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Hi all

I got an Imperial Knight as an ally for my Grey Knights and decided to paint it in my Grey Knights colour scheme to show this.

For this I wanted a really dirty metal look, that's what my Grey Knights have as main colour. The armor ornaments are something between bronze and a dark dirty gold (created by a dark metal basecoat brushed with bronze and a bit of gold for the edges). All cracks and recesses were painted in a glowing blue, just as the eyes and runes of my Grey Knights. After all that baddie is fueled by psychic energy I added a few freehand elements, such as the glowing runes on the armor, the crest and the heraldic banner between the legs.

The basing is a mixture of sand and glue, drowned in dark grey, then drybrushed with layers of increasing brightness. A few spots of burned grass and as highlight I added a ruined part of a smashed building to increase the impression of the Knight's size.

Please feel free to comment

Neet tron knight

Very nice color scheme. My two cents: I think the brightness takes away from the sense of scale. I'd wash it harder. Then again, GK is a pretty fundamentalist outfit, so maybe they wash more often

Edited: last photo didn't load the first time. That is great detail work! I love it.

Thanks for the comments so far. Funny thing is, the wash looks way more rusted and dirty in reality. Somehow the diffuse lighting evened that out so it looks just like metal. Shows me again that I have to be even bolder with the contrasts and use even more dark wash. At least if I want it to come across in photos as well.

Looks great Really like the glowing blue bits. May steal them for my Dreadnought.

Feel free to steal, that would make me happy As they say, stealing is the highest form of accolade

Very cool and unique

That looks absolutely amazing. The fact that it stands out from all the other color schemes and patterns used more commonly on imperial knights makes it that much more eye-catching.

I wish I had uber brush skills like that.

It looks good, only complaint is that the runes make it look like a Space Wolf affiliated Knight.

Yeah, I had that thought about Space Wolves as well, but there isn't much GK affiliated imagery that can be used for big symbols on areas. I thought of Inquisition, but skimming the whole codex revealed only the big "I" as usable symbol for a big area.

So I decided to use changed and made up runes that at least differ from Space Wolves.

And thanks a lot for the accolade Keeps me going to invest even more time in the next IK.

This is quality great job !!!

I like it! The glowy bits are very cool.

So I have a few suggestions for ideas that may or may not make it look better, I'm not much of a painter so take these with a grain of salt:

First, I think the heraldry shield looks like it's missing an actual logo - the flames look like more of a background, painting a sword or book or skull or some combination thereof on top would improve it in my eyes.

Second, the runes look a little... I don't know how to say this, but I think you either need to frame them somehow or you need more. Like, there's one simple rune on each armour panel, but they don't necessarily look as if they belong there, more like an afterthought. I'm sorry, that sounds worse than I mean it to, I'm just trying to say that I think you need to make the runes look more like they belong. I'm not sure of the best way to do that, but what occurs to me is to "frame" them somehow; perhaps surround each rune with a glowing circle, then fill the space between the circle and the edge of the armour plate with some form of decoration (much smaller and less bright runes is one option).

Third, I think it might have made sense to do the engine glows in slightly different colour; perhaps a slightly greenish blue, so they still fit with the runic glows but it's obvious they have a slightly different source.

Another small thing, I think I would have done the base in darker colours, or perhaps gone for something more colourful (the dark red of Mars, for example), as right now the grey rock and grey metal of the Knight are a little too close together. Although I imagine a lot of that is just the photos, and it looks better in real life.


Again, I'm not much of a painter and I've never painted anything that large, so my suggestions are obviously not worth very much.

By the way, it looks like there's some really nice freehand on the chest and on the chainsaw, but it's hard to see in these photos, how about some detail shots?

Thanks for the comments, again I think you're right with some of your comments, especially the base. However, I also did a lot of the rest of the army in this style (where it looks more fitting) and I don't really want to switch for this one model. I think I'll try to add more colour with additional elements and maybe more burned grass.

I tried the engine with a different glow, but adding the additional colour didn't go with the rest so I decided to stick with the reduced colour scheme.

With the runes I tried framing, but it didn't look very nice. It looked kinda like a mourning edge on a condolence card. But I'll try framing it with a brighter border, I didn't think of that.

Also thanks for hinting at the freehand not being visible in the photos, I'll to to add some which show those. I really should get a macro objective for my camera.