Author: Chris B.

Brother Amset, Sons of Horus

On By Chris B.In Horus Heresy, LEDs, Painting Recipe, Sons of Horus, Space MarinesLeave a comment

Let the galaxy burn!

Warmaster Horus, Primarch of the Sons of Horus

In a surprise to absolutely no one, I’m back again this week with another MKVI Space Marine. What is surprising is that it’s not a loyalist painted in a primary colour – red, blue or yellow – but in a lovely sea green traitor! Brother Amset of the Sons of Horus is a test model for an upcoming project, just like my Custodian and Imperial Fist from recent weeks. It’s been many years since I’ve painted a Marine who has spat on his oaths to the Emperor, and it felt a bit strange!

Modelling & Painting

Brother Amset was built straight from the Legion MKVI Tactical Squad kit, apart from being given the LED helmet eye lens and bolter muzzle flare treatment, as detailed in my LED Muzzle Flare tutorial. As there wasn’t anything too complex about this build, I took the opportunity to document the process and refresh my LED Muzzle Flare tutorial. I’ve made some significant changes to this tutorial to reflect improvements I’ve developed in this process over the years. The original June 2019 version of this tutorial has been archived here in case anyone still wants to reference it.

The paint recipes I used for this model draw heavily from the Warhammer+ Citadel Masterclass tutorials. I found painting an entirely new colour of power armour a refreshing change! The whole miniature was spray undercoated with Chaos Black spray. All paints are Citadel unless specified otherwise.

  • Sons of Horus Armour
  • Sons of Horus Green basecoat (2-3 thin coats)
  • 50:50 Incubi Darkness:Abaddon Black shade
  • 50:50 Sons of Horus Green:Sybarite Green highlight
  • Sybarite Green fine highlight
  • Gauss Blaster Green dot highlight
  • Black Armour
  • Abaddon Black basecoat
  • Incubi Darkness highlight
  • Sons of Horus Green fine highlight
  • 50:50 Sons of horus Green:Deepkin Flesh dot highlight
  • Silver Metallics
  • Leadbelcher basecoat
  • Nuln Oil shade
  • Stormhost Silver highlight
  • Gold Metallics
  • Scorched Brown basecoat
  • Retributor Armour layer
  • Reikland Fleshshade shade
  • Stormhost Silver highlight
  • Martian Base
  • Mournfang Brown basecoat
  • Martian Ironearth technical paint
  • Reikland Fleshshade shade
  • Jokareo Orange drybrush
  • Lugganath Orange drybrush
  • Doombull Brown glaze on model’s feet and ankles
  • Tuskgor Fur glaze on model’s feet, ankles and shins

I also continued my experiments with making the eyes and special effects look better when the LED is switched off. I applied a very thin glaze of red all over each eye lens, followed by a thin glaze of orange towards the bottom of the lens. Lastly, a very watered down dot of white in the opposite corner. The muzzle flare was shaded with Fuegan Orange at the widest point nearest the barrel of the bolter. Once that was dry, the whole muzzle flare was given a watered down glaze of Imperial Fist contrast paint.

That’s it for this week. I had a lot of fun painting a Son of Horus and am looking forward to revisiting this colour scheme again (which is just as well really). As always, thanks very much for reading, and please don’t forget you can also follow my work on social media at Twitter, Mastodon and Instagram. I’ll see you again soon for some more LED miniatures!

Brother Lydus, Imperial Fists

On By Chris B.In Horus Heresy, Imperial Fists, LEDs, Painting Recipe, Space MarinesLeave a comment

A man’s soul needs to be a fortress.

Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists

I’m back again with another MKVI Space Marine, but this time it’s not a converted Primaris Marine! Brother Lydus is built straight from the new(ish) Legion MKVI Tactical Squad kit. Just like my Custodian from a few weeks ago, this Imperial Fist is an individual test model for another upcoming project.

Modelling & Painting

I haven’t done a lot of conversion work on this model, by my standards at least. I’ve just given it the very basic LED helmet eye lens treatment, as detailed in my LED Eye Lens tutorial. As this model was so straightforward to make, I took the opportunity to document the process and refresh my LED Eye Lens tutorial. It is essentially the same, with a few minor improvements and clarifications, as well as new, clearer photos. I know from my website stats that this particular tutorial is one of the most visited pages on my website, especially as many of the other more complex tutorials reference it as a starting point. It’s a few years old now so I thought it was worth bringing up-to-date. I haven’t deleted the original August 2018 version though, that is now archived here in case anyone still wanted to reference it.

Previously I’ve used blue LEDs for Imperial Fists, but I decided to switch to red for this project. This is for two reasons: firstly it more closely matches the current Horus Heresy artwork for the Imperial Fists, and secondly I find the red LEDs are more vibrant than the blue equivalents, especially on camera.

For the paint scheme, I mostly stuck to my traditional yellow recipe, but with a few tweaks, detailed below. I decided to try applying the shades slightly later in the process, but also applying different levels of shades in different areas of the yellow armour to give a bit more depth to the large smooth surfaces that characterise MKVI plate. The whole miniature was undercoated with Chaos Black spray.

  • Yellow Armour
  • Averland Sunset basecoat
  • Yriel Yellow layer (2-3 thin coats)
  • Casandora Yellow shade
  • Fuegan Orange shade in darker areas (slightly watered down)
  • Mournfang Brown shade in deepest recesses
  • Yriel Yellow edge highlight
  • Flash Gitz Yellow fine highlight
  • Dorn Yellow fine highlight on sharpest edges
  • White Scar dot highlight on sharpest edges
  • Black Armour
  • Chaos Black basecoat
  • Eshin Grey highlight
  • Dawnstone fine highlight
  • Silver Metallics
  • Leadbelcher basecoat
  • Nuln Oil shade
  • Stormhost Silver highlight
  • Martian Base
  • Mournfang Brown basecoat
  • Martian Ironearth technical paint
  • Reikland Fleshshade shade
  • Jokareo Orange drybrush
  • Lugganath Orange drybrush

The Martian base was a bit of an experiment, but I’m mostly pleased with how it turned out. I think I’ll go a bit less heavy on the drybrush stages next time. But it still provides a lovely contrast for the yellow armour of the Imperial Fist.

While I was carrying out experiments with the model, I also decided to have a go at making the eyes look better when the LED is switched off. These models spend the majority of their time in my display cabinet with the electronics turned off to save batteries, so I thought it might be nice to not simply have ‘blank’ resin eyes. I applied a very thin glaze of red all over each lens, followed by a thin glaze of orange towards the bottom of the lens. Lastly, a very watered down dot of white in the opposite corner. As you can see in the images below, it works very well – the off-white colour of the resin is an excellent base for the glazes, and the glazes are still thin enough that it doesn’t noticeably effect the LED glow.

That’s it for this week. The plastic Legion MKVI kit is absolutely wonderful – although I might be slightly bias as a real ‘Beakie’ fan boy – and I’m looking forward to revisiting it in the very near future. Anyway, as always, thanks very much for reading, and please don’t forget you can also follow my work on social media at Twitter, Mastodon and Instagram. I’ll see you again soon for some more LED miniatures!

Brother Oram, Flesh Eaters Assault Marine

On By Chris B.In Flesh Eaters, LEDs, Space Marines, Technical, True Scale, War of the False Primarch, Warhammer 40,000Leave a comment

Explosive hull decompression sounds the same in any language.

Brother Oram, Flesh Eaters Assault Marine

It’s back to the Flesh Eaters project this week with Brother Oram, an explosive-equipped Assault Intercessor. Brother Oram is technically the first member of a new Assault Intercessor squad, but for the moment he will join Squad Levers for games of Kill Team as a grenadier specialist.

Building & Painting

I used the techniques described in my LED Eye Lens tutorial to create the effects of Brother Oram’s helmet. The only significant difference worth noting is that I used a TruOpto 1.8mm Green LED instead of the red LED described in the tutorial.

Oram’s bullet ricochet effects were achieved using the techniques described in my Simple LED Muzzle Flare tutorial, only with the “flares” coming from the armour rather than a gun barrel. The two LEDs on this model are connected in parallel and both powered from the same battery and switch.

In the images below you can see the exposed LED on the left, and then the impact effects after the acrylic gel had been applied, as described in steps 13 – 15 of the tutorial. There is one difference though, and that is the addition of “sparks” made from tiny pieces of fibre optic cable. This was an experiment, and I’m very pleased with how it turned out. As seen in the centre image below, after the first application of the acrylic gel, I used a set of fine tweezers to push five short approximately five millimetre lengths of fibre optic into the gel in what I hoped was a random pattern. The end of the fibres in the gel are touching the outer surface of the yellow LED. The acrylic gel is strong enough to hold the fibres in place as it dries, so long as you are careful not to disturb it. Once the initial layer of gel had dried, I then applied a second layer to further sculpt the shape of the ricochet effect, as seen in the image below on the right. This included sculpting the gel upwards to follow the paths of some of the fibres. This was intended to make the “trajectories” of the “sparks” (i.e. the ends of the fibre) look a little more natural. This required some very fine sculpting – I used a small piece of wire to get in between the fibres, rather than my normal sculpting tools.

As I’ve described previously for other members of this squad, the base model is a Primaris Assault Intercessor that I have modified to wear MkVI armour, in keeping with the War of the False Primarch theme for my Flesh Eaters army. You can read the latest from the War of the False Primarch campaign here. For those that are interested, my painting recipe for the red Flesh Eaters armour can be found in this previous post.

One aspect of this model that I painted differently was the battle damage on the pauldrons and left forearm. I haven’t added much battle damage or weathering to the Flesh Eaters in this project, other than some subtle dust and dirt around the feet. But with this miniature I really wanted to sell the idea of a Marine under fire, so I added some damage to hint at previous impacts. This was applied using the sponge method. The damage is Rhinox Hide, which I then highlighted along the lower edge with Evil Sunz Scarlet and Wild Rider Red to give a sense of depth.

My plan from the start with this model was to have him be a grenadier in Kill Team, so I knew that I needed to give some visible indication of this specialism. If you look closely you may see that he has a number of grenades in his belt. His left hand originally held a melta bomb, but I wasn’t happy with the look. I tried switching it for a belt of grenades, but I wasn’t happy with that either. In the end I settled for the limpet mine as something that looked suitably dramatic and brutal! This came out of my bits box, but I think it was originally from a plastic Ork set. In hindsight I wish I’d filed off the rivets to make it look less Orky, but with the right paint job I still think it is feasibly an Imperial weapon!

That’s it for this week, I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about Brother Oram! As always, thanks very much for reading, and please don’t forget you can also follow my work on social media at Twitter, Mastodon and Instagram. I’ll see you again soon for some more LED miniatures!

My Custodian Shadowkeeper on WarhammerTV

On By Chris B.In Adeptus Custodes, Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer Community, Warhammer TVLeave a comment

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to have one of my models make it onto Warhammer TV Twitch channel again! My Custodian Shadowkeeper featured alongside the work of other hobbyists on this Friday’s ‘Hang Out and Paint’ episode on Warhammer TV (Friday 3rd February episode, at around the 2 minute mark, if anyone would like to see it).

It’s always an honour to have had my work exhibited in this way, and a big thank you to Em, Ben and the rest of the Warhammer Community Team for their kind words about the paint job and the LED effects!

Helios Pho, Custodian Shadowkeeper

On By Chris B.In Adeptus Custodes, LEDs, Technical, Warhammer 40,000Leave a comment

Choose the darkness of the cells or the golden light of the Emperor, abomination. I care not which!

Helios Pho

It’s been an slow start to the year, with this Adeptus Custodes model taking up the majority of my hobby time in January. But as elaborate as this model may look, this is actually just a test model for another upcoming project! I’m actually testing multiple technniques on this model; non-metallic metal (NMM) painting, flickering LED fire as a weapon effect, the Shadowkeepers Shield Host colour schemes and scorched wasteland bases.

Modelling

My design statement for the lighting on this model was “The Golden Light of the Emperor”. Previously I’ve used green for Custodes eyes, but I’ve never been 100% happy with that, and decided that a golden yellow might be more in keeping with their imagery. To create the LED eye lenses, I used the technique described in my LED Eye Lens Tutorial. The only thing I did differenly for this miniature was that I decided to use two 0805 SMD chip LEDs in parallel as an experiment, rather than a single 1.8mm LED. The visual results were practically the same. There are pros and cons to using each type of LED. For example the SMD LEDs are easier to install in the helmet, but more fiddly to wire up than the 1.8mm LEDs, plus you need two of them rather than one. The experiment was definitely worth doing, but it won’t sway me to switch to SMD chips for eyes in future.

Next let’s look at the flickering fire on the blade. I wanted to show a guardian spear that was burning with golden flames of the Emperor’s wrath – the perfect weapon for a Shadowkeeper on the hunt! However, this concept broke two of my LED Design Philosophy “rules”. Rule number one is to “follow the art”, and I don’t actually recall any instances of Custodians with flaming weapons. Rule number four is to “consider the passage of time”, i.e. avoid a sense of motion with your LEDs if the model is not moving! As you can see in the video below, the flame-effect LED flickers to simulate the motion of flames. But despite these rules I had a strong image in my head for how I wanted this miniature to look, and as they say, rules are made to be broken!

The flame LED is a simple 5mm 3V LED stolen from a Tea Light LED candle like this. It is wired into the miniature using the techniques described in my Simple LED Muzzle Flare Tutorial, including the use of acrylic gel to create the flame effects. You can see the path of the wires through the right arm of the miniatures in the images below. All the LEDs in this miniature were connected in parallel to a single CR2032 coin cell battery and switch in the base.

Painting

I’ve always been a fan of dark armoured Custodes, like the ones seen in the corner of the iconic image below. I love the way it makes them look secretive and sinister. In my mind they aren’t straight-up “good guys”. Their function is to unsure the safety of the Emperor, and any other considerations are secondary. In a similar vein, I’ve enjoyed the lore of the Shadowkeepers Shield Host since I first read about it when the Adeptus Custodes recieved their own codex a few years ago. The idea of these grim wardens patrolling the dark and forgotten cells deep below the Emperor’s Palace is extremely evocative. So when the time came to revisit the Custodes, the Shadowkeepers were a natural choice for the colour scheme.

Images © Games Workshop

This was my first time attempting NMM on something larger than a reflective visor. I’m fairly pleased with the results for a first attempt, and definitely learnt a few lessons along the way. The recipes were taken from the WarhammerTV Citadel Masterclass episode on painting NMM – as an aside, Warhammer+ is well worth the subscription in my opinion – so I don’t think I share the recipes in their entirety like I normally do. But I will share the paints involved so you get the gist.

  • Gold NMM
  • XV-88, Balor Brown, Zamesi Desert and Ushabti Bone highlights
  • Doombull Brown and Abaddon Black shades
  • Silver NMM
  • Administratum Grey and White Scar highlights
  • Dark Reaper and Abaddon Black shades
  • Red Robes & Plume
  • Mephiston Red and Ushabti Bone highlights
  • Mephiston Red, Xereus Purple and Abaddon Black shades
  • Scorched Wasteland Base
  • Dryad Bark basecoat
  • Agrellan Earth technical paint
  • Screaming Skull drybrush
  • Mordheim Turf grass tufts
  • Agrax Earthshade shade on grass tufts
  • Screaming Skull drybrush on grass tufts

This was my first time using a crackle paint for basing effects, and I think I should have applied a slightly thicker layer to get larger cracks. I was aiming to create the image of a scorched and blasted wasteland, with the Custodes striding through in search of the escaped horror that had caused this devestation.

That’s it for this week, as always, thanks very much for reading, and please don’t forget you can also follow my work on social media at Twitter, Mastodon and Instagram. I’ll see you again soon for some more test models, then some ‘actual’ models, plus of course more Flesh Eater space marines and maybe even some Seraphon!