A Knight's Tale: Shoulders and Plasma Cannonade

Hi folks,

With a break in the weather I have been able to make some more progress, focusing mainly on the shoulder armour and Hellfire Plasma Cannonade. To help with the Medusa symbol on the right shoulder I made two simple stencils, one of the face and one of the mouth of the snake. I started by making a detailed sketch of the silhouette, then transferring the image to some tracing paper. I could then cut out the shape of the face to use as a stencil. Originally I wanted the face to be white (negative space), so to transfer the image to the shoulder I stipled Spacewolf Grey around the edges. I then used very watered down paint to mark out where the snakes would be. I needed the paint to flow very freely and not add a significant amount of texture, in case I needed to start again or paint over it.

When I was happy with the composition I started blocking in the snakes with solid colour.

To make the snake appearance consistent, I made a small stencil for the head, which I used four times. The head down the bottom was free-hand, as it needed to be smaller to fit in the space. I quite liked the design with the face being white, but it was clear when I put it on the Knight that the colour combination wasn't going to work.

I blocked it in using the same light blue as the rest of the scheme, and that seemed to appease the paint-Gods (there is also something just a little bit Daft Punk about it...). A touch of weathering finished it off.

I haven't decided whether or not the other shoulder is finished yet. I think I need to sleep on it. I was tossing up whether to paint the forward section light blue and use a white decal in that spot, but this would compete visually with the Medusa symbol. I settled on a skull and laurel design that I added using free-hand, but it left the section closest to the front awfully empty. I filled it with the Knights name... in Greek. It may or may not stay that way; let me know what you think.

The Hellfire Plasma Cannonade took me a day to paint by itself, on and off. I originally had all of the plasma weapons painted with a green glow but, again, when mounted they just didn't fit the scheme very well. There is not much contrast in the blue that I have used but it matches the plasma weapons of my Iron Snakes and mirrors the colour of the snakes on the shoulder armour: 5 snakes for 5 plasma barrels :-)

Next I will be working on the Reaper Chainsword and Avenger Gatling cannon. The plan is to paint the chainsword quite plainly, but the cannon is going to have overheating barrels. I have been saving my reds and oranges for one special dose of contrast; I am interested to see if I can make it work. So many times during this project I have tried something different and then had to carefully reconsider in light of the entire body of the project. The Avenger is going to be the final hurdle in that regard, I predict. Just call me Nostradamus ;-)

See you across the table,

Marc