# Silvertabby's Golden Demon Duel Entry 2012 - Painting Stages



## SilverTabby (Jul 31, 2009)

And as promised, here's the painting thread to complement the converting one. 

Now all the converting was complete, it was time to start the actual painting. Given I was running out of time, whilst I would have loved to have done stage by stage pictures of each colour, I had to settle for finished pictures of each full stage. If there are any question on each stage, feel free to ask.

Colours are listed usually in this order: basecoat, highlights, final highlight. Shading and washes will be added in the appropriate spots with labels as such.

*The Wych*










As you can see, my plan for how to paint the Wych was a very professional and detailed one. But it gave me the base I needed to work from, and if things didn’t look right as I was doing it then I could alter it appropriately.

Basically, the Wych’s colours needed to complement and balance those of the Seraphim. As I knew the Sister was going to be Order of Our Martyred Lady, the Wych needed to balance White and Red, so Black and Green was the order of the day. Most of the metal on the Sister was going to be gold, so much of the Wych’s needed to be Silver. From that basis, I started work…










The skin was the first thing I did, as everything else was on a higher level than it – so going back to do it later would involve potentially getting paint on the finished portions. I take this approach with almost everything I paint, and it’s why I mostly do my bases first – so I don’t accidently drybrush the finished feet.

*Colours:*
Dheneb Stone, Ogryn Flesh (wash), Leviathan Purple (shading), Thraka Green (shading), Dheneb Stone, Dheneb Stone mixes all the way to Skull White.



















The Black was next, as the largest area to be painted. Black can be a pain, as it often comes out looking either chalky or overly comic. Plenty of washes and many levels of mixes was the answer here, as was watery feathering between each highlight…

*Colours:*
Chaos Black, Chaos Black / Codex Grey mixes: 60/40, 40/60, 20/80, Codex Grey, Badab Black (wash), Codex Grey.


















Again, the armour on a Dark Eldar has the potential to look very comic if not done carefully. Between the Black and the Green, this is where most of the time on this figure went.

*Colours:*
Chaos Black / Scaly Green mixes: 80/20, 50/50, 20/80, Scaly Green, Jade Green, Rotting Flesh.


















I hate metallics. With a passion. Almost as much as I hate NMM, and MNNM. On both this and the Seraphim I had to redo the metals several times and was convinced I wouldn’t place based on these bits. Next year, I avoid metal as much as possible…

*Colours:*
Boltgun Metal, Boltgun / Chainmail, Chainmail, Badab Black wash, Chainmail, Mithril Silver line highlight, Mithril Silver / Skull White: 50/50 line highlight.


































The Brass I didn’t hate doing quite as much as the silver, as it’s easier to make brass and gold look good than it is silver. Still… *shakes fist at bloody metallics*

*Colours:*
Tin Bitz, Brown Ink (the old one that is just called “Brown Ink”), Tin Bitz / Brazen Brass: 50/50, Brazen Brass, Brazen Brass / Mithril Silver: 50/50, a wash of Chestnut Ink (watered down), Baal Red in some recesses, Brazen Brass / Mithril Silver: 50/50, Mithril Silver.


























I was initially worried that the purple and the green would clash horribly, but in the end it turned out nicely “alien” instead. That’s the nice thing about Eldar and Dark Eldar – colours you wouldn’t expect to work together sometimes really do…

*Colours:*
Liche Purple, Liche Purple / Hormogaunt Purple: 50/50, Hormogaunt Purple, Hormogaunt Purple / Tentacle Pink: 50/50, Hormogaunt Purple / Tentacle Pink: 30/70 + a bit of Skull White, Leviathan Purple wash, Baal Red in some recesses, Hormogaunt Purple / Tentacle Pink: 30/70 + a bit of Skull White, Skull White.


















Choosing what colours to do the drug tubes took longer than I thought it would. They were always going to be lurid, but the wrong lurid could easily throw the colour balance of the whole figure. In the end I went with the traditional green – and it seemed to work quite well. Given the amount of red that was going to be on the Seraphim, I was ok with the balance being biased towards green…

*Colours:*
Jade Green, Jade Green / Scorpion Green: 60/40, 40/60, Scorpion Green, Scorpion Green / Skull White: 50/50, Skull White.










Once she was basically done, I had a little bit of spare time so decided adding some decorative Glyphs was in order. Looking through all the Dark Eldar and Dark Elf army books, I decided on something that was somewhere in between the latest Dark Elf symbols and the glyphs on the new Lhamaen model. 


































The glyphs themselves were drawn on with a sharp soft pencil (4B is best I find), then carefully painted over with a very fine brush. 

*Colours:*
Scaly Green, Scaly Green / Jade Green: 50/50, Jade Green, Jade Green / Scorpion: 50/50, Scorpion Green.

All the other bits and bobs were added in at various stages, and the colours are listed below:

*Bone:* Snakebite Leather, Bubonic Brown, Bleached Bone, Seraphim Sepia wash, Bleached Bone, Skull White.
*Pouches:* Chaos Black / Scaly Green: 50/50, Scaly Green, Scaly Green / Jade Green: 50/50, Jade Green, Rotting Flesh, Badab Black wash (watered). 
*Hair Cloth:* Scaly Green, Scaly Green / Jade Green: 50/50, Jade Green, Rotting Flesh
*Soil:* Calthan Brown, Brown Ink, Iyanden Darksun drybrush, Bleached Bone drybrush, Skull White drybrush.
*Rocks and Slate:* Charandon Granite / Terracotta: 50/50, Charandon Granite drybrush, Codex Grey drybrush, Fortress Grey drybrush, Leviathan Purple wash in some recesses, Thraka Green wash in other recesses, Fortress Grey drybrush, Skull White drybrush.

Grass used was the standard green/red mix static grass, and the Scorched static grass. The moss was a modelling moss I picked up from somewhere years ago, but I think can be acquired from most model shops.


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## SilverTabby (Jul 31, 2009)

*The Seraphim*

Having spent 4 months converting her, actually putting a coat of undercoat onto the Seraphim was a really hard thing to do.










You might think spraying her black when she was going to be 90% white was a daft move, but the simple fact is I a) hate painting over white undercoat unless I absolutely have to, and b) have had bad experiences with white spray in the past so am paranoid about it going all rough and bobbley. 


































The white on the Seraphim took a long time, and had a lot of watery feathering done between each highlight. White is very easy to make look chalky or stark, and I didn’t want that. The only really obvious line highlight is the final one in pure Skull White, as I went for “light grey with a white highlight” more than “white with some shading”. For all that I wasn’t going for comic, I thought she would look better with a slightly more obvious highlighting than a realistic one, hence the fairly stand-out final Skull White highlight.
Once the white was complete, all the other areas got neatened up with black once more.

*Colours:*
Codex Grey / Fortress Grey: 50/50, Fortress Grey, Fortress Grey / Skull White: 60/40, 20/80, Skull White. Rivet shading was done using watered Codex Grey.


















It wasn’t until I’d done the basecoat of the red that I realised it would be a very bad idea to do the pouches after the red. So out came the browns…

*Colours:*
Bestial Brown, Snakebite Leather, Bubonic Brown, Devlan Mud wash, Bubonic Brown, Bleached Bone.


















As the most vibrant colour on the Seraphim, the red needed to be really rich and smooth. After trying my normal colours, I gave that up and tried again with some old reds I had sitting in my cupboard. I also went much higher than I usually go for reds – the above pictures are how high I normally go, the ones below are how high I went in the end. 


















“Nice Dark Crimson” is a really old pot, with a hand-written label. I presume it was a test colour from years back. It’s like Scab Red, but slightly lighter and redder. My Crimson Gore is in an old round-top white-lid pot (90’s sometime). Double Pigment Red is another test colour from years ago, and I was given 4 or 5 pots, and oh my god, if they released this it would sell over every other red out there. Hobgoblin Orange is likewise an old round white-top pot.

*Colours:*
Nice Dark Crimson, Devlan Mud wash, Thraka Green in recesses, NDC, really old Crimson Gore, Crimson Gore / Double Pigment Red: 60:40, 20:80, Double Pigment Red. 
Line highlights: Blazing Orange, Hobgoblin Orange, Bronzed Flesh, Bloodletter Glaze.


























The silver bits got my usual “Oh I hate doing you” treatment, but I wanted the Gold to look nice and feel warm, so I lavished a tad more attention on that. Adding the Thraka Green to pretty much every colour helped tie them all together nicely. I’m sure there’s a technical reason and phraseology for it, I just do it because it works.

*Colours:*
*Silver:* Boltgun Metal, Chainmail, Milthril Silver, Badab Black wash, Mithril Silver, Mithril Silver / Skull White: 50/50.
*Gold:* Shining Gold / Scorched Brown: 50/50, Shining Gold, Chestnut Ink wash, Shining Gold, Shining Gold / Mithril Silver: 60/40, Brown Ink / Scorched Brown: 95/05 around detailing, Thraka Green in recesses, final highlight Mithril Silver.


















The face posed an interesting problem – the skin had to be healthier than the Wych’s skin, but not so dark that is looked out of place amongst all the white armour. In the end I think it turned out a little too pastel, but I could live with that. I also had to avoid using too much non-flesh colour, because again it would stand out too much against the white. Another subtle addition of green, this time in the eyes, helped with the balancing of all the red.

*Colours:*
Tallarn Flesh, Ogryn Flesh wash, Tallarn Flesh, Tallarn Flesh / Dheneb Stone: 50/50, Dheneb Stone, Skull White. Selective shading was done with Ogryn Flesh and Leviathan Purple. The whole lot was toned down using very watery Tanned Flesh. Deep recesses shaded with Liche Purple.
*Eyes:* Ceramite White, Snot Green, Chaos Black, Skull White dot.


























Next it was time to make her not so pretty. Sisters aren’t the most combat-oriented army in the universe, but they aren’t the worst by a long shot. And if one is going head-to-head with a Wych, then she’s got to have some battle experience behind her. So it was time to chip up her armour. 
Power armour is supposed to be mostly ceramite, which isn’t metallic-based. So – same as was done for much of the Space Marines colour section – the battle damage was done with a ceramic base. It doesn’t show unless you look *really* carefully, close up, but that’s what the judges would do. The ceramic colour also adds to the warmth of the figure in it’s own way.

The initial slashes and chips were plain Grey, then another smaller line was painted inside it in Dark Flesh to represent the ceramic insides. Then the top edge of each and every one was given a thin white highlight. 

*Colours:*
Adeptus Battlegrey, Dark Flesh, Ceramite White.










Horrible horrible metals. Still, they were about to be weathered to hell and back, so it didn’t matter I hated them, even after two attempts…

*Colours:*
Boltgun Metal, Chainmail, Mithril Silver, very heavy Badab Black wash, Seraphim Sepia wash, Mithril Silver line highlight.


































And now the final detail were added. The guns received their weathering, and I ceased hating them quite so much. Very heavy drybrushing, starting with the browns and working up to black obliterated most of the hated metallics. 
Detailing on the guns added another bit of contrasting colour to the figure. Given the amount of black on the Wych, I decided on brown for the Sister’s hair. It also helped maintain the warmth of the figure, and didn’t draw undue attention from the centre of the piece. It also provided me with an ink splodge on the gorget that needed sorting afterwards. 

Add to that a little weathering on the feet, and the main part of the Sister was done…

*Colours:*
*Weathering:* Bestial Brown, Scorched Brown, Chaos Black
*Hair:* Scorched Brown, Calthan Brown, Brown Ink wash, Khemri Brown, Khemri Brown / Bleached Bone: 50/50, Seraphim Sepia wash.
*Gun screens:* Hawk Turquoise, Hawk Turquoise / Skull White: 50/50, Skull White.
Double Pigment Red, Hobgoblin Orange, Skull White.
Dark Angels Green, Snot Green, Skull White.


















The stages on the Jump Pack were pretty much the same as on the Seraphim herself – the weathering was just a LOT heavier.


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## SilverTabby (Jul 31, 2009)

And here are my pics of the finished product. I know they took a 360 video of it at Games Day, but where and when that will be available I don’t know…


































































If there are any questions, feel free to ask!


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## Magpie_Oz (Jan 16, 2012)

Again I'm just blown away. 

Thanks for sharing and inspiring, I'm certainly going to be having a crack at the techniques you use, so I really appreciate you giving such a detailed run down.

I think this needs to be in the tutorials area.


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## normtheunsavoury (Mar 20, 2008)

I would love to see a more detailed run down on how you did the white if you ever get a chance or the time, it looks amazing and would come in very handy with what I'm doing at the moment. I decided to paint my CSM white without thinking first about how much of a pain in the arse it would be.


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## SilverTabby (Jul 31, 2009)

I did the white the long and labourious way from dark up. If you're painting an army that way, I'd heartily suggest starting white and shading down. It's much easier and quicker. Or if you have access to the appropriate colour spray, spray them with your base colour. 

The main pointer I'd give, is don't overdo it. For army figures: On a grey-based white, fortress is as low as you need to go. On a brown-based one, bubonic is the lowest. You can always deepen the deepest recesses with a watery wash afterwards. I see 'whites' shaded with blacks, scorched borwns, and equally dark colours and it makes my eyes bleed. :wink:


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