A Call to Arms: Painting Guide

[McKickaha]

Here is a pic by pic account of my painting of a Vorlon Heavy Cruiser

I used GW paints and Windsor & Newton inks.

I used Calthan Brown foundation paint for painting in the shadows. I deliberately avoided black as I thought it would be too harsh v the yellow.

Three steps difference from pic 1; Step 1 - I ran nut brown ink into the deepest shadows. Step 2 - I painted Golden Yellow over the entire ship running over the Calthan Brown as necessary & Step 3 - I used Bad Moon Yellow as the first general highlight.

Again two steps difference from the previous photo. Step 1 - All Edges highlighted with several layers of a mix of Bad Moon Yellow and White starting at 50:50 mix and adding a little more white each time. Step 2 - i thought the overall look of the yellow was too warm, the canon ship yellow has a much colder tone so I mixed a glaze of apple green/canary yellow ink 1:4 and painted on in two coats over the entire ship.

The tooth brush spray technique: speaks for itself really. Used black india ink diluted 50:50. brush shaken well to remove any lliquid excess, until almost dry before spraying.

(disclaimer:-The fortuitous lettering visible on the paint pot, shown in the above photo is the result of an entirely random event and any relevance to persons living, dead or indeed fictitious is purely coincidental).

The result.

Although the toothbrush process looks risky there are two possible recovery methods. For areas where there appears to be too large a blob a few dots of diluted bad moon yellow soon brings it back. The diluted india ink is also easily removed by water and can be resprayed. (I had to do this on a section on which I accidently dropped some blue ink later in the paint process).

 

[McKickaha]

Final result;

I highligted all of the exposed edges with a mix of 3:1 Badmoon Yellow White.

Ship Prongs - Ultramarines Blue then inked with Blue and highlighted with mix of Ultramarines Blue & White gradually increasing white content, moving to the top of the prong with a final highlight of pure white.

Symbols backround; firstly pure Ultramarine Blue followed by several coats mixed with increasing ammounts of Fortress Grey until finally pure Fortress Grey. Lettering Blood Red edged in white.

What would do to improve the next time.

I would use Court Jester's black washing technique for the shadows after the general yellow painting, (see his Centauri Paint Guide), however I would use a brown instead.

Chickened out on the green glaze and would certainly would do more coats next time, or find a colder yellow to start with.

I would paint the prongs before the toothbrush spray, shielding the opposite blue with a piece of card.

Other than that I am very happy with the final effect.

 

[Hindsight]

Your splatter technique is just executed so well. I don't know that I could do that so... evenly.

 

[McKickaha]

Its one of those techniques that is actually easier than it looks. In fact I have not tried this for many years and even then it was only to make some starfield baseboards. As long as you use diluted ink it should also be easily recoverable.

 

[l33tpenguin]

/shameless bump

 

[Grunvald]

/shameless bump

Yes i'd have to say a very shameless bump there!

But being as i'd missed this post first time round much appreciated!

And very lovely paint job, and excellent step by step guide!

 

[McKickaha]

Many of the Drazi ship designs are almost identical in appearance and there are also many variants for most hulls, so to differentiate I decided to rely on varying shades of my main colour and different coloured detail markings for the variants.

After re-viewing the great sequences of a Sunhawk in the B5 first season episode “Deathwalker” I chose to stick to canon and paint my Drazi fleet in varying shades of grey with maybe some silver, (or as I would call it here “shiny grey”), thrown in.

Additionally I gave myself 2 personal targets to hit for this guide,

(1)To show some different methods for black lining the many panels which are a feature of the highly detailed Drazi ship miniatures
(2)To come with a technique to more closely capture the plasma engine graphic effect which is such a striking feature on the canon Sunhawk

Ref (1) - my Sunhawks had a lot of moulding flash. Where present this flash has a tendency to fill the panel groove lines on the model and its removal process also inevitably further damages the grooves in the surrounding area. I know of two “painting” methods which can recover this line detail. So I chose to paint a Sunhawk and a Dark Hawk to show each method. My Stormfalcon miniature was a great moulding, so I lined this using the easiest method of blacklining.

First Pic

- Pre -preparation - Undercoating – white for the Sunhawk & Stormfalcon, black for the Darkhawk then painted all 3 miniatures with Codex Grey

(Note all all paints and inks I used were GW).

Lining – for the Sunhawk I used a technical drafting pen and simply drew in the lines over the Codex grey. Where the groove is gone or damaged, (or even at a junction of say wing to body), just draw a black line. I use a 0.35mm nib diameter, you can get smaller but I find that they block up very easily. Alternatively for the Darkhawk when I painted with Codex Grey I simply painted in the plates leaving a black line around them. Result - Sunhawk - fast and easy, Darkhawk very slow. And not quite as well defined (due to my “fabulous” visual prowess more than anything else). The Stormfalcon illustrates the best lining method to use when the grooves are well defined, simply apply black ink wash(es) over the Codex Grey painted miniature.

(Normally I would of course use a combination of methods, usually the black ink wash followed by the drafting pen for lines which need tidying up). However all 3 methods in isolation gave similar and very acceptable final results.

Above Pic - First stage highlighting with Codex Grey for the Dark Hawk and Fortress Grey for Sunhawk. The black wash on the panels of the Stormfalcon first needed to be tidied up with more Codex Grey then I highlighted it also with Fortress Grey.

Above Pic - Second stage highlighting same greys but with some white added to each. Severla layers adding more white to the mix each time.

 

[McKickaha]

Plasma effect.

Hopefully the picture above speaks for itself;

Step 2 is the most difficult, but treat it as painting a series of short straight lines. I start in the widest section and try to paint small hexes but any random shape will work.

I found the above method to work best for me however there is also an opposite approach which would be by painting red gore on the bulb, spotting on white paint, then proceeding from step 4 above. You should find what is best for you and of practice before you try in earnest.

Tip - Using shades of yellow instead of orange arguably looks even more distinctive, however this strays from the canon Sunhawk. I may however use this to show higher energy plasma for some of the variants e.g. the Solar Hawk for instance.

The above pic shows the final detailing of the Dark Hawk & Sunhawk.

Final highlighting, up to pure white for the Sunhawk and pure fortress Grey for the dark Hawk

Striped bands - Sunshine yellow, highlighted with Bad Moon yellow then Red Gore or Enchanted Blue stripes.

Nose Cones - Red Highlighted with Blazing orange then Red Ink wash for the Sun Hawk. Enchanted blue highlighted with White/Enchanted Blue then Blue Ink Wash for the Dark Hawk

Engine Nacelles - Red Gore or Echanted Blue bands

Guns - Bolt Gun Metal washed with Black Ink then edge highlighted with mithral silver.

Front of engine Nacelles - 50:50 mix of Enchanted Blue : White for the Dark hawk & 50:50 Mix White:bad Moon Yellow for the Sunhawk

Note the Fins in the middle of the ship Fuselage are also striped in the Canon Sunhawk. Tried this but just does not look right- The fins are fine in highlighted grey against dark grey but when highlighted red against yellow their imperfections are magnified, so re-painted as you see.

The final detailing of the Stormfalcon was mostly the same as the Sunhawk. couple of differences. The double yellow red striped sections were troublesome but finally painted the yellow as per the Sunhawk but ran in 50:50 watered down Red Ink to the grooves. Couple of coats were required.

Also painted the back end of the ship to create more space for the plasma effect and simulate the appearance of a hull structure surrounding it.

Final Appearence of this heavy Drazi patrol group

 

[McKickaha]

Extremely shameless bump