Ding Dong!
I’m back! Not that I’ve been away as such but I decided to take a bit of a break from painting my Daemon Engine. Things had gone very well, and I’d made excellent progress, but I felt that I was beginning to get a bit too relaxed with the project. To do my best work I need to keep on my toes and I think I was getting a bit complacent. The break in painting has given me the opportunity to reset and refresh the feeling of a challenge.
To get re-started I decided to paint the bell, which I’d been keeping back for just such an occasion. The bell was perfect to paint as a sub-assembly and, as it features distinct areas of flesh and metal, was also perfect to help me get back up to speed with the colour palette and techniques I’m using on this model.
Although this model will feature a variety of non-metallic metal (NMM) effects the majority of my metal will be painted in bronze tones. Often used for bells, cannon and in ancient armour, bronze seemed like the perfect choice for a model that features all of these. It also works very well with my overall colour palette not least because of the opportunity it gives me to use cool green hues in the verdigris effects.
As with all metals the colour of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, will vary depending upon it’s exact composition, age and the conditions it’s been exposed to. Broadly speaking, bronze is a warm metallic hue along the lines of gold or brass; but slightly darker and browner than either, and less ‘orange’ than copper. In reality the colour bronze includes a wide range of tones and hues and can be achieved in many different ways.
I’d taken this into consideration when I created my initial colour palette but, as I‘ve now spent some time working with those colours, I decided to make some additions. The new colours are Balor Brown and Mournfang Brown both from Games Workshop and Ice Yellow from Vallejo Model Colour. The introduction of these colours has enabled me to create some warmer hues than my initial colour choices allowed.
So far I’ve painted two distinct areas of bronze on my model: the back plate (including the shoulder) and the bell. Although both areas use colours from the same overall palette they have been treated quite differently.
The back plate.
This is the single largest area of bronze on the model and much of it is in shadow. I decided that a warmer more saturated bronze would work best here, as it would have a strong contrast with the green hues in the adjacent areas of flesh and verdigris. In addition, a warmer and more saturated shadow colour gives more interest to the back of the model.
Base/shadows.
The base colour for this area is Rhinox Hide mixed with Boreal green and Black Leather. The additions serve to darken the Rhinox Hide.
Mid-tones.
I lightened the base colour with the addition of Mournfang Brown. As I moved into the mid-tones I increased the amount of the Mournfang and gradually began to add Balor Brown to my mix. The use of Mournfang Brown and Balor Brown give warmth and saturation to the final result.
Highlights.
As my colours go into the highlights, I introduced a mix of Balor Brown and Ice Yellow moving to pure ice yellow. The final highlights are Ice Yellow with a little white added.
The use of Ice Yellow was a little risky as my global highlight colour is Flayed One Flesh and the introduction of a new highlight colour could cause a colour clash with previously painted areas. However, Ice yellow has, compared to Flayed One Flesh, a cooler more saturated yellow hue that works very well for bronze.
The bell.
Base/shadows
The base colour for the bell is a mix of Rhinox Hide, Boreal green and Black Leather. These are the same colours as on the back plate but there is less Rhinox Hide and more Boreal green and Black Leather in this mix. The resulting colour is darker, cooler and more desaturated.
Mid-tones
The biggest difference between the two bronze areas lies in the mid-tones. For the bell I have only used Balor Brown. This is mixed with the base colour in increasing amounts as the colour lightens. However, I have not used any pure Balor Brown on the bell.
Highlights.
As my colours have moved into the highlights, I’ve added Ice yellow to the Balor Brown/base colour mix. As with the back plate my highlights shift through pure Ice Yellow to an Ice Yellow/white mix.
The final result for the bell is a bronze colour that is cooler, more desaturated and with shadows that are more blackened than the back plate.
The base/shadow mix of Rhinox Hide, Boreal green and Black Leather that I’m using on this model is one that I’ve often used before due to it’s flexibility. The mix gives a surprisingly dark result that I like to think of as ‘almost black’ and I can easily shift the temperature and saturation of this colour by altering the mix.
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| A page from my notebook comparing my 'almost black' Black Leather/Boreal Green mix with Black |
I’ll be adding more areas of bronze as my paint scheme progresses and I’m looking forward to creating more variations of this colour.
After painting the bell I turned my attention to the hand holding it; and what I thought would be relatively simple proved to be quite a challenge. As I said earlier part of my reason for painting the bell was to help me to get back up to speed with the colour palette. And it’s a good thing too. I forgot that my base colour for the flesh tones was a mix of two parts Rakarth Flesh with one part each of Bugman’s Glow and Sahara Yellow. Instead I used only Rakarth Flesh and it made a massive difference! The flesh tones were all far too cool and I had to glaze a lot of warm tones over this to balance things out. I’m now happy with the hand although I will almost certainly adjust it a little more once I glue it into place on the model.
As I’ve said before with this model nothing is finished until it’s all finished!
