blend, since I won't be going straight onto dark blue with it.

The trick with yellow is understanding that acrylic yellow and orange paints should never be used straight outta the pot. Both colors are fairly translucent, and waaay to bright, it'll overshadow you base. I would agree about a base light pale color to help flatten the area, but I would suggest adding a bit of tausept ochre or other brown/beige mix to the yellow, pure yellow is just too strong and unrealistic to go with the nice blued metal you have going on.

With the possible exception of Averland Sunset, almost all my yellows and oranges are super bright. I opted to do a blend of Flash Gitz Yellow and Troll Slayer Orange to get a yellow that was somewhat more mellow than either of the parent colours, yet still rich and warm enough for my desired hazard stripes. So, two layers of Palid Witch Flesh and three layers of yellow blend later ...



I figure any tonal deviation from the underlying blue metal should be hidden once I add the black stripes and wash of Agrax Earthshade to the striped portions.

Freehanding clean, straight lines on curved surfaces is apparently more difficult than originally anticipated.



It will probably hold up fine on table top, but not as much for close inspection...

Bronze has been applied now. All that remains is a wash and the piddly details (eyes, scope lenses, backpack tubes, et cetera).

Moving on to the Warp Smith conversion now. Going for a bit bigger board presence than what the basic Warp Smith has, and slapping together a Murder Sword for him. Not sure if Raine wants a bolt pistol or plasma pistol yet, but at least my Space Wolves bits have lefty pistols.

Starting to get things glued into place now.




Need to fill out the mid-riff a bit, the Baby-on-Board termy legs didn't exactly need to have that part when piloting the Dread Knight. The little spine bit is from the Praetorian kit, I think it looks nifty there.

The first Warp Smith, aside from cleaning up the connections between bits, is pretty much done the building portion right now. Hard to see in the photo, but I flubbed a bit on the green stuff midriff, causing a bit of a "diaper" look, though I did my best to mitigate it. Learning from this mistake, I am working to fix it on #2, putting a pin rising out of the pelvis to give some structure, and then building the green stuff in layers to make it more manageable. Already the second one is going far smoother in production than the first.



Work has also begun on the Obliterators, in part as a means to keep my hands busy as I wait for green stuff to cure on the Warp Smiths. Going for a bit of a cleaner look than the traditional goopy guns Oblits get stuck with.



Finally, I noticed while rummaging through one of the boxes of second hand dudes I was given for the project that one of the Dark Vengeance Chosen had his power maul defaced at some point, making it an excellent point to start from for a Power Scythe conversion.

The first Obliterator has been completed, and the Power Scythe dude is now free standing. Little bit more clean up and he'll be ready to lead a squad.



The second Warp Smith is also underway already. I opted for the Helbrute face on this one, to help sell the whole Fleshmetal thing.

Thanks to some inspiration from Spammus, this guy was finally able to get himself a brand new lightning claw.

So, it seems that hazard stripes do indeed turn out like hazard stripes when masking is used. That being said, even on terminators masking pauldrons proves problematic. The little heraldry shield and cod piece turned out great, though. Using Tau Light Ocher also worked great as a base to build the yellow off of.







Now for the "joy" of extending the hazard pattern up the tendrils...

Turns out the striping wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. Just alternating colour blocks, and not doing diagonal stripes the whole way.

I don't do power weapons very often, but I think the Murder Sword turned out pretty good.

Finally sitting down to start work on the Decimator conversion, using a Helbrute and Sentinel as a base for it, mixing in Heldrake, Soul Grinder, and 'Nid bits as appropriate. With the legs fully extended it stands a bit taller than it needs to, so I can afford to give it a bit of pose and crouch. I'm also opting to give it a dome helm as opposed to a face. Think of the marines in Star Craft. Going to have to build up the sarcophagus a touch with Green Stuff/Milliput to fill things out properly. Going to have to trim off the "feathering" as well.