This week I took a quick break from the Crimson Fists to make a bit more progress on my Seraphon with this Terradon Rider Alpha. The Seraphon were supposed to be my #NewYearNewArmy for 2021 but I haven’t got as far as I would have liked. Five months in and so far all I have to show for it besides this guy are the Skink Starpriest and the Saurus Oldblood! Still, it’s been a lot of fun to get this far at least.

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I said from the beginning that I didn’t want to go overboard with LEDs in my Seraphon. That might be a bit hard to believe when they currently have a 100% rate of LED inclusion, but that’s because I’ve started with the fun stuff. I just had to include the LEDs for the sunfire bolas as I was fairly confident it would look awesome – and hopefully you’ll agree it does!

Assembling

Once again I’ve used the same technique to create the flaming bolas as I used for the Nighthaunt Candles – this technique is just so versatile! The LEDs used are two ‘0805 Chip LED’ 3V yellow LED from Small Scale Lights connected in parallel on a single 3V CR2032 battery. I used the LED wires covered in modelling putty to form the leather straps of the bolas. The wires then run down through the Skink Alpha’s arm, body, leg and then into the Terradon. From there they run down the Terradon’s right leg, through the chain and the ball of meteoric stone, down through the tree and into the base to connect to the battery and the switch. You can see the path of the wire in the pictures below before the putty was applied to hide them.

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You’ll notice that I replaced the default flying stand with a plastic tree from my bits box. There were two reasons for this – firstly I don’t really like the aesthetics of the clear plastic stands, and secondly clear plastic isn’t very good at concealing LED wires!

I decided to paint the acrylic splash gel flames just to make them look a bit nicer when the LED is switched off. Once the final layer of the gel was dry I applied a shade of Fuegan Orange to the top half of the flames, then a yellow glaze all over. You can see the ‘on’ and ‘off’ comparison pictures below.

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Painting

As I’ve mentioned previously, the colour scheme for my Seraphon is heavily influenced by the 1993 Jurassic Park toy line, in this case specifically the Pteranodon. Whenever I record my painting recipes on this blog, it’s not so much to give out advice on what is a “good” colour scheme, but mainly as a reminder for myself! But I also think it’s nice to share in case anyone is interested how a particular colour was achieved. My updated Seraphon recipes are shown below. All paints referenced are Citadel paints.

• Undercoat (all areas)
  • Grey Seer contrast undercoat
• Bright Red Scales
  • Contrast Blood Angels Red
  • Wild Rider highlight
  • Fire Dragon Bright highlight
• Dark Brown Scales / Jungle Bark
  • Contrast Cygor Brown
  • Doombull Brown highlight
  • Tuskgor Fur highlight
• Orange Crest
  • Contrast Gryph-Hound Orange
  • Fire Dragon Bright highlight
• Pink Feathers / Tongues
  • Screamer Pink base
  • Nuln Oil shade
  • Pink Horror highlight
  • Cadian Fleshtone highlight
• Black Claws / Leather Straps
  • Contrast Black Templar
• ‘Gold’ Weapons / Jewellery
  • Contrast Aggaros Dunes
  • Screaming Skull highlight
• Yellow Eyes
  • Averland Sunset base
  • Fuegan Orange shade
  • Yriel Yellow layer
  • Abaddon Black pupil
  • Wild Rider Red veins
• Terradon Scales
  • Contrast Talassar Blue
  • Lothern Blue highlight
• Human Skulls / Terradon Wings
  • Contrast Skeleton Horde
  • Ushabti Bone layer
  • Screaming Skull highlight
• Ancient Stone
  • Contrast Skeleton Horde
  • Screaming Skull highlight
• Meteoric Rock
  • Contrast Basilicanum Grey
• Jungle Leaves
  • Contrast Militarum Green
• Base Texture
  • Sand & PVA Glue (before undercoat)
  • Contrast Snakebite Leather
  • Zamesi Desert drybrush
  • Ushabti Bone drybrush
  • Mordheim Tufts
  • Steel Legion Drab rim

I’m really enjoying Contrast paints; they’re so quick to apply and give pretty good results! I’m particularly in love with Aggaros Dunes – combined with a Screaming Skull highlight it can really give a fast and passable NMM effect. I don’t think I’d use Contrast paints on the smooth surfaces of Space Marine armour, but for Seraphon and their scales they are ideal!

That’s all for this week, I hope you’ve found it interesting. Speaking of interesting, don’t forget that it’s the Warhammer Community preview of the new Age of Sigmar box set this afternoon!