You regularly hear from fitness wannabes that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Well, I'm here to tell you that's mostly garbage. Breakfast in the sense of a bowl of cereal or some jam on toast at 8:30 in the morning isn't going to make you function any better than not having it. Think about breakfast as the first meal or nutrition that you put in your body after you wake up and you're getting nearer its importance. Breaking your fast with a good amount of protein and fat whenever you chose to have that first meal, be that 6am or 1pm, is going to stand you in good stead.
Last post I talked about taking a step away from the Necrons for a while, as creativity and doubt slipped in to my thoughts regarding their paint scheme. It was important that I realised that or I could have fought it with ill informed and spontaneous decisions which would have worsened the issue. It was important to be able to come back with a fresh set of eyes and look at the whole picture again, and it turns out that the most nutritious and beneficial subject to break your fast from Necrons is with croissants. Chrome croissants!
The Doom Scythe model was ordered at the same time as the Tomb Blades but the parts were just clipped from their sprues, lightly trimmed and assembled with no glue until I could address what needed painting when. After a week and a bit off from painting (that happily coincided with a tonne of photoshoots) combined with a couple more Shadow War games with friends, I came back and looked at the situation objectively.
Live Twitch stream of a little Doom Scythe assembly and planning
I cleared through in my mind which parts of the Scythe I could get away with assembling and which parts to leave off and paint separately. It was actually all very straight forward. The cockpit and pilot needed to be painted before the upper hull sections were glued in place and then the whole model could be chromed before the upper carapace was put on top. That part was going to be matt black to contrast with the chrome in the same way the C'Tan robes were blended down from chrome to black, too.
I did, however, have a thought about why I didn't like the Tomb Blades. There was too much chrome! And that doesn't mean that I needed more colours to break it up. I had completely covered every nook with the chrome paint when I'd airbrushed them and it was just too much. This time, I would be much more artistic and particular about applying the chrome.
Also, because I'd tried to hit every angle I'd applied a little too much and the models had started to lose their shine and gloss finish, it almost looked like I'd badly painted them with Stormhost Silver.
For the Scythe I was going to build the chrome up as if I were highlighting the gloss black base coat, leaving the black in the shadows and allowing the mind to be tricked in to seeing chrome of different shades everywhere. One of the best examples of this came when I sprayed the front sensor plate.
This effect of slowly building up the chrome on the high areas and leaving the Shadow side with the gloss black being the dominant colour changed not only how inthoight about applying the paint but ultimately the look of the models, too. I was so pleased with the look, and carried on the plan to the Destroyers.
Gloss black undercoat, again built up very slowly but hitting every crevice
The Destroyer Lord, where you can see the gloss black in the shadows already adding definition even before a black wash
A lot of the technique here was simply that I started thinking about highlighting the gloss basecoat with chrome, rather than having chrome as a basecoat, if that makes sense, so I was starting at an already contoured place rather than trying to add in shading and highlighting afterwards to a very difficult medium. Also building it up slowly kept the shine and avoided that horrible matt silver finish that I had ended up with on the 'Blades.
There was one more change I made, too. After the chrome there was a layer of clear cote added. The chrome is particularly susceptible to rubbing off and having played a few games with my Kill Team I was already seeing some wear on this, which actually looked rather good, but I would rather be in control of. After the clear cote I could then paint, shade and tint to my hearts content and maybe even varnish over the top again when totally finished.
The upper carapace had the metal parts dusted with some chrome and then taped off to receive the matt black base colour. This is as far as I've got at the moment and a weekend of photoshoots now will mean I will pick these back up bed t week, but I'm so excited to get them looking great. Armies on Parade is only a few weeks away now and I'm so much more confident in the striking look of my army! It's taken a while to pin down and finalise the style and look but I hope you'll agree that it's been worth it.
The Scythe and Destroyers after their clear cote
Here's the Scythe with the contrasting matt black upper carapace fitted
I hope you enjoyed this rather long walk through, thoughts and ponderings of my painting journey. There's a lot of techniques I'm remembering and it is feeling very much like voyage of re-discovery. That Doom Scythe is now firmly planted along side the C'Tan as one of the models that gets me excited about painting and my army. I've got this urge to sculpt some matching robes on all the characters in the force, too! Imagine a Destroyer Lord with a matt black hooded robe flowing out behind him ala Nightbringer. I think that would look simply awesome! As such, I put together a little test model to practice some sculpting on. It's been just as long since I scultped anything and a simple hooded robe will be a great place to jump back in. And I can use this as the new leader of the Shadow War Kill Team.
The Tesla Carbine is magnetised so he can swap it out for a Gauss Blaster if needed, both from the Tomb Blade kit
That, I'm sure, will be one of the subjects of a future blog post but for now, I thought I'd leave you with a video of me slowly building up the chrome on the Scythe.
Until next time, take care, keep painting and remember that if you take a break from something, find that that really excites you to get you back in!
Chris