Ironclad Dreadnought x 2

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**Johnnyhorse**

Hi,

Popping in to show off two dreadnoughts I finished the other day. They were a fun diversion from some other work I've been doing, and I wanted to try out a few new techniques for painting black. Without further adieu, the photos:

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Enjoy!

**Jimsolo**

Dude, these Ironclad Dreads should be featured on Campbell's soup labels. Because they're 'Mmm-mmm good!'

Seriously amazing work. Loving the .gif by the way. Thanks for including still pics as well, that's always a plus. Seriously amazing stuff here, though. Seriously.

**Denras**

Seriously cool, love the attention to detail, such as the white helm of the first dread.

**Tommy**

Very solid job, keep them coming :-)

**Paradigm**

Nice work!

**Trondheim**

Well done! You should be proud

**Snrub**

Truely top notch work here mate. Those Dreads are firstclass. You also get bonus points for the .gifs. A good .gif never goes astray.

**Velour_Fog**

Awesome, awesome work.

And more people should use .gifs. I hate videos.

**DoomMouse**

OMG 360 degree camera! Great paintjob and really like the hunter-killer missiles on the second one. Is that a conversion?

**Johnnyhorse**

@Jimsolo: lol

@DoomMouse: Yup -- the missiles are from a Nob'z combi-rokkit weapon and the rest is the Magni-grapple from the Blood Angels Dreadnought set.

A thank you to everyone with kind comments! It's very much appreciated, and I will certainly keep these models coming (and the .gifs! -- they'll only get cooler with time, as I have some ideas to improve them).

**Jordan**

Great looking dreads, but what I'm really interested in are those .gifs! Mind sharing how you went about making them?

**Magos Explorator**

I agree with the above comments about painting, and gifs >> videos!

My only critique would be that it'd be nice to have some insignia (e.g. Chapter/company/campaign badges), and text on their chestplates. That'd take them to the next level, in my opinion.

**battlematt**

Awesome, needs chapter marks and prefect. Please tell us how you did those gifs. Pretty Please?

**WhiteWolf01**

Very cool looking dreads. Love the hazard stripes on the chainsaw.

**Vineheart01**

Very crisp and clean, love it!

Also interested in how you did the gif lol

**Johnnyhorse**

Oops sorry, mispost. Deleting

Oh dear lord, how can you delete posts?

**Bonde**

I like the solid clean paintjob. The GIF's are a great idea!

**Necro**

Truely awesome, you know how to paint black well. Like the model in your avater as well

**drock403**

Very well done indeed. The look of that black armour is exactly what i'd like to go for with my new Raven Guard force. Would you mind sharing how you achieved that black? I was told by a GW employee that in order to achieve a similar look I should prime the mini in black, drybrush the parts that I want to be black with a grey, dawnstone grey in this case, and then wash those ares with nuln oil. I'm a truly tragic painter so any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

**Johnnyhorse**

Thanks for all the complements! To be honest I'm a bit embarrassed because this is kind of an old thread, and I accidentally revived it when editing my Project Log (link in sig). But the more people that see it the merrier

@drock403: That's very close to the way I did it. I just mixed up some of the methods of mixing and delivery. For instance, I:
Primed black,
Drybrushed white (I'd do grey next time though),
Then cleaned up some parts in thinned black, if the drybrush was out of hand,
and then I used a mixture of 4:1 black:blue, with about an equal amount of glazing medium (or another medium, this mixture is very similar to the Nuln Oil wash stage you mention),
and then I touched up any areas with better highlights,
and sealed it.

[edit] I'd note that I'm painting a marine's armor black right now, and I wouldn't really use the above method for painting a lot of curved surfaces. I'm still figuring out a better method for that. The above method works well for chiseled vehicles.

**Jordan**

For those of you interested in how he made the gifs, this from Johnnyhorse's main project log.

johnnyhorse wrote:They are created from my standard method of taking photos. The Grey Knights gifs are about 23 photos/frames each, and the Blood Angel is about 40 photos.

The work was compounded by the fact I take pictures with really low light, so the exposures were pretty long — about 2-3 seconds each. I used a rotating tray with a circular-cut foam board as the surface, and would spin it about an inch to half an inch err, I spin it about 12 degrees between each photo. I find a good setting to configure my camera with completely manual and unchanged settings (low ISO, low Fstop, low shutter speed — low light) and set it on manual focus. That way all the photos will be exposed the same way, and you will get every part of the model in focus at some point or another. After I have the rotated photos taken, I used a grey and white card and place it in the scene so that I get proper color calibration: This would be an example — I only need one photo and I can calibrate all other photos according to this one.

Then I just had to get into the Photoshop groove and piece them all together. I made a few shortcuts and got it down to where I can create the gif itself in a matter of minutes. The photos take a little more time. I plan on making a circular piece of landscape to place the models in while doing these rotational photo sessions.

**Johnnyhorse**

Haha. Thanks Jordan.

I should make a Dakka article on the .gifs. Though I am thinking over half would just be a photoshop tutorial, which are quite plentiful on the internet. A mechanized lazy susan, with a connector to the camera trigger and a micro controller is in the works, so things will basically stay the same, but it will go a lot faster and smoother so I can focus on other things. My friend is an electronics guy who wanted the project.