With an overnight cure for my primer (might be overkill, but why not be safe?) and an overnight dry for texture paint, I need to plan my miniature queue at least two days ahead of where I currently am. I like to have something I’m painting, something else ready to paint, and stuff to build in the queue. So: time to prime up some Terminators!
It took me about an hour to prime Squad Ultio, which feels kind of slow. But with that done, I could turn my full attention to Narses — my first-ever Dreadnought.
I’ve never worked with sub-assemblies before; I normally just build and then paint. But there’s no way I can do a good job shading and highlighting some of Narses’ elements if he’s assembled, so he’s getting painted in four big pieces.
I don’t think I’ll put him together until the varnish stage — and even then, I’m not gluing on his arms. They fit snugly without glue, and I like the idea of being able to pose him and adjust his arms for storage. That big ol’ waist joint will be getting glued, though.
Librarian Dreadnought color guide
Being this far along with Narses means it’s time to record the paints I’ve used and will be using on him (shades in italics, as always). This is 95% just GW’s studio color guide, except that I swapped in their “cold white” recipe for the white elements and added some accent colors.
- Red: Mephiston Red > Agrax Earthshade > Evil Sunz Scarlet > Fire Dragon Bright
- Black: Abaddon Black > Eshin Gray > Dawnstone
- Metal: Leadbelcher > Nuln Oil > Stormhost Silver
- Gold: Retributor Armour > Reikland Fleshshade > Auric Armour Gold > Liberator Gold
- White: Celestra Grey > Drakenhof Nightshade > Ulthuan Grey > White Scar
- Blue: Macragge Blue > Drakenhof Nightshade > Altdorf Guard Blue > Calgar Blue
- Parchment: Rakarth Flesh > Agrax Earthshade > Pallid Wych Flesh > White Scar
- Seals: Screamer Pink > Agrax Earthshade > Pink Horror > Emperor’s Children
- Lenses: Moot Green > White Scar
- Head pipes/wires: Moot Green > Reikland Fleshshade > Moot Green
- Eyes: Caledor Sky > Temple Guard Blue
- Force Halberd: Caledor Sky > Drakenhof Nightshade > Temple Guard Blue > Baharroth Blue > White Scar
- Cog Mechanicum: Celestra Grey/Abaddon Black > Agrax Earthshade > touch up with White Scar/Abaddon Black
The color guide for his base is in a previous post.
Narses is larger than a Space Marine, of course, but he’s mostly composed of big, simple blocks of color. Adding in that his scenic base took some time, and he’s landing somewhere between a single Marine and a squad of five in terms of painting time.
Squad Ultio bases
Come Wednesday evening I wasn’t really feeling like doing serious painting, so I relaxed by working on Squad Ultio’s bases.
The common elements use the same colors as my other bases. The new stuff:
- Horns: Mournfang Brown > Agrax Earthshade > 2:1 blend Kislev Flesh:Mournfang Brown
- Ork scrap: Two coats of Yriel Yellow > Agrax Earthshade > Flash Gitz Yellow
- Imperial engine bits: Leadbelcher, Retributor Armour, Moot Green > Agrax Earthshade > Stormhost Silver, Gehenna’s Gold
- Blue thingie: Macragge Blue > Agrax Earthshade > Lothern Blue
I also got a delivery of some more Ebay bits for basing, including some jumbo pieces that I suspect will really only work on my Redemptor Dreadnought’s massive base. Looking forward to it!