Visions of The Burning Eye

Hi all,
I have decided to start a new project log - my last is now looking somewhat disjointed, particularly since I've altered my paint scheme from the original concept.

So without further ado, welcome to my new plog!

This is my painting log, there are many others like it, but this one is mine.
My paintbrush is my best friend.
It is my life.
I must master it as I must master my life.
Without me, my paintbrush is useless.
Without my paintbrush, I am useless.
I must wield my paintbrush true.
I must paint neater than my enemy, who is trying to outpaint me.
I must out highlight him before he out highlights me.
Before God I swear this creed: my paintbrush and myself are defenders of my painting log, we are the masters of our enemy, we are the saviors of my life.
So be it, until there is no enemy, but an empty 'to paint' pile.
Amen.


In light of some cool ideas I've seen elsewhere on the forum, this first post will be updated with finished pics of each unit.

There are three strands to my Plog.

Kabal of the Burning Eye
My Archon & his Court, Kabalite Warriors, Incubi, Raiders, Ravagers etc go here

Archon Y'Los Dalur


Incubi of the Shrine of the Sundered Kin


Kraxis' Vipers Kabalite Warrior Squad (although Syndar is standing in as squad leader at the moment...)


Syndar's War Dogs Venom


Kraxis' Vipers Raider


Dar'yth's Death Dealers Raider


The Void Runner


The Singularity


Cult of the Shadowed Blade
Succubus, wyches, reavers hellions and fliers go here

The Vanishing Death - Razorwing Jetfighter


Coven of Distorted Perfection
Haemonculi, wracks, grotesques, mandrakes, scourges and pain engines go here

Urien Rakarth

First question then, has anyone tried staining a pale flesh colour with a red wash - if so, does it work well? I've got a method for doing blood and gore that I'm happy with, but I had an idea that I might like to stain the rest of the flesh as though it's been soaked in blood for a while. My Taloi haven't arrived yet but I don't want to ruin them trying something that might not work well.

I wouldnt recommend a red wash to do bloodstains. If you wash pale skin with red, it would appear more like some sort of rash. What exactly do you mean with "soaked in blood"? I immediatly had to think of some form of cloth, soaked in a fluid, but skin doesnt absorb fluids, so im not sure, what you're trying to do.

Well my normal units are pale skin washed with purple and then highlighted. I didn't want to do that with the coven stuff, it's really more about getting a reddish tinge to the skin without looking like I've just painted them red (really didn't like the style of the wracks that GW did to look like exposed muscle).

Ah, ok. Red Wash as basis for skin makes it look a little more realistic/human, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I'd say go for it (or test it on one of the spare arms).

Yeah its difficult, I experimented with lots of colours to wash over the skin and settled on purple or blue. Red was too warm a shade I think, made my test models look like dark eldar with sunburn!

I'm hoping for a really stark contrast, a really pale skin and neutral silver armoured elements, but then with a really rich gory red for contrast Above all though I want the red to really pop so I'm not going to dilute it with any other spot colours, really try and give it the stark hospital type feel (you know the kind of thing, bright white with chrome equipment and rich red, like something out of the Blade films).

Sounds cool, I think you will have to test it and see what works best. I would be interested to see!

Also, like the riptide sock analogy very much!

Here's a pic of the warriors I've been working on - I'll try and get a whole squad picture later.
The highlights aren't actually yellow, but the light was messing with my iphone (I'll use a proper camera next time)

Perhaps a pale white skin will be good and look very clinical? If you washed the skin with red you might end up taking away from the vibrancy of the red?

Warrior Squad pic added to the first post.

Ravager pic added to the OP. The scheme does match the raider, it's just the lighting that makes it look a different red.

I got my first two Talos on Friday, and as the good lady wife was away on Saturday night I took the opportunity to put them together. Both have been fully magnetised to allow them to be switched out for Cronos models instead if called for (though quite honestly, two Talos performed brilliantly on their own for me last night)

Here are the assembled models in Talos form.


I'm organising a painting competition for my gaming club running through November and have decided to make the Talos my entry. As such I need to do a fair bit of prep and research to apply the scheme and make it good enough to compete. First thing is figuring out what the carapace pattern is going to be like - I love the idea of the armoured carapace being similar to that of a beetle, so went online to find some examples of patterns. It's not a beetle, but I found this little beauty that should do quite nicely...



As ever, I won't make it exactly the same as that, but I think a deep red base for the carapace, heavily washed to give the colour depth, and a central piece in a pale colour to match the flesh I'm going to give them should look pretty cool.

So I've been busy the last couple of days painting up a unit that won't see the table often (why I hear you ask? Simply because I played a game on Monday night and so packed models for painting in my lunchbreak that I wasn't using. I figured I might as well finish them)

Here's what they looked like before I started.
URL=https://s1377.photobucket.com/user/TheBurningEye/media/Mobile%20Uploads/DE/13787EC5-429F-402B-B6EC-A8AA0DF8BA1F_zpsvkm44tlr.jpg.html][/URL]

Then after the first coat of paint (sunglasses required!)


And now here's one that I focused on today, washed to tone down the brightness level, then highlighted (one more layer to go)

here's my latest progress - hoping to get these guys finished soon as my club has a painting competition starting on Thursday and I'm painting a Talos for it.

So I got almost another hour's work done on this squad today, here's the progress...


Venom close-up:
The glyph is tinted slightly with a very watered down 'skink blue'


Squad close-up:
the bases are now prepped, with two layers of drybrush to apply - I also need to do the final armour highlight, the helmet highlights and wash, and the trophy poles on their backs, plus all the little gems/spikes.


And finally, a shot of the whole unit:



Enjoy!

Very nice! I would certainly consider painting the "blades" on the venoms wings for example a silver colour to help tie it in with the incubi and also give it another spot colour to help differentiate from the red. But good work!

Grub wrote:

Very nice! I would certainly consider painting the "blades" on the venoms wings for example a silver colour to help tie it in with the incubi and also give it another spot colour to help differentiate from the red. But good work!

That's interesting, I'd never considered them to be blades before, more like the flaps on an aircraft.

I'm debating in my head doing the gems in the turquoise blend I'm using on the helmets, but I'm worried it might be too bright, and those two gems on the Venom engine cowl are pretty big. Equally if I only did the smaller gems they might look a bit lost.

Yes I've always seen them as blades/fins, if you look at the relief of them they look a bit separate, I will post up a picture of a venom I am currently doing for my correspur elite style kabal if you want to see what it looks like before committing any paint?

Also I don't tend to paint any of the "gems" as gems. I've seen some people do it very well but its a bit to craftworldy for me!

edit: metalic blades below!

WIP Venom with "Blades":

I think I'm gonna stick with the red for now, my other venoms will have a different scheme anyway to match my raiders (fluff - the Incubi are a hired in shrine and therefore have their own heraldry etc)

Today's progress:




Mainly worked on the bases, two layers of drybrushing for each, I'm gonna try and sand the venom base tonight (also playing a 1500 game against guard).

I've also done a bit of work on the armour spikes and tried a couple of things on the helmet horns. I might get a bit more done tomorrow lunch but then they'll sit on the back burner whilst I try and make progress on my competition entry.

Great paintjob you have here. Hats down bro because painting red is a pretty much a pain IMHO, I love how you have several blues here and there on the kabalite warriors (Yeah I’m blue a fan). I don’t know if you like adding more blue on your color scheme; you might give it a try. Cheers!

Looking good, and I like the freehand on the venom especially

Thanks guys - I'm not averse to putting some blue on (all the poison vials/splinter rifle barrels etc are going to be a turquoise/blue blend) but I'm just wary of not making them too 'bright' - I'm also working on an eldar list that is going to be brightly coloured and don't want to compare them too much. Most of the army won't look the same as the Incubi, my Kabal and Cult use a dark grey basecoat instead of the red. Coven will use red, but in an different way, and won't have the bright white contrasting glyphs. I may go with a blue wash to their skin though, if only to hint that they might have been constructed from Tau stock...

The freehand is something I really struggled with when I first got the army, but then something GAR said struck home, so I now design all the glyphs separately on paper, then pencil the outline onto the model using a 0.3mm propelling pencil - then it's just like painting by numbers!

Hi guys, here's an update for you - after slightly less than a week's work on the Talos (less the time spent on my wraithknight - see the distractions board!) I reckon I'm at least a third of the way through the paint job.

I even added some blue...



C&C as always!

Works continues on the Talos - this one's from what i like to call the 'I've just kakked my pants!' angle...

I didn't notice them so much on the first picture but I saw them on the second. I really like the subtle streak lines along the edges of the main front facing body.

Really really fine work there that adds lots of depth to edge.

Also good looking vials coming along there!