Massive Darkness - Iron Golem
I happened across this model while I was searching for something new to paint. The reason that they hadn’t been painted is that their arm had snapped off. A hasty bit of superglue turned out to only be a temporary fix, so something a little more drastic was required. With that in mind, I used a pin vice drill to drill a hole in their shoulder and elbow then superglued a brass rod in place of the arm. To strengthen the bond I used a bit of liquid greenstuff and used a small amount of superglue where the weapon rests on the shoulder. With the repairs complete, I primed him in Army Painter Matt Black primer.
Turns out being a mechanical construct made for a ludicrously easy painting scheme. All I needed to do was give him an all over coat of Vallejo Metal Colour Magnesium, then the servos and joints I painted with Scale75 Old Copper. In a desperate attempt to find something else to put colour onto I painted the trim with Balthasar Gold and painted the handle of the mace with Dryad Bark.
Rather than use Nuln Oil like I always do, I decided to change things up and give the Iron Golem an actual oil wash. I mixed some black oil paint with enough thinner to make it a wash consistency and applied it liberally all over the miniature. I left it to cure a little while, in hindsight not long enough, before wiping away the excess oil paint with a make-up sponge. This still left the model very dark so I used some q-tips slightly dampened with white spirit to very carefully remove a bit more of the oil wash. You do need to be very careful because white spirit can remove the underlying paint layers if you were a muppet like me and didn't varnish the model before applying the oil wash. Not the end of the world, I just tidied up any areas I have accidentally stripped the paint off with some Typhus Corrosion. Made it look like something had eaten away at the metal. It was after that I had the wherewithal to apply an even coat of varnish. Oil paint can take a long time to cure, so now that it was under a coat of varnish I could continue painting the rest of the model.
Not that there was much left to do honestly. I ran some Ammo Rust Streaks into some of the recesses to help break up the metal plates a little more. For highlights, I started by using Leadbelcher for edge highlights but the model was, in my opinion, still very dark. So I straight up just drybrushed all the silver areas with Necron Compound. This brought the golem up to “good enough for the tabletop”, so I was happy with that. It was then that I discovered my pot of Dirty Down Rust Effect. This stuff is great, just stipple onto the model and in a few minutes it dries into some very realistic looking rust.
For the base I didn’t want to go with dark earth, so I used it as an excuse to open my new pot of Vallejo Red Oxide texture paste. The first non-Citadel texture paint that I’ve used and I must say I’m rather impressed, good coverage and you get a ton of it for your money. It did take longer to dry than the Games Workshop texture paints but that’s no big deal, I usually leave them to cure overnight anyway. Once it was dry I gave it a wash with Reikland Fleshshade. Finally I gave the base a drybrush with Jokaero Orange, making sure to get a bit on the golem’s feet to indicate a build up of dust. All in all the Jokaero Orange didn’t stick out quite as much as I was hoping on the base, but for a one-off model it’s fine.
Another week, another model completed. Not the most complicated but it was a nice change of pace to just slap some paint down with the airbrush and it was cool to play with oil paints again.
Boardgame miniatures left to paint: 753
Boardgame miniatures painted this year: 13