Improving Basing

How it looked before

So last post, I showed the painted Thanatar Siege Automata, and talked about how I wasn't happy with the base and letting it tell the story that I wanted.

I decided that adding a discarded shoulder pad of the Sons of Horus would help tie the theme in, I decided to change this to Death Guard, keeping it more relevant for 40K if I'm able to use Mechanicum forces in that game at some point, and I think it would mix in with the corruption and rust a bit better.

Pad in place and weatherd to match. 

Layering up bone to white, then sponging and stipping rust on to the pad gave it the look I wanted, a few washes of Vallejo Smoke dirtied it up a bit and picking out the edging in a dirty bronze.

This was then glued next to the beam and stippled with the weathing powders used on the base to tie it together.

Something is still missing from this though, looks bare. 

Despite this addition, it was still missing something, so it was back to the drawing board/ the Facebook discussion group for more ideas, I had thought of adding more discarded Astartes parts, weapons etc. but I didn't think it would help to be honest.

My friend Pete suggested grass. We chatted and I've tried it and I think it looks good,

 The idea was again, to represent the spreading corruption of the Heresy and the Chaos Gods in general, the addition of the shoulder pad helps now, its as if even a discarded part armour of a tainted soul is enough to desecrate the ground, but the loyal forces of the Emperor still stride on, impervious.


This has been a really fun project and its nice to have gotten a model and base totally finished, this is the first model I've managed to finish completely since moving house 6 months ago!

More dead grass would be
great to really sell it

Thanatar Siege Automata Finished

Good week of painting progress, managed to zenithal prime the Knights and finish the Thanatar!

Heres the progess and what I've done, I decided that to tie it in with the Thallanxi, he should be mostly brass coloured, with red as a nod to the Mechanicum and because its better for adding some weathering.

Base wise, I wanted it simple, but added a beam of plasticard, nothing specific, and wanted that rusted and leaking out. My idea was that this loyalist robot was stomping over the degraded and spreading corruption, not sure that actually somes across though, I think I might add a Sons of Horus shoulder pad with similar rusting and weathering next to it to drive that home.

Base colours started, Warplock bronze, leadbelcher and khorne red for the most part

Got carried away and started some weathing a bit early here,
had to be redone later on because the red needed work

All base coats finished here and started pushing the red to be
more "red" with a lot of fine layering of glazes, Balthazar gold then Auric Armour to  highlight

Almost finished here, armour gone over with Brass Scorpion, reds highlighed with Wazzdakka Red and re-weathered,Vallejo Smoke applied as a wash to most of the model, plasma Mortar some with Vallejo Icy Blue, highlighted up to white.
Loads of powders on the rusty beam and base as well as brushed to the feet

Forces of Mars

Ok, so, constant distractions aside, this week, I will be working on some paining, I have a Thanatar a Knight and some Thallanxi all assembled, want to start to work on my Mechanicum army for 30K, which it looks like it might be able to grow into a 40K army pretty soon! Lots of nice teasers and peeks of Skitarii around online today

Some sort of walker, not too keen yet.

Looks like it'll be a small release like the Harlequins, I've seen a tiny photo of a Skitarii trooper that looked quite good, I'm quitely hopefuly, could also be a little cheaper than FW Tech Thralls!