What's that buzzing sound?

Well, as I mentioned in my last post, I haven't had much time to get things photographed and up on the blog. Fortunately this evening, after a lovely dinner, I was able to snap a few shots of my 40K Vehicle entry for Chicago Golden Demons. Below you can see what is currently my favorite vehicle produced by Forgeworld, the Nurgle Blight Drone. Not only is it, at least in my opinion, a classic machination of the warped powers of Chaos, but it's easy to put together and almost as easy to paint up! Pure win in my books.

Once assembled and primed black I started with my "trademark" drybrush of Tin Bitz over the entire model. This was followed by a drybrush of Boltgun Metal, a bit lighter but over the whole model. This model is heavily textured and takes the drybrushing really well. Note: I use a GW Tank Brush for all my initial stage drybrushing.

The next step was to stipple all the rusted areas with some Scorched Brown. I used and old GW Large brush for this, with the bristles trimmed down to emulate the forthcoming Stippling Brush due out next week (I think). This stage was followed by a stipple over the same areas with Dark Flesh, then with Fiery Orange. Once all this was dry I washed the model with Devlan Mud. When the wash had dried I went back over the key rusted areas with a stipple of Solar Macharius Orange. An important thing to point out was that I left a puddle of the Orange on my palette for about a minute before I used it for the final stage, so it was good and chunky.

I think I may have said before that you really shouldn't try anything new (technique or color-wise) on a Golden Demon entry. By all means practice using techniques or new colors on miniatures, but make sure you're comfortable with them when you go to use them on your entries. Anyway, I ignored that when it came to the green color for the carapace. I wanted something similar to the way Matthieu Fontaine painted his award-winning Blight Drone. To that end I dragged out some colors I haven't used before: Vallejo Russian Green (894) and Vallejo Brown Violet (887). A 50/50 mix of these formed the base color for the green paintwork. With careful layers of drybrushing using the aforementioned "stippling" brush, I added Vallejo Stone Grey (884) to the mix and built it up to the desired level. A quick touch up around the edge with a mix of Scorched Brown, Badab Black, and water was all that was needed to complete this stage.

The bulging and splitting sack of engorged flesh was next. A basecoat of Dheneb Stone was the first step, followed by a thin wash of Leviathan Purple over the flesh. I then highlighted the flesh with Dheneb Stone, taking care to leave the Leviathan Purple showing in the crevices. In the areas where the skin has broken open I basecoated them with Tallarn Flesh. I followed that with a wash of Baal Red, a thin wash of Thraka Green, and then a final wash of Baal Red. Some 'Ardcoat was enough to really give a gross appearance. Baal Red was pushed into some of the deeper crevices and put over the pustles to give that "strained flesh" feeling.

The hoses were simply painted black and highlighted up by adding Codex Grey to a mix.

Many of you may have already seen the Blight Drone painted by Mark Bedford on the Forgeworld site. It's a very nice job, but my favorite part was the stream of effluent emerging from the butt of the Drone. Of course I had to pay homage to this great idea by promptly stealing it. The core of the stream is a brass rod that goes up into the Drone and is bent under the base and puttied in, making it incredibly stable. Around that core is a sleeve of plastic tubing covered in greenstuff. The splashes at the base of the stream are greenstuff formed around pieces of paperclip.

The stream of effluent was painted with a mix of Brown Violet, Russian Green, Scorched Brown, and Water Effects. Once it was dry I finished it off with a layer of 'Ardcoat.

So there you have it. One of my entries. More to come in the near future.

Cheers

Dave