for the gorgon
The Iron Hands Herald is finally finished and now awaits its new place among the ranks of my friends' legion. If you weren't aware, this model was painted as a wedding gift for his fiancée, commissioned to paint. Also, if you've seen the last Iron Father I painted, wielding a 2-handed Flamberge sword, that was a gift from her, too!
For this Iron Hands, I've decided to try a hand at making the armour more dark grey, rather than an almost jet black as was done on the Iron Father. Along with a lot more silver NMM and bold red accents to symbolize his status, representing the Xth and the Imperium of Mankind. As well as a personal touch with her soon-to-be initials placed in the bottom right of the banner, as a small nod reminder of where his allegiance really lies ;) The colours of the black armour have been built with a mixture of black and armour grey, which derives from Green Oxide in tone. Again, just finding a small bit of contrast with the Red Oxide/Orange base and atmosphere. The steel NMM itself has an undertone of violet, as well as the Red to help give it a bit more depth. This is all capped with light glazes of a light Orange/Yellow surrounding the highlights before they go into the max light, which is made from Ivory. It isn't a detail that stands out, but rather I wanted it to be felt. Providing just that little extra layer of light temperature, as well as giving small deflections of contrast without a sole reliance on value. Of course, for the reddish Mars atmosphere, painting the underlay was mainly done in the NMM by brush to give that colour more intensity and pigment density, while the remainder was done by very thin glazes with the airbrush to give a subtle tint on a less shiny black/grey armour.
Concerning value, that's where I've placed the majority of the emphasis on this model, and I'd like to point out a few key observations that may be of use. The main light reflection is on the left shoulder pauldron and the left side of his helm. This is the only spot on the model where I've mixed both white and Ivory to form these highlights. You can also notice that the shadow lining width gets narrower and lighter as it is adjacent to the maximum point of light; both on the shoulder pauldron trim separating the black and nmm, the trim lip of the upper portion, and again on the armour and nmm separation on the helmet etc. This helps again to project that feeling of how a shiny object reacts with our eyes when viewed in real life, blurring out the definition and causing a glare. When it comes to the banner, the white trim has been tinted green and toned down to not take away from the primary reflection, as well as the decals themselves, glazed red to knock down the white in the decal. The imperial aquilla is also another one of my favourites in this piece. A careful attention to value was made to conserve highlights, while lifting the entire base value up higher at the start, so I don't run into the problem with too much black in each segment, rather just using black as a liner between segments. This is all due to the height of the banner, wanting a look of steel without too much polish, and also to not overpower the main light reflection that's situated on the helmet itself.
Besides a simple base sculpt with Miliput, some Rust paint and pigments, the whole model comes together with a very simple and effective colour scheme. Sorry to anyone who was looking towards a video tutorial on this one. Sometimes I just need to create a piece with just the sole purpose of painting, a process that's for me to be in tune with myself. There will be many more Marines coming along the way, and I'll make sure to include you all in the next one! A pre-celebratory congrats to Cam and Sophia on their love and commitment to one another. Much love, and I'm looking forward to seeing this model on many battlefields to come!
Bb