An Experiment...or rather, "Don't Leave Your Models at the Store!"

So, this post is actually a bit overdue. In response to the title, one of the guys from the FLGS has a bad habit of leaving his miniatures at the store. So to teach him a lesson I took two of his Grey Knights. I had a pretty good idea what he was planning on having in his army so I made sure to not take anything that was essential.

Now, Evil Homer had asked at one time about a way to do black metallic armor. I had several ideas of how he could have gone about it. I actually did some tests on a Necron to see what my ideas would look like. I was fairly pleased with the results, but I knew he wanted to use it on Marines and I was not sure it would translate over well. In came the Grey Knights.

Since that time though I believe Evil Homer no longer has the army he was intending on using the technique for. Even though Evil Homer no longer needed the recipe, I decided to use the ill gotten Grey Knights as my test subjects. I figured the owner would not learn a lesson if I simply gave them back.

One small note that I want to include. These models were assembled when I acquired them, and I did not do any cleaning on them before painting. That means the bolters are not drilled, and there is flash visible in several places. One of them was already primed and some of the detail has been obscured because of it. Before I start with the steps let me give you some info for those following along at home. VMA= Vallejo Model Air, VGC= Vallejo Game Color, and VMC= Vallejo Model Color.


 So I intend to use a combination of airbrush spray and washes to get the look I want. It should also shade the armor sufficiently for basic troopers. The steps are quick and simple.

After both models were primed black I busted out my airbrush and sprayed them all over with VMA 71072 Gun.

 Once dry, the entire model was washed with GW Badab Black Wash.

 After the first wash was dry, I sprayed the model with VMA 71065 Steel. This coat was done from above at about a 45 degree angle. This makes the top a bit lighter as the washes are applied.
 Now we are starting to get some definition.

I follow the last directional spray with 4 more washes of GW Badab Black. No need for me to label each step, but I am including them so you can see the progression.

You can see here after the 4th wash the armor is really dark, but the metallic paint underneath still shows through.

After the last wash was dry I blocked out some of the other colors. Normally I would hesitate to paint this straight over a metallic color, but the black washes make a good base to work from. For those who are curious, here are the colors I used. The lettering areas and gold accents are done with a 50/50 mix of VMC 984 Flat Brown/VGC 55 Polished Gold. The cloth and books were based with VGC 72140 Heavy Skintone, and the Storm Bolter and Purity Seals were done with VGC 72141 Heavy Red. I deliberately chose those colors because I wanted ones that can all be washed with the same color for shading.

Now the base colors are done, I washed all the colors with a 50/50 VGC 72033 Skin Wash/Water.

After the wash was dried I returned back to the areas with the original base color on the high areas to give it some definition. Pay no attention to the swords. In the spirit of experiments, I was attempting something that failed miserably.