b - Hang Glider Structure

Finalist Lyondri writes:

When painting a new miniature, I act just as if I wanted to dress it: I start first with the skin, then the underclothes. After that, the clothes and finally, armour and every different piece of equipment and all the tiny details.

With the Bat, I do just that - starting first with the structure, then the Dwarven pilot, the flame cannon, the details (the cables that run along the structure and the nails) and finally, the wing.

About the Paint: I used the Games Workshop Citadel range.

Step 4: The Structure

Painting wood seems a little tricky (and well...ahem...it is :-) but it's actually quite easy.

I first paint all the wooden parts with a mix of Bestial Brown and Chaos Black. Once it's done, I then paint little lines with Bestial Brown all along every wooden piece. This already provides the impression of natural wood, but with a lighter mix of Bestial Brown and Skull White, I then add a third layer to lighten the stripes.

You can see the result in these pictures. (These pictures are nothing more than a bad scan of the minis, and I hope you can see what I mean :-) [Editor: Click on the pictures to see enlarged versions.]

Step 5: The Dwarven Pilot

As I said, the pilot would wear a warm black jacket which is made with Chaos Black. To give some colours, and to help viewing the pilot under the big wing, I decided to paint his beard blond. This was easily done by first painting the beard with Snakebite Leather, drybrushed first with a mix of Snakebite Leather and Sunburst Yellow and another time with Snakebite Leather, Sunburst Yellow and a small touch of Skull White.

The glasses were a little tricky to paint. I made them with a very pale blue and a black frame to keep things simple. To add another colour touch, I paint the boots with a mix of green and brown.

Everything was then given a lighter shade by painting the relief with the same colour lightened with Skull White (for instance, the jacket is originally Black lighted with Chaos Black + Skull White).

Step 6: The Flame Cannon

The metallic parts of miniatures are the easiest parts to paint.

First, I asked myself how the Dwarves would have created these metallic parts. There were two options: first with bronze, in which case I would have painted them with Bronze Dwarf, and which would gave a warm tone for the miniature; or second, with iron or steel in which case I would have painted them with Mithril Silver. Iron or steel are far better metals than bronze. No doubt that Dwarves wouldn't have used bronze for their war machines - but as the wing would be red, I thought that bronze was more appropriate for the final miniature's look.

I always start to paint metallic parts with Chaos Black. Then, I paint them with the desired metallic colour (in our case, it is Dwarven Bronze).

The result is then far from good as it lack the necessary shades and reliefs that give the visual effect. This is achieved by applying black ink on every metallic line and details. To represent the carbonized mouth of the cannon, it is then drybrushed with black.

Step 7: Details

For the first part of the Bat to be finished, I just have the small details to paint. This is most of the time the most harassing and boring part! On the Bat, I painted the oil tube Codex Grey and light grey (Codex Grey + Skull White), the cables with Snakebite Leather and the nails and the tail hinge with Bronze Dwarf.

See the final result of the first part of the miniature:

[Editor: Click to see the full picture]