Blog: Acceptable Radiation
Owner: Ardyer
Author: Andrew
Post: From the Far Galactic East they come...
No one is really sure from who these titans were, but as Horus advanced on Terra they came. They came from the far east, where no titan legions were known to be stationed and they bore no recognizable markings. When hailed, only garbled and guttural sounds responded, although, very occasionally, the names Interfectorem Exspiravi and Upsilon Deus could be heard. The armies of Horus did not waste much time attempting to communicate with them; these titans were heavily blessed by the four Powers and their loyalty was not an issue. And slay in the name of Horus, they did...
Apologize for the delay in blog posts. I've been really, really lazy. And really, really busy with this Covid 19 business. I'm lucky enough to be able to work from home, but the side effect of that is that I know seem to have more work today between my work and family stuff. But I'm back--hopefully anyway!
So one of my local friends figured out the way to get me to start a new game--namely give me free stuff! I've been eyeing Adeptus Titanicus for a while now, but never wanted to pull the trigger and spend the money. And then a spare copy of the rules arrived on my doorstep from an AT superfan that had an extra copy. So I promptly went out an bought two Warhounds, a Reaver and a Warlord.
Even before I purchased the models, I knew I wanted them to be done in two ways: 1) very chaotic and 2) very Blanchian. To me, anyway, this meant lots of modification and very washed out and busy paint styles. But I also knew I didn't care about which legion or anything like that. Honestly, the rules haven't entered my mind.
When it came to painting him and his brother, I wanted to go with red, but not bright, Khorne red. A more washed out, Blanchian red. To achieve this on both, I used Vallejo Game Air Charred Brown and Citadel Rakarth Flesh to underpaint my highlights and shadows. On top of that, I sprayed a few very thin layers of Vallejo Model Air Cavalry Brown. After that dried, I added some Lamenter's Yellow via brush as an edge highlights of sorts and as a spot color in random places. For this one, I also painted demonic faces all over the armor plates using Rakarth Flesh and building them up by adding in White. After the Calvary Brown layers, I also went and re-whitened the teeth and some of the eyes. A big thanks to Maxi Costales López and Bill Rowbotham for inspiration on the faces! Finally, I used some verdigirs colored weathering powders to add a "warp" effect to the exhaust, just to make it seem even more unnatural.
For his brother, I drew inspiration from Ana Polanšćak's amazing Varghulf, as well as everything else she has ever done! I spent a lot of time staring at photos of her project trying to distill how she captured such mood in her work. Eventually I realized that everything she did was fundamentally wrong. But, wrong in a purposeful way, and that's where the mood comes from. It's very subtle so on it's face it looks correct and your eyes don't notice specifics, but your brain knows it just is not right.
Now, I'm no where good enough to do wrong on purpose, just wrong because I can't do it right. But, by recognizing that, I can use it to my advantage. I took an old hard plastic goat my kids had lying around, cut and spent several days applying patches of greenstuff to make it more lupine.
As you can see, I intitally wanted much longer ears, like hers, but I couldn't get them to look right. I think my armature wire was too thick.
First I bulked out the face where it need ed and then I added fur. I purposefully didn't worry about making it too correct and just did it to the best of my ability. Both to learn from it and let the natural wrongness amplify the effect I was after.
Painting his was pretty similar to the other one, except instead of faces, I painted lines across the armor plate, but in no particular order. It's not as noticable as I would have liked, I think I didn't take the underpaint bright enough (I stopped at Rakarth Flesh) and I put one too many coats of Cavalry Brown on it. But, the weathering ended up covering up a lot of it anyway.
Unlike his brother, which was only mildly weathered, mostly on the metals (how could demon faces see if their eyes were covered in grime?), this one was heavily weathered. I applied several layers of AK interactive streaking grime, rust wash, and dark brown and quite a few weathering powders as well.
Continue reading over on the Acceptable Radiation blog
Owner: Ardyer
Author: Andrew
Post: From the Far Galactic East they come...
No one is really sure from who these titans were, but as Horus advanced on Terra they came. They came from the far east, where no titan legions were known to be stationed and they bore no recognizable markings. When hailed, only garbled and guttural sounds responded, although, very occasionally, the names Interfectorem Exspiravi and Upsilon Deus could be heard. The armies of Horus did not waste much time attempting to communicate with them; these titans were heavily blessed by the four Powers and their loyalty was not an issue. And slay in the name of Horus, they did...
So one of my local friends figured out the way to get me to start a new game--namely give me free stuff! I've been eyeing Adeptus Titanicus for a while now, but never wanted to pull the trigger and spend the money. And then a spare copy of the rules arrived on my doorstep from an AT superfan that had an extra copy. So I promptly went out an bought two Warhounds, a Reaver and a Warlord.
I also knew I was going to rely heavily on inspiration from others...because I lack all creativity For the first one, I knew I wanted a more bovine look, thanks to Urion Franz's excellent warhound with a septum ring.And if you're going to give him one piercing, you might as well give him two, so he got an earring as well. Chains were also a must, as these are described constantly in relation to chaos. I wanted more hanging from the carapace, but my fingers are clumsy, so I did what I could. And a tail, all chaos Warhounds need a tail!
When it came to painting him and his brother, I wanted to go with red, but not bright, Khorne red. A more washed out, Blanchian red. To achieve this on both, I used Vallejo Game Air Charred Brown and Citadel Rakarth Flesh to underpaint my highlights and shadows. On top of that, I sprayed a few very thin layers of Vallejo Model Air Cavalry Brown. After that dried, I added some Lamenter's Yellow via brush as an edge highlights of sorts and as a spot color in random places. For this one, I also painted demonic faces all over the armor plates using Rakarth Flesh and building them up by adding in White. After the Calvary Brown layers, I also went and re-whitened the teeth and some of the eyes. A big thanks to Maxi Costales López and Bill Rowbotham for inspiration on the faces! Finally, I used some verdigirs colored weathering powders to add a "warp" effect to the exhaust, just to make it seem even more unnatural.
For his brother, I drew inspiration from Ana Polanšćak's amazing Varghulf, as well as everything else she has ever done! I spent a lot of time staring at photos of her project trying to distill how she captured such mood in her work. Eventually I realized that everything she did was fundamentally wrong. But, wrong in a purposeful way, and that's where the mood comes from. It's very subtle so on it's face it looks correct and your eyes don't notice specifics, but your brain knows it just is not right.
Now, I'm no where good enough to do wrong on purpose, just wrong because I can't do it right. But, by recognizing that, I can use it to my advantage. I took an old hard plastic goat my kids had lying around, cut and spent several days applying patches of greenstuff to make it more lupine.
As you can see, I intitally wanted much longer ears, like hers, but I couldn't get them to look right. I think my armature wire was too thick.
First I bulked out the face where it need ed and then I added fur. I purposefully didn't worry about making it too correct and just did it to the best of my ability. Both to learn from it and let the natural wrongness amplify the effect I was after.
Painting his was pretty similar to the other one, except instead of faces, I painted lines across the armor plate, but in no particular order. It's not as noticable as I would have liked, I think I didn't take the underpaint bright enough (I stopped at Rakarth Flesh) and I put one too many coats of Cavalry Brown on it. But, the weathering ended up covering up a lot of it anyway.
Unlike his brother, which was only mildly weathered, mostly on the metals (how could demon faces see if their eyes were covered in grime?), this one was heavily weathered. I applied several layers of AK interactive streaking grime, rust wash, and dark brown and quite a few weathering powders as well.
Continue reading over on the Acceptable Radiation blog
