Hazael will be wearing older style armour, hence the one-piece greaves… To go along with that feel, I shaved the rims off a couple of shoulder pauldrons, and smoothed down the curve a bit, to make them look more like the old RT pads…
Then added studs to the right pad…
This was a technique I’ve heard of often, but never actually tried before. You get a small length of sprue, drill a really short hole in the end with a 1.5 mm drill bit, as a mould for the rivet head… put a dollop of Green Stuff on the surface you want the rivets on, and then press the end of the sprue onto it to make a rivet… Then just trim the excess GS from around the edges…
It’s a lot harder than it sounds
Took three tries to get some of them sitting right, and will require a little bit of reshaping on one or two once they’re set…
Hazael’s body mostly finished off, just the final highlights to go…
Started with a black undercoat, then painted on a mix of Chaos Black and Shadow Grey, highlighting by adding more grey. The plan was to try for a deep grey that still looked black, but without the shiny, ‘just painted yesterday’ look that you usually get on black marines…
Then pulled out the Boltgun Metal again for all the usual bits, and the battle damage. Also painted over the chest plate with straight Chaos Black, in the shape of a normal chest eagle, and added small nicks of Boltgun Metal around the edges, to look like the eagle has been chiselled off…
Finally, painted the holster and pouches with Red Gore, then Blood Red, highlighting with Fiery Orange/Blood Red mixed. And painted the Skull on his chest with Vomit Brown and Bleached Bone…
It was while gluing these pouches on that I realised I’d forgotten to do them for Gabriel… Quickly whipped out a scabbarded knife from the Space Wolf accessory sprue, cut off the knife handle, and drilled out the mouth of the scabbard with a 1mm drill bit. Then came the problem of figuring out how the heck to paint it… What I came up with:
…simply glued the side of the scabbard mouth (the spot that the glue will go on to stick it to Gabriel) to a piece of sprue… Use superglue here, as it will just snap off easily when done, then just shave off any excess glue, and stick it in place…
Brother Gabriel, complete with left arm and scabbard:
Brother Hazael now also has a left arm. This required some filling with GS for the shoulder joint:
And various bits were finished off and undercoated, ready for finishing touches.
Added on his head, and left shoulder pauldron. The pauldron required a small amount of shaving inside to fit over the outstretched arm.
Next: Finishing up.