Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Painted Dreadclaw Drop Pod Conversion! Iron Warriors!

Iron within, rust without, that's what I always say! Old School here with a finished look at the dreadclaw conversion I built in October and painted yesterday. This is the first step down the path of getting my armies painted as mentioned in my last post. This dreadclaw took on a few last minute changes before hitting the paint bench so let's look at a few more pics and explore the changes and the paint ...

                                               
Alright taking a look at it since I left it in October's post, I added the chaos symbols and took the retro boosters (the little fans) from the regular drop pod kit an put them on the hinge at the bottom of the drop pod doors. Since traitors come out the bottom of the dreadclaw, the drop pod "doors" are actually just part of the hull on this model and the hinge gives me a great joint for the dreadclaw's retro thrusters, giving the impression that they can move to help guide its direction.

Finally, before adding paint, I took the bonesaw and cut the corner tips of the actual "claw" at a diagonal angle so the ship would have more of a claw look rather than a blunt, upside-down drop pod look (lol). 
When it came time to paint, all I did was give it one coat Krylon Grey Primer, then base coated it in Boltgun Metal with the airbrush, Hit the panels that face the sky with a little mythril silver (also with the airbrush), then I masked of the hull (where the regular drop pod doors are) and sprayed them black, then masked off the hazard areas, first spraying them Iyanden Darksun (yes foundations work in the airbrush, just use plenty of matte medium and windex), then masking the yellow and airbrushing the black stripes in Black Ink.

With that finished I went back with black and added spots anywhere I wanted rust of the hazard stripes, then loaded the airbrush with Calthan Brown(?), the brown foundation and sprayed it into the black spots I made on the hazard stripes. Then I went through the whole model liberally applying rust with the airbrush using the brown.

With all of this done, I sat down with a paint brush and cleaned up the rust using boltgun or back (where appropriate) to tone down some of the areas that really got hosed with rust. With that finished I weathered the black to look like it got scraped entering orbit. Then dotted and dragged Gryphonne Sepia from the bolts and vents to create an appearance that when the pod isn't in use, it sits for long periods, allowing the rust to run from the bolts and such. As a final touch I sprayed black at the bottom of the fins and the hull from the airbrush to give the appearance of burns from dropping through the atmosphere.

All in all, I like it. The rust was one of the things that I really liked when I decided to paint it in the IW theme and the airbrush truly is a painter's best friend for working things like hazard striped and weathering.

This is my first step in pushing through my Chaos legions and the first entry I have for the competition CVinton and I are working out the details of (be on the look out for more of that). Basically, we are challenging each other to paint at least one kill point every two weeks. We are just looking at either posting our progress weekly or posting our work as usual and doing a round up every week or two to show where we are. Others are welcome to join us and we will post photos of your work during the round ups.

We have never done anything like this before, so we are open to suggestions. Anyway, before this post drags on way too long, let us know what you think about the competition OR just let me know what you think of my Iron Warriors Dreadclaw drop pod conversion!

17 comments:

  1. Very cool I say, needs a wash over the armoru to dull it down over all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Id leave it the way it looks. It looks perfect dude. Im impressed very nice job.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is amazing! Well done sir, soawesome looking.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Very, very nice! I really like how that turned out - I'll have to give that a try on my next heresy-era marine project. Keep up the great work!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Looks stupefying, man! Great job, I am jealous.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thank you for all the encouragement guys.

    One note for Mercer is that the model is actually under a harsh flash, so the metal is looking a little "hot" in the photos, but the upper panels were meant to be brighter to contrast the weathering effects throughout the metal.

    The end result of this pod is actually from a lot of testing with smaller models. I found that a darker wash can really make the weathering effects look less drastic and can mute them out on the model as a whole. Once I found a good balance of contrasts, I moved from the minis to the pod.

    I have ten IW at various versions of metal and rust and wash to attest to the process, but I am pretty happy with how it came out. I may experiment some more as I move on and paint the predators and rhinos.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Amazing work, I love it and cannot wait to see the rest of this army painted!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow, no pressure, lss! Just kidding, thanks, expect some action soon, I am perfecting my troop painting method as we speak for the IW scheme.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Very nice sir, now hopefully they put them in the codex for normal use when it comes out 50 years from now with the new Eldar one.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Awesome work there Old School! Very effective weathering and rust effects.

    ReplyDelete
  11. This pod is really striking me hard! I'm jealous about the idea... Perfect things are always simple...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Fantastic stuff! I followed your directions and built a Dreadclaw for my incipient heresy-era Thousand Sons over the weekend. It was actually easier to build this way than it is to build it the 'right' way! Fantastic tutorial and excellent results - keep up the great work!

    ReplyDelete
  13. hmmmmm only critque i really have is that you used matte with the paint....
    if you want to help it flow, use flow medium. matte may work to a similar degree, but its actually ment for removing gloss, not giving flow...
    check out my post about it here:
    http://conceptstorealities.blogspot.com/2010/10/paint-and-you.html

    ReplyDelete
  14. Wow, must have missed this the first time around. Very nice!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Thanks for the inspiration - now I need to know; what were you planning to do with the insides of the door we both now have knocking about...

    ReplyDelete