Round Two Report from Kezley - Part 2

kezley continues:

Painting the armor.

Blue armor. I was really into this one, so that I forgot to take detail pictures of it. Ooops! Done it again. :-) Anyway, the concept is exactly like you're painting a gemstone, the way GW told people in their Masterclass article.

Starting with a black coat, I highlighted the bottom part with a mix of Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue and Vallejo Blue Grey. Then I highlighted the top part (only on the corner where the light will get reflected, in this case the top left corner) the same way, with addition of Vallejo Sky Grey to the mix. To smooth out the paint progression, I applied a wash of Dark Prussian Blue thinned down to a consistency of 1:5.

Painting the trench coat.

Dark brown leather trench coat for our knight. I highlighted the black with Vallejo Black Brown, followed by adding a little bit of Vallejo Light Brown. I wanted it to look like shiny leather and not suede, so I didn't put too much Light Brown. Instead, I just highlighted the edges of foldings and the bottom of the coat with Ivory and a little bit of the brown mix, to keep the transition smooth.

Painting the sword.

I painted the dull area with Vallejo Dark Grey, and the sharp area with Vallejo Sky Grey.

Then I highlighted the dull area by adding Vallejo Sky Grey little by little to Vallejo Dark Grey. The highlighted areas are at the bottom and the top, leaving the middle area untouched. For the final highlight, I put Vallejo Flat Aluminium on the edges and the top curve of the sharp area.

Painting the hilts, rifle, and hair, & assembly to the base.

The hilts were painted red to accentuate the sword, and make them stand out a bit from all the dark colors. I painted the end of the hilt with gold NMM. The sword was the final part of the figure, so I glued the figure to the base and attached the rifle to his back.

I wanted the rifle to stay black, yet I accidentally painted too much grey, so I had to put black washes to create the transition back to black. The end of the rifle (I don't know what's the name of it) is painted using Vallejo Black Brown, and highlighted with Light Brown + Ivory mix for the highlight.

The hair is black (Neo has black hair, so there!). With the same method of painting the Female Druid's hair, I highlighted only the top part and the ends of the hair with neutral grey.

Painting the insignia.

I looked at the VOID rulebook for VASA (where the Knight of Balance comes from) insignias to paint on his suit and coat. I wanted it to look like gold-plated insignia (to show that he's an important person) - so here's the step-by-step painting guide for simple insignias:

For the knee pads, I used a simple Alpha symbol – Triangle A. Started with Vallejo English Uniform (1st pic), followed with Vallejo Green Ochre mixed with Snakebite Leather (2nd pic), and finished with a fine dot of Green Ochre mixed with Ivory.

For the eagle/falcon head insignia on the coat: Start by painting the silhouette of the falcon head with Vallejo English Uniform (1st pic). Then the 3D look is formed by using the overhead highlight method – in this case, the highlight (with Snakebite Leather and Vallejo Green Ochre) is pretty much just a lining on the top of the curve of the top and lower beak, top of lower curve of the eye, and top curve of the feathers. The work is finalized with dots of Ivory + Green Ochre mix (3rd pic).

That's it, folks! A simple paint job with a simple color scheme. Hopefully this article explains things better than the first one. (Critiques of what should I improve for the next article will be greatly appreciated.)

See the Finished Pictures