So, with a move imminent I didn't want to start on a big project. Instead I decided I'd paint a 28mm figure but try to do it up to display standard. I've been wanting to paint some Forge World figures for a while so now was my chance. Although a little on the expensive side, I think Forge World comes up with some really nice looking figures. Plus I love that they're making models from the Horus Heresy.
This little guy is one of the two Legion Praetors. I picked the one with the more dynamic pose to start working on. I glued the hands on to the arms, but left the rest of him in pieces. The neck guard blocks most of the face so painting that in place would be a nightmare. The arms aren't really a problem, but with that big shoulder armor I decided to leave them off too. I'm going to paint him as one of the Sons of Horus Justaerin Terminators. I ordered the Horus figure and thought this would be good practice. By the way, the Horus figure looks great and I will be doing an open box review as soon as I get the chance.
Okay, back to the Praetor. I started with the face. Although the body was primed black I went with white for the head. Easy enough since it was separate and it's nicer to work over the light color while I do the skin. Popped it on a bit of sticky tack and a cork and off I went.
Once I was finished there I went over the top with some diluted GW Bloodletter glaze to add a little more life to the face. This went in the cheeks, around the nodes, in the scar, and around all the implants. I then mixed in the Guilliman Blue glaze to create a purple. This went in the shadows around the eyes, in the dark section of the cheeks, and around the base of the skull. I could have used some GW shades instead, but I didn't want things to get too dark. To clean it up a bit I went over all of the implants with black. Since those will be metallic I like to work on top of a darker base coat.
For the metal parts around the head I went with a steel color. I'm using Vallejo Model Air metallics. They're just regular metallic paint, but since they've designed for the airbrush they are really smooth and flow of the brush very nicely. I continued to tweak some of the skin shadows and mixed in a bit of pure white for the highlights on the cheek, nose, and top of the head. A little bit of red was added to the skin tone to paint the lips.
Well, everybody needs somebody ;) I love how you do your skin tones and the palette is so simple, but yields amazing results!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Zab! It's one of the reasons I started using Reaper paints. They've got a great range of skin tones. By my count there's about 24 regular skin colors (more if you count ghoul skin, vampire skin, etc). Mix and match, throw in a few other colors for deeper shadows or brighter highlights, and you can get a lot of different looks for your figure's skin.
Delete