A second Warlord Titan and six Questoris Knights join Legio Ignatum

Did I ever mention my love of Epic and Adeptus Titanicus? I can't stop painting these models. But I'll have to for a bit as I've finished the contents of the Adeptus Titanicus Grand Master edition (except for a few buildings). A second Warlord Titan has joined my first, extra weapon options have been painted and I've finished the six Questoris knights in the box. I've also added transfers and some extra paint splotches to my first Warlord. All in all, I should get around to reading the rules now...

My two Legio Ignatum Warlords and their Knightly friends.

Where to begin? Let's start with a few pictures of the second Warlord titan. Before I talk about him, I'll look back at Warlord number one. I added the distinct yellow/black striping to the center plates on the first titan. In the process of painting it, I also learned that the back plates on the legs of the Titans don't really stick out on a finished model. Painting these yellow is not very useful (they are yellow on one leg of Warlord number one though. I decided to paint the plates with the Imperial Aquila in the distinct striped pattern for my second Warlord titan. I wanted this one to be abit more colorful so I also striped his upper leg plates and the sides of his basic guns.

It took a lot of effort to pose this guy, but boy does he look menacing!

For all the colors I followed the same pattern as I used for Warlord titan number one. Read my previous post if you're curious. I posed this titan in deference to the original John Blanche artwork that sparked a lifelong Titan obsession in me.The upgrade sprue with Plasma Annihilators, Laser Blasters and Power Claw (featured on this titan's carapace and left arm) also contained a head that looked inspired by the original titans. To be quite honest I did not like it at first. I decided to paint it anyway alongside another head. With color added it was love at first (erm second?) sight. I added green to the eye sensors (and also updated that on my previous titan. Turns out (once again) that painting eyes is extremely important if you want your model to look properly menacing.

Distressing a traitor's armour plate was a fine idea, but I screwed up the paint job (imho).

I used a lot of rather sloppy weathering techniques on the metal body of the titan. This included airbrushing with washes (always messy), especially Gryphonne Sepia. I also added splotches of Army Painter Purple and Blue Wash to random metal bits that looked like they might run hot. This included all gun barrels (and random spots on the body of the titan). I also always spray the bottom bits of the legs on large creatures with thinned down Vallejo Model Color Dirt. Just to make it look like the ground interacted with the model. After that I had to worry about basing the titans again. There's a distinct lack of doodads to add and sticking a 28mm skull on will not look good. I 'distressed' a bit of leftover traitor armour on this base, but I'm not quite satisfied with how it turned out (in large part due to a rather meager paint job by me). For the rest of the base I used Vallejo Dark Earth Texture paste on the previous titan and I did not like that too much either. Then my eyes caught a half-forgotten tub of AK Interactive Light & Dry Crackle Effects sitting in my window sill. I used that and was surprised. It dries up extremely light and even-colored but a sloppy wash with Sepia and Flesh watered down with dirty cleaning pot water helps alleviate that.

I think I can safely say my yellow striping technique works.

I discovered another thing. If there's no texture beneath the AK paste, it does not crackle properly. Well if the crackle paint fails, go nuclear! I painted the area with Vallejo Sick Geen, then I added a humongous glob of very cheap gloss varnish. I dripped Vallejo Moot Green and Vallejo Livery green into the glob of gloss varnish and kind of swirled these around, not quite mixing, not quite blending. Just made it look hideous. After this dried I added a few extra drops of Livery Green with extra gloss varnish to make a second layer of 'glowing stuff'. I also made sure to hit the foot and leg of the titan on that side. As it dried the cheap gloss varnish dried up matt (congratulations to all involved in the manufacture of that rubbish). I painted a top layer of GW 'Ardcoat to give it its shine back. Then I thinned down Vallejo Model Color Yellow Fluo into the airbrush and sprayed the pool, the leg and around the area as well. I'm rather satisfied with the effect. In combination with the pose it looks like the titan is lifting it's leg out of a deep pool of sludge.

As I was adding transfers I discovered I forgot to paint the up-facing bit of his visor gold (and I also forgot his eyes). Are all speedy painters sloppy painters or is it just me?

On to Warlord titan number two (this post is not finished yet!). I've talked a lot about painting it already, but I've added some transfer to it (I lucked out and managed to grab hold of a Legio Ignatum transfer sheet). Of course me being me I found the 'where to stick transfers guide after applying these (it was in the back of the how to build your titan manual). So I will forever be annoyed by the crooked axe on the leg (it should be on the knee). I'm going to go wild and make up a story about a servitor gone crazy there. Aside from transfers (and fixing the magnetized Plasma Annihilators to the titan) I touched up the head, adding a bit of extra gold and painting the eye. I also took more time to weather the metal and the weapons.

On the bottom left you can see a bit of the yellow leg plate that took a lot of work for something so easily missed.

In case you missed it, I added crackle paint to this base as well. As it was already covered in Dark Earth Paste it crackled splendidly. I know PVA usually works as well to crackle things, but texture paste gives a bit of body under the crackle as well. I'm going to use it (even) more often now.

Yeah I'm quite happy with the result. In case you're wondering, I used green stuff around the right foot to make it look like it has sunk into the ground a bit. 

Completely opposed to my 'don't place vertical pictures on your blog'-rule I decided to place this picture anyway. The culprit is the striped shoulder plate. Usually I think my models look better in real life then on pictures, but sometimes a picture just makes it look better. I had to show off :).

Three Questoris Knights in reasonably classic colors. As I had no 'official' house I used a few spare transfers I liked.

My painting fugue wasn't finished with just the Warlord titan. After stripping my son's paint job off my knights (see the bottom of the previous post) I primed them again (black) and used Vallejo Metal Color Dark Aluminum (this line of paints if just insanely good) to paint them metal colored. I followed up with a Nuln Oil wash and a quick drybrush (after everything was dry to be sure). For my Imperial Knights I decided to pick a house from way long ago. Only problem was I couldn't find pictures in my old White Dwarf issues. Turns out there was a 2nd edition Epic during my hobby hiatus. I *cough* located the proper White Dwarf issues and used this color scheme. Completely forgetting the house name in the process...

The Adeptus Mechanicum assures me that these did not come with an allen key, the Ikea sticker in the cockpit tells a different story...

After applying the metal base I used a brush to paint all the bits that should be blue with Vallejo Magic Blue. I painted the yellow bits with Vallejo Bronze Fleshtone. Then I washed the blue with Drakenhof Nightshade and the yellow with Sepia. As I used airbrush colors (and only applied a layer and a half) this did not look very good (splotchy as hell). But I then touched it all up with a fresh coat of the paints, followed by Yriel Yellow for the yellow bits and it started to look ok. Drab, but ok. Then - having learned my lesson from the Warlord - I looked at the manual for helpful transfer hints. This blew me away. I know I'm not an 'Eavy Metal painter, but my knights looked positively hideous next to the GW examples. I decided to do something about it. I stepped way out of my comfort zone, loaded up the airbrush with lightened version of my paints (for blue and yellow, just add white) and very carefully build up two-step airbrushed highlights to shoulder bits, leg armour and even the faces and shields (almost) without hitting the metal bits. Turns out my hand is steadier then I thought and the end result is way better then I expected. Now they just look 'decidedly amateur' next to GW's examples (I can live with that :) (and take pride in it)).

Three modular buildings. I painted them (mostly) grey.
(This caption will be entered in the 'most uninspired' category if I ever start nominating bits of my own posts for fictitious prizes.)

Next up (as I'm still not done with this Encyclopedia Britannica sized post) were the buildings. These are modular. You glue floors and walls together into little boxes. These you can slot into the roofs of others (cringing and worrying about your paint every time). I've been considering doing some other things with the rest of the building set that came with the Grand Master box so these are still on sprue. Long story short (and to reduce the size of this post a little bit) I tried to follow along with this post over at the Amnioticly Tanked blog (cheers for that Phil!). They do look quite nice and I'm happy I followed the advice to paint the windows blue. I diverted slightly here and there, one major change is my irrepressible urge to add Athonian Camshade wash to the bottom of buildings. It just adds something (I think).

40K might be grim and dark, but at least some people will still have air conditioning and plumbing. Elevators are a different story though....

Here's an extra shot of the rooftops. The detail on these buildings is wonderful. I can't wait for a base of Epic size Space Marines to take position there (do you hear me GW? Hint, hint *followed by my sweetest smile*. Please don't make me grovel!).

I'm sure that on reading the rules I'll find out what these thing are for.

The box also contained these markers for a missile silo, a defense laser (macro cannon?), a missile array, a plasma generator, a void shield generator, a radar dish and a comm's bunker (I think). The tops of most of these are interchangeable (except for the missile one, it got stuck on the dry fit). The square in the back can be used to fit one of these to the top of a building (in my case except for the missiles that are very well and truly stuck).

One of the depressing bits of magnetizing is where to display the painted and disembodied weapons? Also I just now spotted that I forgot to paint the missiles on those launchers. Will have to do that at a later point.

I'll end up with a bunch of spare (magnetized) cannons. I am rather pleased with the yellow striping on the second pair of cannons I painted (the ones on the left where painted with the first Warlord). I added some blue glowing power cables to all guns because I wanted a bit more color on my titan. I think it works. With that shot I'll end this way, way, way too long post. To all still with me, thanks for reading :D. I've ordered a few more titans that'll hopefully find their way to me soon. In the meantime I have a bit more stuff to scratch my Epic itch (and I really need to read the actual rules as I will play my first game in less then a fortnight). I am so happy GW brought this game back to life, and I can't wait to see what they'll add to it. Did I grovel for Epic anywhere in this post yet? No? Then I'll stop typing and start doing that now.