Thursday, January 13, 2011

How to Dress in Blue and Look Cool Doing It!! (tutorial)



Well, I've been putting this tutorial off for long enough now and I don't think it's fair to you guys. I've been having issues with both my camera and my computer and I'm still trying to plug away at this. By the way, This is my fourth attempt. Hopefully my computer doesn't crash.....this time. If nothing else, I'm persistent.

With this tutorial, I'm going to cover how I go about creating that dark Night Lords blue. I'll save the gold trim and lightning bolts for a later tutorial when I get a larger subject so that the photos are clear.

I've never been satisfied the way GW presents the colour of Night Lords. The blue is always too bright for a legion that skulks in the shadows. Besides, from what fluff I've read, their colour scheme never truly fit. This is my take on it.

Before we get started, I want to first apologise for the seriously bad out of focus shots. I experienced serious camera issues that plagued me the whole way. I'm hoping that my narrative will make up for my abysmal attempt at photography. In any case, I will definitely be getting you newer, clearer, fresher photos in the near future. I promise. I just didn't want to delay this tutorial any longer.

With that said...................Let's get started!!


I think I should note here that I prime my minis with tinted gesso. The reason for this is two-fold. It's quick and easy for clean up and there's no need for nasty chemical smells. I haven't had  any issued with it in the past so I've carried on doing it this way. If your more comfortable using black spray primer, go for it.

Step 1: Prime your model. I've used a grey but black works just as well. Avoid using white as a base as it will make the colours too bright. If that's all you got then don't forget to basecoat your mini with chaos black before preceding.

Primed and ready to go


 Step 2: Basecoat your mini with a 1:1 ratio of Chaos black and Necron Abyss


Base coated


Step 3: Apply a heavy dry-brush of Necron Abyss all over.


1st dry brush of Necron Abyss


Step 4: Apply a heavy wash of Badab black all over. Let this dry completely and then go and apply a wash of chaos black in the deep recesses.


Badab Black wash

 Step 5: Apply dry-bush of Regal Blue and then apply a light dry-brush of Ice Blue. Concentrate your brush strokes on the upper plates of the armour. Don't worry if it seems too bright. We'll take care of  that.


Dry brushed Regal Blue and Ice Blue



Tidied up

Step 6: Using watered down Regal Blue, tidy up your edges. When all this is dry, apply a heavy glazing of Asurmen Blue all over. This will tone down the blue and bring all blue shades together. To make a glaze, I apply a touch of Liquitex matte medium to the Asurmen Blue just to thicken it up a bit. You don't need a lot. A little goes a long way!

Like a Glazed Donut!

Step 7: Now your ready to apply all the other details




And that's all there is to it, folks. As I said earlier, I'll leave the lightning bolts and gold trim for a later post. Hope this helps.

In Midnight Clad!!