Painting Project 1 - Carnifex

About 6 weeks ago, when I decided to get into this hobby once again, I went to my local gaming store and just looked around at the various 40k models. I was looking for a model so cool that it would motivate me to both start and finish it. It also had to be freestanding (in others words, cool on its own) in case I ditched the whole hobby after the first bad experience.

Games Workshop lists 12 main factions, each with several subgroups and hundreds of individual models to choose from. "Luckily", the local store had a limited supply of models on the day I went. I ended up going home with a Carnifex. (click for a larger photo)

Pretty cool looking, huh? I thought so, at least on the box. I also bought a bunch of supplies. I meant to do Work-In-Progress pics, but I simply forgot. At th very least, here are all of the parts primed in white and ready for assembly and paint. As with all these photos, click to see a slightly larger photo.

I have to say, a few times into the process, even prior to painting, I essentially gave up. Work was getting very busy, and the kids were getting ready to go back to school. I figured that if couldn't carve out enough time to do this already, this hobby didn't stand a chance. Then about three weeks ago, I took three evenings and blocked out most of the color. I had been scouring YouTube and various enthusiast sites, desperately seeking finishing techniques. I ended up using just a little bit of dry brushing for the black (and a tiny bit of white) on the carapace. when that was completed, I had no detailing whatsoever in the torso, head, or anywhere else that was white. This is where motivation really started to lag. I finally told myself that I wasn't going to have a Golden Demon winner on the first try and resorted to dipping the model. If you are unfamiliar with dipping, it's a quick and easy way to detail all those little nooks and crannies on these tiny models. I will post about that shortly, but everything about the technique is well-documented elsewhere. I will link to my favorite tutorials in another post.

I made a few major errors on this attempt, but I would certainly rate it tabletop quality. I didn't file down many of the mold lines, and the red got away from me in a few places. I also had trouble with the dipping lacquer pooling on the length of the tail and in some of the bony nook, but on this model, it doesn't look horrible. It's also not based yet, but I will post about that later as well.

Without further ado (click for larger):

 

I think she looks pretty neat. The black on the carapace turned out looking a lot more organic than I thought it would. I know that the crab claws are supposed to go behind the scythes, but it didn't make sense to me.

So here are some major mistakes (click to expand):

On the right claw and the head, you can clearly see the mold lines that I didn't bother to file down (stupid), and there are a few sprue bumps here and there, but on this model, it can sort of be attributed to battle damage or mutation. Overall, I still think she came out OK. (click to - oh you know)

By the way, for those unfamiliar with these models, the Termagant in the last picture is the standard 28mm scale. I also need to attribute the color scheme to the rightful inspiration. I was originally going to go with gloss and flat black only in the style of HR Giger, but it would be terrifically difficult to make them look defined, I think. I'm not wild about GW's versions, so I went with a variant of Hive Fleet Moloch. If you go to that site, take a moment and check out all of his other stuff...it's jaw dropping.

OK, so the first project is done, and I've come away with a perfectly serviceable carnifex. Next up, that little termagant came with 4 siblings, and I have 3 Chaos space marines that are primed black on the sprue. This post is long enough. See you soon.