Valdus Hammerhand, part 1

Like every aspect of the hobby, we often pick up far more than we can paint or game with, simply because the intent is there. I originally picked up the Age of Sigmar Starter Set with Vandus Hammerhand because I quite liked the look of the Khorne fellas. Sadly, when I picked it up they released the Starter set with Nurgle in a few weeks later, thus relegating Vandus and his pals to the shelf.

Jump forward to now, and I’ve finally taken a brush to him, as well as starting a lot of the other Stormcast. If you’ve ready any of my Stormcast posts, you’ll know I love to paint them, and Vandus was no exception. This is the first part of a three parter showing how I painted up the various parts of Vandus, broken down into easy to follow sections.

It’s worth noting that the Retributor Armour spray undercoat came out lumpy on some parts of the miniature (you can see it a little on the hammer below), but it’s not too much of an issue here.

Gold

The golden armour is particularly ornate, and looks really good with just a basecoat, shade and layer, but, why stop there? With two more highlights it gives the gold a nice depth of colour.

The whole model was initially sprayed with Citadel Retributor Armour using one of Games Workshop’s spray cans. Next it was washed with Citadel Agrax Earthshade, before carefully reapplying Retributor Armour so that you’re leaving the shade in the recesses. I try to reapply this layer, almost feathering it in, spreading out the paint so that there isn’t – or shouldn’t be – a sharp dividing line where the paint stops and the shade starts. It’s tricky sometimes, but is worth the extra effort to get it smooth.

Once done, use Citadel Liberator Gold to highlight, followed by an extreme highlight on using Liberator Gold with a spot of Vallejo Model Air Chrome added.

I used the same technique across all of the gold on the model, and I’m happy with the end result. There’s some pictures of the finished mini at the bottom of the page.

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Helmet Crest

Despite the camera malfunction making four of the images darker than they should have been, you can see the progress between stages here. Initially the crest was painted with Citadel Mephiston Red, washed with Citadel Druchii Violet, then layered with Mephiston Red, making sure the Druchii Violet remained visible in the recesses.

Next, I added some Citadel Fire Dragon Bright to the Mephiston red, and highlighted the crest. I repeated this process, adding more Fire Dragon Bright to give the crest one final highlight.

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Hammer

As the highest point on the model, his hammer catches the eye, and it’s worth painting it up nicely for when it does. It was based in Citadel Leadbelcher, washed with Citadel Nuln Oil, then reapplying the Leadbelcher so that the shade is still visible in the recesses. Again, I tried feathering the Leadbelcher to get a smoother transition from Leadbelcher to Nuln Oil.

I then added a spot of Model Air Chrome to the Leadbelcher to highlight it, then did one final extreme highlight using the Citadel Dry paint, Necron Compound.

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Below is the miniature finished using the above techniques, and over the course of the posts I’ll be showing you how to paint the rest.

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In the next part, we’ll be looking at more sections to paint up Vandus.

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