Miniature Monday 4/17/17

Well, I got less than I wanted done, but some models got painted.

Last week I mentioned I was working on some Space Marines in the colors of the Space Sharks.  I got three more completed.  As I said, they're fairly easy to paint.  There are however some bottlenecks in the process.

The biggest time consumer was finishing off the bases.  It's a four step process involving two different Citadel textures, a wash, and a drybrushing.  I can't argue with the finish though.  Because it utilizes two textures and a wash, the base finish takes quite a while to complete.  It is essential that the cracked earth texture be completely dry before adding the gritty sand texture.  Then that has to dry, and then the wash gets added and that has to dry as well.  It can take over three hours for the bases just because of the drying time involved.

The other bottleneck is the Nuln Oil wash that pushes in all the shadows for the majority of the model.  It's like a magician's trick because things look kind of awful until the wash is applied.  I also push in shadows on the brassy bits by going over them lightly with Seraphim Sepia.  The rivets can feel like it takes ages if there's a lot of them (like there is on Mk III armor).

The last thing in the process is a dusting of a pigment powder (Rust Orange from Secret Weapon Miniatures).  The primary reason for the rusty Mars-style basing and dusting is because the Space Sharks are nearly entirely gray-scale.  Even their skin is supposed to be nearly colorless.  They need some kind of contrast to the model.  As I found out when painting Raven Guard for a friend, when you paint models that are primarily black, white, and all grays in-between, any color stands out like a sore thumb.  So there's a lot more consideration given to determining out which colors work best as eye-catchers.   The warm brass tones of their trim was predetermined for me as the artwork for the Carcharadons shows brass studs, chest emblems, and trim.  But other things like the colors of the Crux Terminatus on the Veteran Sergeant's shoulder were left up to me.

I haven't forgotten that I've promised a step by step of how to paint one of these guys.  I've been working on it.  It is time-consuming to prepare the steps, as I'm used to just moving on to the next stage.  Instead I have to force myself to stop and take photos of the model.  See you next week.