Warmachine: Storm Strider

Cygnar Storm Strider

Recently i had the pleasure of painting a Cygnar Stormstrider from Warmachine up as a commission, when i first looked at the model i thought it would be a complete nightmare, but the collection of techniques involved in painting it was actually quite refreshing, a nice mix of weathering and painting interesting textures onto the different parts of the model kept it fun to paint throughout, and it was a lot quicker to paint than i expected also.

There are normally crew to go with the model but i only received one to paint which i duly left at home when dropping the model off (when this picture was taken) so he is having to undertake and arduous quest of his own to be reunited with his Warmachine through the streets of London currently.

I was quite pleased in particular with the subtle gradient of the blue on the legs, going from darker at the bottom to lighter at the top, i'd been itching to have another go at this technique, but i think it looks better on rounded surfaces than flat, and i've been painting a lot of Imperial Vehicles for 40k which everyone knows are all about the Right angles.

I thought it would be a good time to talk about one of my favourite techniques at the moment for creating false perspective on a model, and how easy it is to achieve, The gashes and strikes on the legs of the Storm Strider are done using this method, i call it "Gouging" but i'm sure that there is another more accepted name for it in the painting community, but so what, right?

the Privateer Press Studio version of the Storm Strider has an amazing extension of this "Gouging" effect where by paint is chipped off to reveal rusted and pitted metal underneath, but i thought i would have a go at this on one of my own models first, other people's models aren't always the best place to begin experimenting!

Anyway, it goes a little like this,

Step One:  Take your surface that requires roughing up, in this example it's the unfinished leg plate of the Storm Strider, i'd got the basic colours of the leg down by this point so i figured it was a good time to chuck in this particular detail, paint fine lines over the armour plating with a colour that is just a darkened version of your main colour, the swipes in this picture are Enchanted Blue with Chaos Black 50/50 (they just look a bit darker in the picture).

The swipes tend to look better if they taper off at the ends to smaller points at each end but as you can see here i was happy just to have the basic line down, you can always go back and add the tapered ends later.

Step Two:  Go back and extreme highlight the lower of the two sides with a lighter version of your base colour (base colour of the armour, not the darkened impression), this gives the impression that the light is catching a raised edge, really deep cuts could be highlighted both edges (to simulate say an axe becoming embedded in an armour plate and the wielder really having to struggle to pull it free)

As you can see in the picture this instantly adds perspective compared to the line below it, and these are close ups, quite unforgiving, down on a gaming table it looks awesome.

So uh, yeah, that's it really.  Pretty easy, and a technique i would recommend everyone to try, these are quite large cuts obviously and i didn't want to rough the model up with too much weathering as Cygnar models tend to have quite a "Pristine" image, more industrial models like Khador i'd just say go nuts, this technique extrapolates quite well onto infantry as well, i've used it a lot on Space marines in the past with great results, when you combine it with weathering powders and little extra paint chips here and there it really looks beastly,

to take it to the next level and increase the quality even further i'd recommend a further highligh towards the edges of the first in a lighter colour adding more White or bone to whatever colour you are working with.

So if you haven't tried it already give it a shot, it's well fun.