hey guys,
So after looking up artwork ideas on how to paint my shiny new Armigers in House Cadmus colours, I realized there's actually nothing out there for that livery. I figured others might be bummed by this fact and want to see what others came up with, so i decided to post pics of what I've decided to do with them for the sake of others interested in the Household.
I should note that part of the colour choices i made went off-kilter to the traditional colour patterns because of the decal sheet in the Helverins box. Normally, depending on the Household you paint them as, you'd use black Aquilas on a red background, or white Aquilas on a black background. Unfortunately, the decal sheet in the box comes with 4 sets of black Aquilas instead of 2 pairs of each colour. I'm hoping that maybe the Warglaives sheet won't have this mistake, but since the cog decals for both kits' shoulder pad designs are on this sheet, i kinda doubt they'd catch what they did and fix it.
Anyways, onto the gallery!


So to start off, here's the torso work. The parts were basecoated with Leadbelcher primer spray paint. Then i coated the brass framing with Runelord Brass. the piping was Vallejo Black 70.950, and the golden motor housing areas were Vallejo Liquid Gold 'Old Gold'.
The Leadbelcher areas were washed with Nuln Oil, and the brass and gold areas with Agrax Earthshade.
Moving onto the legs, these were done with the same basecoat colours, with the addition of Retributor Armour to do the piston rings on the legs, the waist ring, and the nub tops of the rear calf pistons. Instead of using Nuln Oil on the legs however, i used Gloss Nuln Oil, because i wanted the thicker pooling it gives, to let it seem like the legs had a bit of oil dripping from the moving areas. After that had dried, i also drybrushed Stormhost Silver over the legs.
This difference from the torso was because the legs will have more contact with objects when the pilot moves around, causing the metal to scrap against things, making the metal shine a bit more, whereas the torso itself is higher and blocked by the armour plating and the arms themselves, so dried, caked on oil and grease and grime will tend to stick more and darken the metal.
Lastly, the pistons on the calves were also given a wash of Agrax Earthshadeto show them being well greased for the constant movement they'll be undergoing.
Here you get to see the framework with the arms and exhausts attached (in mockup only, i still had a little more detailing to do at this point). the exhausts were done by putting 2 washes of Agrax Earthshade, followed by a wash of Seraphim Sepia over the Leadbelcher.


Onto the plating, here's the initial colours. i undercoated everything with Army Painter Greenskin, and then coated them with Caliban Green.
Once i had a general idea of the mockup of how the pieces looked, i stopped to consider how i wanted to do the black and yellow accent panels. It was at this point i realized i didnt get any white Aquilas for the shoulderpads, so i had to take that into consideration in the design.
As you can see, what i came up with was to use the yellow, which was Vallejo Goldbrown 70.877 (a color match to Averland Sunset in dropper bottle form) where the Questoris class knights have the black panels on the shoulders. This way, i could still use the black Aquilas the kit comes with.
I also decided to paint the inner left thigh plate yellow.
Then i did the black accent plates. This covers the front outer wings of the torso, the back half over the engine, and the right inner thigh plate. Again, using Vallejo black, as it has a nice matte finish to it.
Satisfied with the choices i made on the plating, i did a pin-wash of Nuln Oil on all the armour plates to hide anywhere my transition from silver trim to color areas didnt turn out perfect, and any armour lines.
I also added more gold to the head and gun arm using the Liquid Gold with a wash of Agrax.
The eye lenses and the hatch lens was done by painting them with Vallejo Liquid Silver, followed by Soulstone Blue. The Liquid Silver gives it a much better underlay to get that glassy lens effect.
Finally, here's where i'm at right now with the model, one shot with flash, the other without. The left arm, the Carapace Meltagun, and the left ankle plate still need more work, and then i can start prepping the model for decals.
Edited by Dusktiger, 10 November 2019 - 03:15 PM.