Blog Rekindled interest in pictures

Hi all,

After introducing myself in the Introductions forum the morning of my "rookie" appointment with GW staff to hold my hand through building and painting I thought I should share the experience and keep everyone up to date on the progress of my "start collecting" seraphon box set.

First of all a hat tip @Voff as his thread came up in a Google search for purple serpahon and his light blue/purple idea was the inspiration for my troops. I am an American football fan and the colours of my team (Carolina Panthers) was also on my mind. For anyone wondering those are Electric Blue, Black and White. When I arrived at the store Scott (Store Manager), who was going to be helping me, was a Raiders fan so the best way to describe the colour scheme I was thinking of was to say "think Panthers mixed with Vikings" which to my relief he understood. FYI the Minnestoa Vikings play in Purple and White.

So arriving at the store at 6pm, after visiting a few Pokestops on Pokémon Go whilst walking from the car park, I sat down and unsealed the boxes. I'm not sure if I was expecting a Whoosh of air, or some magical whirling of light but it didn't happen however seeing the frames full of parts and challenges did put a smile on my face as I thought to myself that I had made a good choice to finally indulge myself.

After some tutorial from Scott regarding the use of the clippers, best practices, etc it was time to start. It took a few attempts to get the flow of the clippers and to find the parts I wanted within the frames but that is one of the joys really. Scott also advised on how he prefers to set up a queue and have so many models at different stages. This was very efficient and easy to adopt so I worked with it and after an hour had a fair amount of work done.



As I built the models I obviously had to make decisions regarding weapons, choosing an Alpha, a drummer and a standard bearer. My thoughts were that I wanted skirmish troop so I chose to have all of my warriors wielding clubs. After determining which head was for the Alpha and attaching this with the other 11 we had a completed set of 12 Saurus Warriors.



By now it was around 8.30 and the store closed at 10. Not that I cared I was enjoying myself talking to people about not only the modelling but films from the 80's, their remakes and the curse of the third film in a franchise. That's another story though.

After Scott sprayed the shields and warriors with base colours life was starting to come into them. I don't know the name of the red that Scott used but the base for the models was Incubi Darkness.



Next was learning about shading. I will admit that at one point I did think that the shaded areas on models was someone being very patient with a very very fine brush. I realised a long time ago that this was unrealistic, but not impossible. We shaded the shields with Reikland Fleshshade, although it's hard to see in my pictures.



And the Troops were shaded with Coelia Greenshade, again maybe difficult to see in the picture.





With time marching on Scott then showed me how to do some dry brushing on the shields with Evil Sunz Scarlet which I don't have a picture of at the moment. and then we experimented by dry brushing one of the models with the two shades of blue that you can see in the picture. Also a picture I don't have at the moment.

I'm heading into the GW again next Thursday to continue my project, but may look to work on the shields from home so will post an update if this happens along with images of the experimental model.

I left GW at 9.55 and rewarded myself with a kebab on the way home but having enjoyed 4 hours that seemed to just fly by.

Any and all opinions are warmly welcomed

Process seems perfect so far, ask Scott if you can do an extreme highlight on the scales followed by a glaze he will be mightly impressed with your knowledge.

I love Incubi darkness and you can get some very nice effects with that and Coelia Greenshade, look at the cloak I did last month for an idea, Incubi darkness at the top then paint the bottom celestral grey wash with Nihilakah oxide then mix Coelia greenshade with medium 1:1 and apply at the join, apply between 6-10 coats and voilà nice blended cloak.

@Crowsfoot I would normally be up for impressing someone however for now I'll keep that one in my pocket. Thanks for the heads up though and that is indeed a fine look for the cloak. The blend comes out a treat. I'm already thinking ahead about things I would to try in the way of detailing like how to crate the look of wounds on the models and maybe some sort of tribal mark. I like the idea of something unique apart from the colours and the accessorizing. That's a bit down the road though as I need to get the basic techniques nailed first.

1st off @Crowsfoot I hate you for all your skills...but that's a good tip

and @MarcC im a bit jealous you are getting direct help and not just slapping paint on models like I did when I started out last October, but it dose look like your starting off strong keep it up look forward to see more of your work

Sounds like you have an excellent GW store guy! Glad to see people helping new-comers to the hobby like that. The one I have close to me, the staff barely even engages you, it's very...odd. Anyway, looks like you are off to a great start! Can't wait to see more!

Glad you're enjoying yourself @MarcC

Seems like you're in good hands at your gaming store, and are off to a great start on painting. Looking forward to more stories on your progress!

I was looking at my guys last night, in anticipation of Thursday and heading back to the GW store and decided I want to highlight the shields with Gold. But I want it to look old and worn. Not bright and shiny and new, after all if it's been used in battle then it wouldn't maintain a shine.

I have a gold in the starter kit, and there is a darker colour in there which I can't remember the name of. Would anyone have anything more advisable than just mixing the two together?

I did think about trying a wash to create the illusion of age or use but am not sure how that would turn out as there are very few thind I think the wash would highlight.

Maybe a base of gold with a drybrush of a darker colour on top?

Any ideas?

Seraphim sepia wash over gold will make it look old.

Base with any gold you like lets say Balthasar gold then wash with Seraphim sepia then highlight with Gehenna's gold then with runefang steel then rewash with seraphim.

You can take it further but try that and see if you like the look.

Thanks for that @Crowsfoot Looked the colours up on the GW website and think I know where you're going with the suggestion. I like the idea and may buy those ones on Thursday in order to follow the same process for most of the gold on the squad. I want all their gold to have the aged/worn effect.

MarcC said:

Thanks for that @Crowsfoot Looked the colours up on the GW website and think I know where you're going with the suggestion. I like the idea and may buy those ones on Thursday in order to follow the same process for most of the gold on the squad. I want all their gold to have the aged/worn effect.

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You can get some really different looking golds but you can also use Sycorax Bronze washed with sepia for a battered gold look, base with Balthasar wash with sepia, reapply Balthasar but leaving the recesses then apply Sycorax Bronze almost cover all the Balthasar then edge highlight with Runefang steel but then apply the sepia wash in a controlled fashion you want it only in the recesses and around studs etc, takes a bit of time but it can look really good.

Just going by the sound of that process, I'll go with just the wash initially and see how it looks lol. Thanks for the suggestions though, once my painting skills are a bit more refined I will look at the more challenging techniques. I've also been thinking about what colour to go for with the mounts for the knights. The Carnosaur is going to be a variation on my Electric Blue and Purple scales theme but I want the mounts to stand out from the warriors, so I'm thinking a red scales with yellowish underside. If it can work out the way it is in my head then it will be a striking look.

Apologies for the lack of updates however RL has kept me from working more on the models in the form of waiting for pay day to buy the paints lol.

I sat down last night with my four new paints, an old side plate as a palette and my starter brush sitting alongside it's new companion drybrush. A deep breath and then picked up the starter brush and one of my guys to see if I can bring the vision in my mind to life.



I had experimented with drybrushing under the tuition of the GW staff when I was having my building tutorial and was underwhelmed by the results, you can see the model behind the paints and it is easy to see there are still areas where the base is showing.

I felt that this didn't really highlight all the flesh part of the model, or have much definition between where the flesh would meet the scales so my idea was to use the starter brush to paint the flesh as best as I could with Sotek Green and then to drybrush the raised elements with Temple Guard Blue. I selected my test model, specifically as I had made a mistake with his arm so he was going to look a bit odd anyway.



After some time manoeuvring the brush into impossible angles, cursing when there was too much paint on the brush or when I thought I had caught an area of scales, and immense concentration I had a base layer to then drybrush. I'm not entirely sure it turned out as I pictured it in my mind but there was some satisfaction from creating the first half of my vision. I don't think that the lighter colour highlights areas as much as I thought it would but that is likely down to my brush skills rather than the colour combination.





Then just like a washing machine on a wash, rinse, repeat cycle I dived into completing the scales using a similar idea of two layers however I wanted to keep the dark green effect in between the scales to highlight each scale so drybrushed in the two colours. First of all the darker Xereus Purple followed by the Flesheater Purple. I was also inspired to put a little purple onto the crown on the head as an experiment. I think these colours worked quite well on the scales, however once I had finished was not sure that the colours work that well with each other between the flesh and the scales. I looked at the model again this morning whilst having breakfast and reminded myself that I am nowhere near the level of skill of the GW painters so stop comparing my models to theirs, and to not make a judgment until the fine detail is completed (shield, gold highlights, teeth, eyes).

So here is how things stand at the moment with my Blue (more of a green now)/Purple Seraphon design. I am sure that with different brushes I will be able to refine this but it will take time to gather a wider set of tools to help make this design a bit neater.

These colours look great! I think the highlights turned out awesome. Can't wait to see it finished.

Agree with bowser, it looks very good so far

Yup Teal and Purple are a pretty nice match of colours, keep up the good work

That's a funky colour combination and looking great already.