A Tale of 3 Painters… Let There Be Paint

Just as my excitement to get this project started was hitting fever pitch last week… disaster… I managed to pick up tonsillitis!

My first thought was that this would give me extra time away from work to paint – err, no. I was absolutely floored for two days and even going into the new week I'm not 100%. However, never one to let something as insignificant as illness get in the way of miniature painting I did manage to get a few hours under my belt on Saturday.

Whilst not on top form I laid some of the ground work on The Guardian. I started with the metal parts, using Vallejo Oily Steel as the basecoat for the majority of the parts, with Vallejo Brass employed for the back panel and sword hilt.

I decided to try out something that has been sitting on my desk for ages and, OMG – what a revelation… Vallejo Matt Medium, when mixed with metallic paint, produces a superb finish. No longer does the metal look shiny, cheap and nasty. The matt finish gives it a more elegant feel. I can't quite believe I hadn't tried this sooner.

Backpack/armour colour combination reminds me of The Rocketeer!

Not content with getting the metal to a good point I wanted to get a couple of layers of my armour colour down before Monday. I have been undecided since the project began as to the colour to use for the Guardian's armour plates. In the end I decided to go with the Guild red I'd specified in the original brief.

After several test of different red colours on a piece of card I decided to stick with my tried and trusted Blood Angel armour recipe. It's a little brighter than I wanted but could be pulled around to suit. My main worry was that it was going to be too much, very 'in your face' but ploughed on anyway. I put down several layers, building up from pure black to a 90:10 red black mix. By this time my concentration was starting to go and I was making mistakes, so I washed what I had done in GW Baal Red and left it to dry.

Looking at the model as it stands the red is quite overpowering so I will give it a day or so to sink in before going back to it. The red is definitely too orange at the moment. I may change the colour of the shield to compensate or may just try and pull it back with the shading and battle damage – if any of our models can get away with looking truly battered it's this guy!

Don't forget to keep up with updates from the other intrepid painters Andy from Lair of the Breviks and Michael from 28mm Victorian Warfare!!



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