Summer Hobby Challenge: Ferrus Manus and Horus Lupercal Week 7 Update

After the long and drawn out stair affair of last month, I wanted to paint a little more fun this week, and cracked on with Horus. Now I’d finished the tassets and his head, so continued working on the bronze colours of the armour. Before I started the bronze, I went around the whole miniature, painting black over the areas where a metallic had strayed onto it.
I added highlights to the bronze areas using Citadel Retributor Armour.

Next up, I added some Citadel Air Relictor Gold and highlighted the highlights on the bronze, in an attempt to make it look as though light is catching the uppermost edges of the bronze.

Then came the wolf skin. I gave this an overall wetbrush of Vallejo Deep Seagreen, leaving a strip down the wolf’s back and tale darker than the rest.

The next layer was a mix of Vallejo London Grey and Deep Seagreen. This was drybrushed over almost all of the previous layer, with the exception of the edge of the Deep Seagreen that was closest to the dark area in the centre of it’s back (and tail).

Finally I added some Vallejo White to the mix and gave a final drybrush, lightening the wolf skin’s flanks and legs.

I highlighted the skulls on the cloak, and painted the claws  and teeth of the wolf with Citadel Ushabti Bone before finally gluing the head and arm into place.

I’m pleased with how he’s looking so far, there’s a few little touch ups and details to do before I varnish him, but so far I’m pretty happy with the result. Next week it looks like it’ll be the cloak and base to finish him off! Woo!
Now I’ll leave you with the Loyalist Scumdog, Mike, who’s been doing a stunning job on Ferrus Manus.
Thanks, Rob.
I’ve been working on the base again. Exciting, huh? For some reason, it seemed like the most interesting part of the model to paint (Probably the least scary). The first thing I did this week was to put the decals onto the dead legionaries. I recorded a hand video on how to do this here:
 

After that was a simple case of weathering. To do that, I used a spare bit of sponge and Citadel Ironbreaker. This is a bit like drybrushing. Make sure that you wipe most of the paint of the sponge onto a bit of kitchen towel, before pressing it to the model. You can always build up the weathering, but it’s very difficult to remove it:
 

In the meantime I went back to Ferrus’s metallic arms. The next stage on those was to paint a highlight of very thinned down Ironbreaker. I used Citadel Lahmian Medium to thin this down and applied carefully to the most pronounced parts of the flesh, leaving the last coat in the recesses:
 

(Click on the photos for a closer look)

Back to the base. Hurrah! The next thing I did was to paint all the rubble and rocks in Citadel Gorthor Brown. I was a bit rough with this as I didn’t mind getting a little bit on the legionaries and metal spars as it adds to the weathered look. Then I applied a wash of Citadel Agrax Earthshade:
 

To continue with the metal arms I did another highlight, but this time using Vallejo Air Steel. Because this is an airbrush paint, it’s already thinned and doesn’t need further thinning, and adds a nice extreme highlight:
 

(Click on the photos for a closer look)

Then a final wash on Citadel Nuln Oil onto the rubble and ruins on the base. Thus completing the washes for the base. There’s still some drybrushing to do next week, but I think it looks pretty good:
 

I then returned to Ferrus himself. I’ve gotta finish him at some point, right? Can’t put it off forever. The next thing I did was thinned down Citadel Guilliman Blue, then paint it into the recesses of the flesh, blending it down into the metal arms, thus tying the two together. I did this in two coats to make sure that I didn’t over do it:
 

(Click on the photos for a closer look)

And to finish of the metal look, a final highlight of Air Steel to go back over the blue glaze and make sure that the highlight stands out:
 

(Click on the photos for a closer look)

And that’s all the flesh and arms done! Wow, I can’t believe I actually managed to do it, and I’m quite happy with the results.
That means that I now have two weeks to finish all the metal and brass on his armour and hammer. I’m fairly confident that can be done. It should be a lot easier that the flesh, as it’s less layers and no blending at all.
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