Bit of a break, had to do other things. Adult responsibilities and all that jazz. Annoying. Such is life.

I have managed to get some painting done, and things. But not much time for photos, so WIP pics are a little thin on the ground. Deepest apologies. I am sure you will get over it. I have.

After everything has dried on the armour plates, the edges are painted copper.

The legs are airbushed copper, details picked out in steel. When I work with metals, I tend to like mechanical looking things to be a little oily, so I make a mix of gloss varnish, blue ink and a small amount of black ink. I wash this, fairly densely, into the joints and sockets, but also two little bands at the top and bottom of hydraulic rods. I give the whole thing a much lighter wash just to give the metal a bit of depth. Other elements, like the donkey-dick pipes are rendered in black and dry brushed dark grey. It’s actually quite a quick process, but these legs are so big and full of nooks-and-cranies, it feels like it takes some time.

The armour plates all received a coat of Vallejo grey wash. The bottle of which claims to be for “grey military models” or words to that effect, which seems totally racist to me. It works to knock back the intensity and even out the tonality of the otherwise bright and fresh paint. This is the Grim Dark, not a carnival parade.

To finish plating up, I added some transfers; some of these are decent ones that come from the supplied sheet. Others I made myself.

In the long and storied history of my family, after whom this knightly household is named and based, we had a metal etching on the wall for as long as I can remember. It was of a knight, the Earl of Warwick.

Because my dad’s name is Warwick, see. Clever.

When I started this whole shenanigan, the image of that picture came instantly to mind; now following the diaspora of family heirlooms, it resides with my middling sister, Shane, in Wales. One night I ask her to take a photo of it and send it to me, which she duly denies as she is at her friend’s house getting hammered on knock-off Lambrini. The following morning, however, she helpfully helps. And sends me this:

Which I subsequently put into Inkscape and draw over to create a scalable vector file. I make several sizes of these, after measuring the various location on the armour plates, and using inject water decal transfer paper, print out an A4 sheet covered in little knight heads. I also created an Excel sheet with names, numbers and alike on it and did the same; these are sealed with a spray of matt varnish and left to dry over night.

The custom paper is good, its certainly a lot better than it used to be, but cut as close to the decal as you dare and let it soak in decal fix for as long as you can; the backing can be quite thick and a little obvious.

However I was not happy with my knight heads. The black lines on the red background didn’t work very well. I thought about it for a while, busied myself with other things and then eventually gave in; I painted them. Which also didn’t work very well. Another lightbulb went off and I placed another transfer on top of the painted one; the blocked colours below came through nicely, but the fine black lines of the decal added detail. I think it looks good. I do think, transfer on transfer, it’s a little thick now, but I can live with it. I have gone back and colourised my original vector drawing, so Knight 2 will have full colour symbols. Hopefully.

After that, I got to rub the paint away from the latex masking fluid (remember that?) and bought in the chipped painted effect. Smort.

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GUNS GUNS GUNS

Arms. What is a knight without arms?

Armless.

Predictable dad jokes aside, these we largely painted in the same way; copper arms, steel receivers and a good wash of oil-mix. Some details picked out in copper. The interesting stuff comes with discolouration. I am sure, for those of you who spend their time looking at miniature painting at least, you have seen the trend for showing heat stress on barrels. I think its cool, no pun intended, and it’s a good way to add a little colour into something that would normally be quite monotone. I use transparent paints in red and blue, mixing a deeper purple for the hotter zone, fading to blue and then into silver. Good reference for this is motorbike exhausts. I tend to wet-blend it, and then dry brush a little steel on top and at the blue edge just to feather it a bit more.

When it comes to Ol’ Painless, however, where to put the colour? Many people do it at the muzzle end, which looks good and angry.

But it’s also wrong.

Well, as wrong as you can be considering it’s a gothic sci-fi scape tens-of-thousands of years in the future. Anything goes, really. If that’s how you do it, no judgements.

But it’s still wrong.

Ammunition explodes at the receiver end, so the hot part of the gun will be there. Go watch youtube and you see machine guns and Gatling canons heat up there and not as they exit the barrel(s).

As such, as you can see, my colours go in the right place. The tip of the barrel was coated in white spirit then dusted with smoke weather powder. These guns have seen some shit. Some shit and some things.

Thermal cannon and battle canon got basically the same treatment; though obviously the thermal gun gets hot at the muzzle and cools back towards the main body of the weapon. More smoke powder, and whilst I was at it, I added some to the top of the exhausts at the back of the main body.

Guns sorted, lets look at the close combat options. A big fucking chain saw and a giant fist. Following the style from the Armiger Knight, red and black hazard stripes are the way; masking fluid, sprayed red, masked and then sprayed black. More of the oil wash, especially on the chain saw. A little blueing on the silver details on the fist.

We are pretty much done with the model itself. A few last pipes and details added. Just the base to finish.

The planet McAdam, from where House Warwick hails, is a dry and dusty burnt desert; 70 percent of world is a rough aggregate, the rest an industrial hot house resting on thick volcanic rock. The scouring winds rip around, covering and uncovering the forgotten and the abandoned.

With that little moment of fluff in mind, using Milliput, I sculpted some flat rock formations, the House being on a perimeter patrol or some such. I found an old Eldar jetbike and hacked that on the bias, planting him at the foot of the Imperial Knight; a remnant of an old battle. It was originally purple, but I wanted it to pop a little more so I gave it a quick coat of electric blue. Then the whole thing was primed, based in beige.

A hold over from the old days, I have a sizeable bag of a product called ground olive stone; its basically like sand, but it takes paint exceptionally well either on top or you can mix it into paint and then grind it down again with a coffee grinder to make your own scatter. I use PVA glue to adhere it, one layer is enough but I sparsely added bits of a second layer just for some variation. Obviously I have given my jetbike a bit of a covering too. Then the rocks are sprayed with grey (not minding the over spray at all) with a brown and a chestnut, then all knocked back and mixed with some beige. The rocks were given a dark grey wash and a little highlight and we are golden brown, texture like sun.

And I’m spent. There are a couple little details yet to do that, truth be told I forgot about, but that’s just the odd Imperial Eagle. The first Imperial Knight of House Warwick is done, and I think he looks badass. Great kit to build and to paint; it’s a huge canvas that almost overwhelms you with ideas. Already cooking up what the next one is going to be and how to do it…

Just the other 6 to work on. And a few more Armigers on top.

But next, LIZARDS.

Also here is my dog, CJ hasn’t been on here for a while, and that’s a bit criminal.

I AM AVAILABLE FOR COMMISSIONS, PAINTING, TERRAIN MAKING OR JUST DROP ME A NOTE IF YOU WANT SOME QUICK ADVICE. FROM WARGAMING TO MILITARY MODELLING, ALWAYS HAPPY TO HELP. EMAIL ME HERE