Actually, this is a number of firsts.
The first of these firsts is that I haven't done any work in progress blog entries.
The second is that it's my first titan.*
*My first and only other titan was actually an Armorcast Phantom Titan** that I didn't have the skill to paint well, though I painted it decently. This is the first I've worked on since I started painting seriously.
**Which was used in all of one game against an Imperial Guard Steel Legion (shortly after it came out), in which it proceeded to take something like 20 lascannon shots to the face without taking damage, before gatting everything in sight. That lasted about 2 turns before we got tired of it...
The third first is that this is the first model I've shown on my blog that I've airbrushed. I've actually done a number before this, but this is the first I've photographed, and is exactly the kind of work that I got the airbrush for.
There are few models like large vehicles. They have large, often clean, surfaces that will show brushwork like nothing else, and you can quickly ruin your expensive model by using techniques that work well in other scales. After some practice, I eventually got to the point where I felt comfortable enough with an airbrush that I felt ready when my client's request came up.
The fourth first is that I was too tired to set up my light box and tripod, so this was done with a steady hand and a table :p.
The fifth and final first (I'm starting to sound like a Square Enix title) is that, because of the complexity of the project, I decided to do a mockup of the complete color scheme using the photo I took above and my Photoshop Skillz™on an actual photograph instead of on my illustration.
The paint job incorporates a few elements--
The gunship grey, blue, and off-white are my client's superheavy colors, usually used in camouflage, but I felt that you're not going to easily miss a 90' robot with bullets the size of small children, so I incorporated it into a basic heraldry. I'll be adding detail to it that I'd rather not us a stylus to imitate, with this as the basic structure of the fields of color.
The conspicuous left shin ties his titan to his retro Rogue Trader-era Blood Angels, with a slightly distorted insignia. We originally talked about having 2 red panels, which I feel might work better on Forge World's more broadly armored variant of the Warhound, but I think it will too thoroughly disrupt the form on this narrower breed. I'm thinking that some red on a couple of the arms will more subtly tie in the Blood Angels element.
Tied in with this RT-style are the checkered and flamey muzzels often seen on old Space Marines from First and Second edition.
The plasma and eyes aren't a final color unless my client likes it, it's actually because I'm building an Astral Claws army with fairly similar colors, so, because I was used to it, I stuck with my green energy bits.
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