Proto Grey Knight Complete!

 First model completed for 2022!  It snuck in while waiting to pin the Apothecary and Techmarine.

In the theme of trying new things with this tester model, I experimented with modern basing techniques.  While I really like the plain gray ballast on the Ultramarines (I think it makes them pop), I wanted different basing to distinguish the Grey Knights as another army, learn something new, and contrast from the silver/gray of their armor.

I went with what seems to be a standard entry level scheme of mud and grass tufts that I see commonly.  After watching a few tutorials on various ways to do it, I felt I could pull it off with most of the things I already had on hand, but I did need to pick up the grass tufts and I tried out some Citadel Stirland Mud.

I started with applying the mud and then sprinkled some of the brown irregular ballast that I have (which by itself looks like bark).  Some of the tutorials showed using coarse, medium, and fine ballast which probably gives a better overall look, but I only have fine irregular brown and fine gray gravel types.  I think in the future I might get some coarse stuff.

The mud dried with the ballast embedded - and while that was probably durable enough, I wanted to give it a extra coat of pva glue to be sure.  Actually, before applying the glue, the Stirland Mud color with the slightly brighter brown ballast looked pretty good from medium and far, but I wanted to try more techniques, and also glue it down.  With the water + glue mix it definitely needed to be painted as it had a weird sheen.

I then used Morunfang, then Agrax Earthshade, then a drybrushes of Mournfang, Zandri Dust + Morunfang mix, and then Screaming Skull + the previous mix.  Then I glued in the grass, gave it a bit of Seraphim Sepia at its base, and then another drybrush of Screaming skull to the tips of the grass.

Finally, I also tried out some new Vallejo Pigments to apply dust/mud to the boots.  I've seen this used to tie in the model to the base.  I used just plain water to fix a mix of mostly Burnt Umber and a tiny amount of Light Sienna and applied it wet.  When it dried it looked a bit more caked than I was going for, I need to figure out how to make it look like a dusting, but still it looks fine.  I intend to use the Light Sienna with the gray gravel bases for the last few Ultramarines for that army, but will definitely want it light as they have to be very dapper.

Overall I think the model was very successful as a study in multiple new techniques and it will be fun to finish the other four models.

Bonus: Grey Knight WIP

Before I can finish up the Techmarine and Apothecary, I need drive out to visit my dad to use the Foredom to drill out the holes to pin them together (not going to repeat drilling into pewter again if I don't have to!)

So, in the meantime, I've had this sitting on the desk and I figured I'd try out a few new techniques!

First was to use a stippling technique with a blunt Artis Opus dry brush that I saw in a video about 'grim dark' Ultramarine paint styles by Richard Gray.  I applied it here to give a texture to the bronze base coat.  In general I was following a scheme from a "Vertisee Models" video for a weathered Grey Knight.

I found I had to use a wash of Snake Bite Leather Contrast over the bronze to get the real dark effect I was looking for, then a dry brush of Leadbelcher and then silver highlights for the edges and scratches.  Overall it achieved the effect I wanted - armor that looked ancient - like a very weathered coin.

I will say that I can see why people go for NMM (non-metal metallics) because working with metallic paint isn't great.  Namely, its hard to get it to look really crisp with sharp lines.  I feel like in the pictures exaggerate the problem though because in person it does look a bit better.

For the Nemesis Force Sword, I found a lot of videos to work magic with air brushes - but not really useful for me.  I found Juan Hidalgo's video and it was what I was going for.  This is the second time I had used one of his videos, I followed his technique for the plasma pistol OSL as well.  It was very approachable and turned out pretty well!

I didn't have any of the colors he used, so I substituted in Vallejo Deep Sky Blue for the base, then a mix of Deep Sky Blue + Skarsnik Green + White glazes in various concentrations for the shine, and blue ink for the shade in the other direction.  Then the black and white per his video.  It really worked out - this was the first try, so imagine after some practice!

Anyway, the whole thing so far came together in just 9 hours of paint time which is about 3/4ths as much time as I spent recently on the other models (per model).

Really all that is left is the base and then some varnish.  This prototype scheme will probably be what I use for the rest of my Rogue Trader era Grey Knight 5 man squad, though I might get the remaining colors for the sword so that I don't have to mix them (hopefully it is close enough).