WIP: Armiger Warglaives from House Taranis - Part 1

In this post, I'll describe the airbrush work I put in priming the models and base coating the armor plates.  I use Vallejo Surface Primer Black (74.602) straight out of the bottle in my airbrush for inside priming these days.  I have a spray booth to help collect over-spray and any fumes,but there are few fumes with this acrylic primer.

To hold the small parts in place, I use double-sided tape on a spare paint stick I had kicking around.  Any odd length of scrap should work though. One of my own personal foibles is to use poster-tac to cover areas where I want to glue things later using plastic model cement.  You might forgo this extra work and just use superglue, however there is the possibility of the glue coming away with the primer if it chips off the model.

The small parts all ready for priming on the backsides

Here are the main parts all primed and ready for the next step.

Once the primer was dry, I set about using the airbrush to lay down the base colors on the weapon arms and armor plates. I'll brush paint the rest.  I wanted good smooth coats on the armor that I felt I wouldn't achieve with a brush, given my current abilities. For now, I'm using the primer coat for the black paint on the armor.  I expect to go over this with a thin coat of Abaddon black, either through the airbrush, or with a regular brush later.

I used more poster-tac to mask off the black so red and white could be sprayed on without fear.  I varied the color scheme for the two warglaives to give them some individuality. Here is what the whole lot looked like after the airbrushing.

Pretty straight forward so far, nothing exciting. I like the poster-tac for masking because it's easier to get a good confident seal so no spray leaks under or around it.  I've had issue with tape over uneven details and using the tac reduces the amount of cleanup painting I have to do.  The work is up front, stick the tac down carefully to insure good straight lines where needed.

In the end, I have two pairs of armor ready for brush painting.  The panels are colored and should look great when the trim is painted and the whole armor shaded.

I'm new to the House Taranis paint scheme, but I am hopeful these two will fit right in once complete. For lesser nobles or house retainers, I guess these two might have a bit more latitude for personalized paint schemes than might truelove have been fitting. Regardless, I wanted the two knights to have some individuality and character so here we are.

The two bases also got primed while the brush was out.

In the next part, the skeletons will get some dry brushing and details, then it'll be onward to the armor. I'd like to have these guys done as inspiration for more when the new Imperial Knights codex lands. I have three plastic knights and one Forge World resin knight waiting in the wings to enter service in House Taranis.


Cheers and Happy Gaming!