Knight Study
Okay, so during last week's discussion of Blacklining, I told you my plans for painting up my Chaos Knights. Well, I had a little trouble with those and had to come up with a different way to do it. Read on for more details.
Well, to start off, I looked around online for a variety of pictures, many of Chaos models, but a few others that caught my eye as well. Once I had an idea of how other people painted theirs, I started thinking about what I wanted mine to look like. Eventually, I narrowed it down to four possible color schemes that I thought I would really like. I then did some test figures with each of the different paint schemes. Purple with Gold trim, Very Dark Blue with Gold Trim, Light Blue with Gold or Silver Trim, or Green and Black in a snakeskin pattern with Silver trim.
After painting the four models up, I narrowed it down to the Purple or the Very Dark Blue. After some hemming and hawing, I decided to go with the Very Dark Blue. (A touch of Tzeentch. I keep trying to go with Slaanesh, but Tzeentch keeps tossing things my way. Who knows, maybe I'll make a change!) I achieved this color by using a base of Storm Blue and giving the whole model an undiluted Blue Ink wash.
I tried to wash the model with a very diluted Minwax wash, like I've done before, attempting to do Blacklining and get shading done in one step. That lead to this next picture. Fortunately, I'd only done one as a test model, so it didn't wipe out all of my work. It turned the figure black. (Under the very bright flash you can see a bit of blue, but not under any other conditions.)
Storm Blue with Blue Ink wash, then Gold Trim and edging. (Note that if you paint the Gold first, then wash it, it will heavily subdue your Gold. Not what I'm looking for, but you might be.) Do what I do and learn from my mistakes :)
The above, but with some Enchanted Blue Highlights, toned down at the edges with another application of Storm Blue. I was originally just going to use the Enchanted Blue, but it was too big a jump from the previous step, so I darkened the trailing edges with Storm Blue. I suppose that I might do further steps of shading, adding in a mix of Enchanted and Storm Blue on the trailing edge, then leaving a gap and putting a mix with a bit of Chaos Black in Storm Blue as the final shade, and I could probably even go one step higher and put a tiny streak of Lightning Blue as the top highlight. I think that I'll start with this however, and get the rest all painted up to this standard. Once I've completed them and the horses and my conversions, then I can look into improving their paintjobs further.
The (for now, anyway) final step: Blacklining. I used a Black Micron Pen 01 (0.25 mm line) to draw in the black lines. I'm pleased with the results, as it is fairly subtle but still lends a bit more depth to the model and sets off the different colors I've used. It takes a fairly steady hand, but you can do that by placing your elbows on the table and hooking your little fingers together to create a stable tripod for yourself.
This method is a bit more complicated than my previous ones, such as the plan outlined in Painting Effectively, and it doesn't really achieve better looks. On the other hand, it does make me feel more like a "serious" painter, and I know that if I use this style on a regular basis, I'll get a lot better. I think that I'll probably do a mix, however. On most of my models, I'll do the simpler, quicker method that keeps them looking pretty good, but on character models or others that I want to take a bit more time with, I'll do the slower method to improve my technical skill.
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