Imperial Knight Part 1

I have the Renegade box set from Games Workshop - 2 Imperial night models for just over the price of one on its own. I had intended to do blog about the whole process but the assembly and preparation of the model has taken so long and been so un-fun that I couldnt face writing about it after doing it.

I wont get started on why I hated it because I'll start on a tangent I'll never get off of. Suffice it to say, I normally enjoy the assembly stages but for this I just wanted to put it all back in the box and never bother with it.

I persevered, and have reached the part I do enjoy with every mdoel - painting!

Back to the airbrush with this one. I am only painting one for now - the other I have secret plans for that will be revealed when it is closer to being finished...

I had trouble settling on a colour scheme. I want to sell it when its finished, but had no idea what paint scheme I should go for to give it the broadest appeal to potential buyers. I dont know enough about specific army paint schemes and what insignia matches what and would exclude things from being thematically appropriate for what groups. I've tried wading into it. I waded out pretty quickly.

Surprised myself by settling on a colour I normally hate due to its pervasiveness in GW marketing and how flat it tends to come out in paint jobs: Blue. Not only is it a colour I normally stay away from, I hadnt even brought my blue paints with me. To the paint shop!

After oscillating between different paint stands for an hour and painstakingly inspecting bottles as I held up almost identical paints to the sunlight, that I found a shade that has turned out beautifully with more depth than I thought I would get out of a blue.

The royal blue here. I picked up the andrea blue so I had a blue highlight to hand but the star of the show is definitely the Royal Blue.

The Retributor Armour I picked up to try on an Iron Man model but ended up using for details on the Knight.

Here's the blue pieces in their current state:

There's a few more - shields and guards that go on the legs that have been painted the same.

Layers were simple;

Everything thinned with vallejo airbrush thinner; my new airbrushing holy grail.

Layer One: Royal blue, all over.
Layer Two: One drop Royal blue, two drops Andrea blue
Layer Three: Two drops Andrea blue, One drop Ivory

Second two layer were applied on progressively smaller, higher parts of each surface. When Ive assessed how the pieces look together Im going to do some work to deepen shadows and get some subtle contrast in.

In the long run learning high contrast painting is my main goal. I keep trying to sneak it in here and then but I dont know enough about colour to achieve much.

The gold has a nice warm, reddy undertone which matches it nicely with the royal blue base.

Im using new metallic paints as well. I bought them a while ago and just havent used them until now. Im not sure what they are made with - they are still vallejo paints but so far seem far better than any of the other vallejo airbrush metallics.

I started on the model with vallejo black metal. The finish wasnt very smooth and it was leaving huge amounts of pigment drying up in my airbrush cup and nozzle. Granted - I havent retried it using some of the vallejo airbrush thinner BUT they are supposed to be used straight out of the bottle. When I gave up I had to disassemble to brush and pull out big lumps of dried up metallic paint. Not impressed!

I can find the name of this group of paints. I think it might just be "Metal Colour". So they have, air, game, model and metal colour paint lines.

These paints are thinner than any of Vallejo's other paints. They self level on the surface. Once you've got the hang of them getting a really shiney, flat finish is easy. Much better than the surfaces and reflectivity Ive gotten from other metals. They are designed to be airbrushed and Ive read a few reviews saying if you want to brush paint, normal metallic paint is better/easier.

I love, love, love them. Ooooh super love these paints. I started with steel all over then aluminium from above. Next stages are going to involved airbrushing light layers of thinned black wash on deeper areas to intensify and mattify the shadows.

I couldnt get a photo showing off the excellent finish anywhere near as well as it appears in real life.

The texture you can see is down to my not airbrushing it on correctly. It takes a moment to self level then dry in place. You can blown it around while its drying and it bunches up, similar to pushing a brush through partially finished paint.

On the chest piece I used the Vallejo Metal Colour Exhaust paint. It has that oil stained, offcolour grimey look that heavily smoked or heated pieces of metal get. Highly recommend the paint even though the picture doesnt show it off very well. If the sun comes out again Ill try and get some better pictures of everything.

The Vallejo washes that come in the same pots are great too. Im trying to control ùyself and not buy all of them and the rest of the metal colour paints.

The local shop has a Harder and Steenbeck 2 in 1 airbrush with .2 and .' mm nozzle/needles that Im also wringing my hands about buying. Super want, do not need.