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I've started on the metallic blue. Done the turret and started filling in sections of the hull.
AND the shading is actually working nicely. I may only need one coat of the blue.



Takes quite a while to dry though and have to be really careful around it until it is dry, this may still take a while.

That's a gnarly paintjob already.

Thanks Weety. Much more to do, even after the blue and the green interference layers.

Not sure what colours to do the random shapes (like that oval in the above picture) and fins... and the guns of the turret...

And then there's the various signs, symbols and markings (including transfers).

And the gems...

And the circuit tracks.

Have to finish the blue first, before thinking of all that...

Great job with the blue, looks a little pre Hersey world eaters to me, which is good .

That is indeed a sexy paintjob straight out off the line. Nice work mate.

 Theophony wrote:
Great job with the blue, looks a little pre Hersey world eaters to me, which is good .

Thanks Theo. I'm glad it only took one coat on these bits so far. The turret took 2 coats to cover up some unevenness in the blue (which is now only obvious under bright light), but I managed to do these nice and evenly. Lets hope I can continue this trend.

*quick google* Yes I see what you mean. Although I am going to be covering all the grey so will look less like them in time. Maybe I can use some grey for the fins and things though. Also thinking some YELLOW may be good with this blue (if you don't get the reference, I originally got the metallic blue to paint a Subaru Impreza rally car model, Google will show you the kind of yellow I mean).



Automatically Appended Next Post:
AND Thanks Casey. More to come soon(ish).

I declare the blue finished.
Mostly one coat all over. A few bits needed touching up and there is a few patches of unevenness, but I can't do anything about them now as it would require another coat over the whole model that would loose the shading and may not even fix the marks. The eagle-eyed amongst you may spot them in the pictures, if you don't then it's not a problem.

I got in a few different angles to give you a chance of seeing all the fades and the last picture is with the flash as it shows up the variation (and the marks) better.



Next up is the green interference and gloss coats that I should get done today and then it'll be on to the details...

Excellent paint job so far, like the shading work.

 hk1x1 wrote:
Excellent paint job so far, like the shading work.

Thanks very much hk and welcome to the (mad) house.

That blue is flat out sexy. Great job.

Thanks Theo. You may be the first person to describe anything of mine as "sexy"...

Well hopefully I've not entirely ed it up with the green layers.


It's a little cloudy in places which spoils the metallic blue...
You can just about see what I mean at the tail end in the picture.

But the interference works and it's all sealed in now, so can't change it without re-painting from the grey again.

I can always cover any bits that bother me with markings etc. later...

Hopefully the WOW factor overrides any "is that meant to look like that" feelings.

Tererific!
The iridesent thing works well! Glowy circuit boards to connect the domes might not work on the iridesent paint. Maybe along the lines of black wire things because of the contrast. However not having tried it myself and am purely judging from your photos I can't be too sure.

da waaagh orkz wrote:
Tererific!
The iridesent thing works well! Glowy circuit boards to connect the domes might not work on the iridesent paint. Maybe along the lines of black wire things because of the contrast. However not having tried it myself and am purely judging from your photos I can't be too sure.

Thanks da waaagh. glad you like.

Yeah, and with a gloss finish I'm not sure how you'd do OSL as it should give a sharp reflection and not the usual glow, will have to see what colours show up. I'm working on some warning markings at the mo.

I have tidied up the black lines after the picture above (again, I really should have left that to the end on not kept tidying them up after every step only to go over with the next step...) so it looks neater as well now.

I really like the effect with the green. If I were to do an alpha legion army, this would definitely be the route to go.

Casey's Law wrote:That is indeed a sexy paintjob...

Theophony wrote:That blue is flat out sexy...

Dr H wrote:Thanks Theo. You may be the first person to describe anything of mine as "sexy"...

Sheesh! 5 posts and you've forgotten about our 'encounter' already you hussy!

Haha, seriously though brah that looks dyno and you've been working real quick. Sadly I don't think we are getting the full impact of the iridescence using the medium of photography but it still looks great. If I'm right that this looks even cooler when the light hits it differently then maybe a short video would be a fun way to show it off?

Theophony wrote:I really like the effect with the green. If I were to do an alpha legion army, this would definitely be the route to go.

Thanks Theo. Yeah, it's definitely worth trying out. Not the easiest paint I've worked with, but to those of you with experience with water-based paint it probably won't be that much of a shock. You have to make sure to use a really thin layer of the interference medium (hence the glaze medium), as the IM dries to a white finish (hence the cloudiness). But it does look good.

Casey's Law wrote:

Casey's Law wrote:That is indeed a sexy paintjob...

Theophony wrote:That blue is flat out sexy...

Dr H wrote:Thanks Theo. You may be the first person to describe anything of mine as "sexy"...

Sheesh! 5 posts and you've forgotten about our 'encounter' already you hussy!

Haha, seriously though brah that looks dyno and you've been working real quick. Sadly I don't think we are getting the full impact of the iridescence using the medium of photography but it still looks great. If I'm right that this looks even cooler when the light hits it differently then maybe a short video would be a fun way to show it off?

Lol, sorry Casey. You were my first... I'll blame my poor short-term memory for that slip.

Thanks dude. Once things start to come together I can bash things out reasonably fast, if you include all the testing though it's been quite slow painting. It helped that the blue only required one coat and that the interference mix that I use is put on very thinly and so dries quickly. The gloss coat was still drying when I took that last picture which is why the doors are still open.

Yeah, it is tricky to get a good, representative, picture of the effect. But it is a very subtle effect which can get washed out in the photos by the gloss sheen. I will try some different lighting / angle / camera options to try an show it off more with the next update.

OK people, here's some pictures with varying lighting conditions, angles of light to camera and camera settings...
These also include a sneak peek at the markings progress. But I will do a "proper" update on the markings later once I've added and tidied a few bits.

These pictures were taken using the camera flash.
The blue in these show up lighter than IRL and the green is not as obvious as IRL, but you can see the green near any point of gloss reflection or where the angle is just right, which is where it usually shows up.


These pictures were taken with various lighting conditions including my normal lamp, the lamp with a piece of tissue paper in front (to make less harsh lighting) and with a daylight bulb (the pictures with the white/red background).
These (at least on my computer) look very much like it does IRL.
The best way I can explain it is that the blue is generally always showing, but the green will cover the blue only when the angle is just right and is usually on surfaces very near to where the gloss shine is seen. Flat surfaces therefore rarely show much green, but curved surfaces (such as the engine intakes) can show up quite green.


I hope with the various angles you can tell that the effect moves around as the angle of light to model to observer changes.
Do these help illustrate the effect any better?

More to show and tell later...

Oh yeh I can see it pretty well now! Very cool and subtle. Thanks for taking those images and describing the effect. The markings are looking good too, looking forward to more.

That lighting only helps to make it look better. Good Lighting is the key, thats why all strip clubs are dark, so you not get a Good look at the merchandise or you might walk out . The hazard stripes are awesome as well. Who new the eldar invented the hazard stripe, and the imperium adopted it just to warn people that only eldar should get close to the edge , especially on swords.

Casey's Law wrote:Oh yeh I can see it pretty well now! Very cool and subtle. Thanks for taking those images and describing the effect. The markings are looking good too, looking forward to more.

Thanks Casey, glad they helped. I've said before, if anyone wants a different angle etc. of any model, I'll be happy to oblige.
See below...

Theophony wrote:That lighting only helps to make it look better. Good Lighting is the key, thats why all strip clubs are dark, so you not get a Good look at the merchandise or you might walk out . The hazard stripes are awesome as well. Who new the eldar invented the hazard stripe, and the imperium adopted it just to warn people that only eldar should get close to the edge , especially on swords.

Cool, thanks Theo.
Yep, lighting is the key. I do try to get the best pictures and probably take 10 times the number of pics I put on here and just pick the best. I am however only working with a desk lamp and 2 camera phones...

lol at club lighting, yeah that and beer have been helping the looks-deprived get it on for many years...

This wave serpent has been re-painted by The Scientist's dedicated paintshop workers, so it's not necessarily the Eldar that painted the markings...

...and speaking of markings.

Here you can see;
The "don't get too near" marking around the intake,
A "Danger" sign for the side exhausts,
A Warning for the Jet exhaust (if you look closely, you'll see it's actually in German and sideways),
The hazard striped area and some signs (in Russian this time, need to have a fiddle to make them blend in more) inside the door.
An ejector seat warning triangle near the cockpit (I find this amusing as the pilot is just a head wired into the cockpit and couldn't eject even if he wanted to),
Some little black teeth at the front of the cockpit (just because),
Hazard stripes on the rear door (so you don't get caught out when it opens, safety first),
Hazard stripes on the leading edges of the air-brakes,
And, the reason that there is a rectangle of hazard stripes on the inside of the door (you can see that corner from underneath and the green of the engine bay just doesn't match the purple).

What do you guys and gals think?

Now have to repeat the intake warning around the other intake...

The red around the intake is beautiful so are the other markings. Just the head being ejected would be hilarious.

That's looking sweet man, it's all in the details! I'm afraid to say that your gravbox has the red ring of death though!

Theophony wrote:The red around the intake is beautiful so are the other markings. Just the head being ejected would be hilarious.

Lol, with a little parachute popping out the back of his head.

Casey's Law wrote:That's looking sweet man, it's all in the details! I'm afraid to say that your gravbox has the red ring of death though!

Thanks dudes.
The red/white around the intake was soooo hard to do, my hand is not as steady as I'd like, but it's as smooth a line as I can do. AND now I have to do it again AND make it look almost identical but a mirror image...

There are many more details like those to come and a few more exciting additions if I can decide what they will be and where they might go (partly the reason for adding the transfers I have so far is to see where the space is for anything extra).
Still have to finish painting things before I stick too many more transfers on, like the guns and missile and some metalwork and not to forget the (dreaded) circuit tracks...

By "gravbox" I assume you mean the WS. The red ring isn't actually a complete ring as it only continues over the "cut-outs" around the intake and not between them... Just a little touch to add interest.

But first, the other intake...

Haha yeh, the 'gravbox' and 'red ring of death' comments is an Xbox joke. When an Xbox dies through internal issues it often displays a glowing red ring where it would normally be green. The red ring of death has become a bit of a meme because of it.

I love the red though, I'm sure you'll copy it over very well, don't worry.

Ah yeah, that rings a bell. I've been more of a playstation man, so not had the joy of an xbox "red rind of death".
Although I have acquired an xbox recently to go with the megadrive, PS1, a selection of PS2s and a Wii...

I've done the red/white on the other side now, it's slightly more pointy than the first but is fine and turned out easier (read, less going back and fourth touching up the colours).

Couple more things and I'll have something to show in an update.

that blue is beautiful! Now do an orange piece

 Largeblastmarker wrote:
that blue is beautiful! Now do an orange piece

Thanks dude. Welcome.

I purposely didn't do this in orange (it was considered) after the Guardian with the Shuriken cannon (he's quite orange ).
But I do like a yellow to orange to red fade, so there will be more in time.
Although I don't have any metallic orange...hmm, I wonder... *makes a note of it for future*

Glowy effects still might work on the shiny stuff if there red yellow or orange. Bluey colours won't work.

That paint job is great! Looking forward to seeing more.

Thanks da waaagh. Will have to see about it when I get there. Thing is, with this paint job, there's NO touching up if you slip. Thankfully being gloss you can wipe off mistakes, but only if you do it quickly. If I try blending, to get the glow, there will be no going back and I don't want to mess this up after all the time I've spent on it...

Quick update on progress so far.


Probably not that many obvious changes for the few days work.
I finished the Red warning around the other intake. Which, as I mentioned was pointy-er than the first, so I went back and made the first more pointy to match. Do they look a pair?

I've painted various metal bits in Gun-Metal and washed with black (still to do silver highlights).

I painted the Bright-lance and Las-Cannon/Bright-lance-alike/"laser". Made to look like they were acquired from an existing craftworld (Saim-Hann) and SM chapter (Blood Angels or any other "red" one).

Painted the missile in the colour that most missiles seem to come in...white.

And added more transfers here and there (some of which are shown in the picture).
I thought it amusing to stick an "inert" sign on the Las-cannon, I got loads, got to use them on something...

The Las-Cannon-alike will be weathered to look quite beaten up, so this isn't how it's going to end up, just the "new look" colours at the moment. Scratches and things will be added at some point in the future as they will on the rest of the 'serpent.

C&C and I'll return once more has been done.

Loving the turret, and the second red ring of death is looking great. Where's the prototype transfer from.