Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!
This page is a gallery of commissioned work that I've done over the last ten years or so. It's a mixture of pieces done at different levels of finish, from pure tabletop to box-cover standard. I've tried to chat a bit about each project and, to stop the page being too picture-heavy, I've only used a couple of shots for each project. If you want to see more of each, I've included links to the galleries on my Facebook page. Enjoy!
SALAMNDERS IMPERIAL KNIGHT
This is a commission piece I did a few years ago, and was my biggest single piece at the time. First off, I know full well that Space Marines don't pilot knights, nor do knights usually carry the heraldry of Space Marine chapters, but I was following the brief from the customer so don't hassle me with any of that non-canon malarkey, okay?
Ahem. So, the brief was to do a Knight that was somehow part of the Salamanders Space Marine chapter, so the colour scheme followed that of the chapter armour colours quite closely. The flaming hammer icon is something I came up with to mix a House icon (I forget which house- I think I used one that had been vaguely associated with the chapter, or had it's homeworld near Vulcan, or something. Or maybe I pulled it out of my head, I honestly can't remember. If I'd known I'd one day be writing blog posts about this sort of thing, maybe I would have... Anyway, the client wanted a Space Marine piloting the Knight, and provided one as a resin piece, which I think may have been a recast from the one for the Stormraven Gunship. That's the closest match I can find, unless Forge World did one that I don't know about. Anyway, it took a fair bit of cutting and fitting to get it into place, and had to be painted before the whole thing could be put together. I also built a hinge so that the cockpit door could be opened to reveal the pilot inside. The other thing of note about this job was that all the weapons were magnetised. This wasn't a problem for the small things like the carapace weapons (even the front of the missile pod is interchangeable) and the little chest guns, but the close combat arm required a little effort, with a couple of spacers put in place, to make them work. The gun arm was a challenge, too, as the three main guns all use the same main body sections, but in different ways, and I just couldn't figure out a way to make them completely interchangeable. In the end I had to buy an extra gun assembly set from a bits seller online to make it work. Oh yeah, the waist joint was magnetised too, so the upper body could be rotated, and also to make it easier to transport the model.
SALAMNDERS IMPERIAL KNIGHT
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Ahem. So, the brief was to do a Knight that was somehow part of the Salamanders Space Marine chapter, so the colour scheme followed that of the chapter armour colours quite closely. The flaming hammer icon is something I came up with to mix a House icon (I forget which house- I think I used one that had been vaguely associated with the chapter, or had it's homeworld near Vulcan, or something. Or maybe I pulled it out of my head, I honestly can't remember. If I'd known I'd one day be writing blog posts about this sort of thing, maybe I would have... Anyway, the client wanted a Space Marine piloting the Knight, and provided one as a resin piece, which I think may have been a recast from the one for the Stormraven Gunship. That's the closest match I can find, unless Forge World did one that I don't know about. Anyway, it took a fair bit of cutting and fitting to get it into place, and had to be painted before the whole thing could be put together. I also built a hinge so that the cockpit door could be opened to reveal the pilot inside. The other thing of note about this job was that all the weapons were magnetised. This wasn't a problem for the small things like the carapace weapons (even the front of the missile pod is interchangeable) and the little chest guns, but the close combat arm required a little effort, with a couple of spacers put in place, to make them work. The gun arm was a challenge, too, as the three main guns all use the same main body sections, but in different ways, and I just couldn't figure out a way to make them completely interchangeable. In the end I had to buy an extra gun assembly set from a bits seller online to make it work. Oh yeah, the waist joint was magnetised too, so the upper body could be rotated, and also to make it easier to transport the model.
As for the painting, it was pretty straightforward stuff. The first job was to paint the endoskeleton, which was done with a number of washes of Nuln Oil (with a bit of Agrax Earthshade thrown in here and there for variety) over a rattle-can silver undercoat. If I was doing it now, I would probably use Leadbelcher as a zenithal spray over a black undercoat before adding the washes. Leadbelcher and Ironbreaker were stippled over this, with a final, very light drybrush of Runefang Steel to pick out the edges. This was then knocked back with more washes, before all the little details were picked out. Things like the oil smears on the hydraulics were fun to do. Of the armour sections, the green areas were done first and done dark to light, with highlights stippled on to give a bit of texture to the large, flat plates. This was then glazed, and some dark shading used in the deepest recesses and to pick out the panel lines. They were also given an edge highlight around the topmost points of the plates. The same method was used on the brass areas, but not given such stark edge highlighting. Looking back on it now, I wish I'd gone a little stronger on the edge highlights on all areas. Live and learn.
All in all this was quite an enjoyable piece to work on and, once all the bits were finished, it was immensely satisfying popping guns off and clicking others into place. I can understand why these miniatures have proven so popular since their launch. The're great models to work on, full of little details, and make imposing items on the tabletop. For the painter they are quite the free canvas and I've seen some astonishing painted examples out there. I may have to have a go at doing one for myself one day, so I can really go to town on the paint job.
For more pictures of the Knight, check out the full photo album, including all the magnetised weapon variants, on my Facebook page.
All in all this was quite an enjoyable piece to work on and, once all the bits were finished, it was immensely satisfying popping guns off and clicking others into place. I can understand why these miniatures have proven so popular since their launch. The're great models to work on, full of little details, and make imposing items on the tabletop. For the painter they are quite the free canvas and I've seen some astonishing painted examples out there. I may have to have a go at doing one for myself one day, so I can really go to town on the paint job.
For more pictures of the Knight, check out the full photo album, including all the magnetised weapon variants, on my Facebook page.
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