Painting up Cryx: Deathripper Test Model

Shojo is done being painted, but her base isn't close to being finished (I'll have a post on that soon). But for now, I've begun painting up my Cryx army so I can field painted models for a change. I decided to start with a Deathripper and use it as a testing grounds for new techniques.

For the Deathripper's armor, I knew I didn't want to do black armor plates. Mainly because I don't like highlighting black and I really wanted a deep red, like Warhammer's Khorne armor. The biggest problem with red is when you're highlighting it, it either ends up took orange or too pink. That is a no go for this guy.

So I decided to try something different.

Instead, since red is a translucent color, I decided to prehighlight the armor by wet blending white and black onto the armor plates. This was followed by multiple thin glazes of Mephiston Red mixed with black and then straight Mephiston Red. 

I actually started working on this guy on Thursday or Friday last week and had the worst case of I-Can't-Paint-Today, ever. I ended up so frustrated with him that I gave up and dunked him right in a vat of Simple Green.

Part of the problem was that I was trying to do wet blending and glazes with my standard palette and in the warm weather the paint was drying up faster than I could use it. This ended up giving me issues with paint either being too thick or thin. That said, I ended up scrapping my old palettes and finally bit the bullet and joined the wet palette fan club (more on that later as well).

After I switched to the wet palette, everything seemed to come together. The paint still seemed to dry quickly on the model, but the colors stayed wet for my entire session (and even into the next day). It was full of win.

In the artwork, the Deathripper's armor all looks to be the same color. But I decided that only the leg plating and back/shoulder plating would be red. The rest will all be metallic silver or bronze. I also chose to make soem of the metal leg struts, the spines and the toes bone colors instead of metal colors, that way theres a bit more color variation across the model.

Before I started on the metal sections I painted all of the vents with a glowing green/yellow, in standard Cryx fashion. With the color of the glow next to the red armor plating, it really pops. I like it a lot.

As of last night, 90% of the model is base coated and I can start on finishing up each section tonight. The plan is to paint up the steel areas in a hammered surface, which means a lot of stippling. The bone areas will follow my standard routine for painting bone, while the bronze areas will also be painted in a hammered style.

Here he is so far.


So far he's turning out well. The silver areas need to be darkened up a bit, but that'll come with the weathering and some washes. I also need to change the toes and spikes to bone color. But I am really digging this color scheme.

That's it for now though. You can catch me on Twitter as I post more WIP pics later on tonight.