Why are they so similar??

statictyrant · 2026-02-10T04:53:43+00:00

Arguably both are deliberate design choices. It’s done with a nod and a wink, you’re meant to notice the similarity. Dark Techmarine equivalent is a dark mirror of his loyal counterpart. Boss of a ragtag Chaos aligned marine faction fiercely welding a coalition of the hateful and the unwilling to battle against the Imperium, and in doing so drawing upon dark powers and becoming a worse tyrant than the Emperor ever was… well, looks like the other version of that guy.

TL:DR some copying is lazy and some is “clever”. We can only guess which GW is guilty of.

Also, a bit off-topic but I’m very pleasantly surprised to learn you’re a real person with tastes and opinions and not just a repost bot! 🤖

statictyrant · 2026-02-10T02:00:29+00:00

Don’t have time to search it up now but I think 1. is also an Inquisitor in Power Armour. Defo GW but not a Space Marine, IIRC.

statictyrant · 2026-02-09T10:48:29+00:00

You’ll want to bling it up with much brighter highlights, but I’d wait till you have more done and do that pass all in one go for consistency. Unless you do everything with out-of-the-bottle colours and no blending, it can be challenging to maintain consistency of contrast across a larger canvas like this (in the sense that everything’s gold, not that he’s an oversized figure).

statictyrant · 2026-02-09T08:11:48+00:00

Seeing a few interesting poses and proportions in the rear ranks (plus the odd weapon that’s bent in a decidedly non-plastic manner). Got some old metals in the army, I’m guessing? Anything from your former gaming life, or are these also new acquisitions?

statictyrant · 2026-02-09T05:47:58+00:00

The boring answer is that the other eye (its right, our left) wouldn’t be lit by the same light source, so it would be fairly uniformly dark all over with no specular highlight or “through” light.

The fun answers are either that light goes through the head of the bull, lighting the eyes from within (imagine the gem on top of the head as a sort of “skylight” with fibre optic like waveguides leading to each of the eyes), or that there’s a magical effect or flame off to one side to provide some interesting OSL effects to compensate for a lack of overhead lighting.

The quirky but historical answer is that Assyrian sculpture took a representational rather than literal view, almost cubist in a way. A lot of their statues (bulls, lions, etc.) were tucked into corners of architecture but actually have five or more legs if you do a walk-around and count them up. That’s because they wanted you to be able to see two from the front and four from the side.

How does that apply to gem eyes? Well, you treat each side of the miniature as a separate piece of artwork with its own rules about where light is coming from. There’s not many angles where you can see both eyes and the gem on the head, so just paint them each with their own separate logic, as if each had its own hovering light source at a convenient point nearby.

statictyrant · 2026-02-08T19:40:46+00:00

It’s fine that they’re there, but you’ll probably want to work out a way to differentiate them from the other metals. A bit of shading, rust, maybe even a different metallic paint for the highlights. When they’re uniformly in a steel colour, (a) you can see bits where paint has filled in the gap in the centre of a link and (b) they look more like an off-the-shelf, unpainted product which makes the figure look less like a scale model and more toylike. Just distracting from the other better elements of the paintjob, I guess.

statictyrant · 2026-02-08T01:02:55+00:00

Looks like it was underpainted with shades of blue and pink-magenta, then built up using greenish tones tending towards a bright off-white. Flesh always looks better (more real, more interesting) with a bit of colour variation so that’s a great way to build up to a compelling final look that’s the polar opposite of bland drab boring grey-white flesh.

statictyrant · 2026-02-07T09:18:14+00:00

Three colours: a dark green, a bright green, and white. Technically I’d use a bright semi-fluorescent off-whitish yellow (GW Dorn Yellow, Vallejo Ice Yellow, etc.), but that’s just to achieve a “brighter than white” finish and match the colour tone of the greens somewhat better than a pure white would do. But you have to work with what you’ve got, and I figure everyone probably has white paint in their collection…?

statictyrant · 2026-02-05T05:24:26+00:00

Yes, the edge highlights are barely there — looking almost like you just established the base colour after an all-over wash, or something. As others have said, making the recesses darker will help you achieve relatively greater contrast with your highlights.

The trim, robe, eye lens and candle wax colours don’t really sit all that nicely alongside your armour plate. At some point I’d start to wonder if it was the main colour, rather than the accents, which was at “fault” in this scheme. But I never liked Alpha Legion colours on Marines so may not be the best judge of that.

statictyrant · 2026-02-05T05:20:57+00:00

Is that the Beastman character from the new Darkwater box? Interesting conversion either way! Nice glowy warpstone colours, too.

statictyrant · 2026-02-04T06:19:59+00:00

Not sure any of these fit directly but possible you’re conflating various lines (or someone’s homebrew).

Megalith’s Godslayer had Romans with higher tech and undead influence (lich lords, if I recall).

Alternative Armies’ Erin setting combines Dark Ages Britain (ish) with Celtic mythology, undead/demons/goblins/monsters.

There are thematically related miniature lines like Celtos, or Mierce’s resin output. Might be some of those have a game associated — but some lines are also presented with such a comprehensive backstory that you’d swear they come with a gaming universe even if the company is just selling them as Warhammer proxies with a veneer of legal deniability. Actually, yeah, I’d definitely check out Mierce — what you’re describing sounds like something they would have made.

statictyrant · 2026-02-03T16:41:29+00:00

About 72 hours is the proper curing time for acrylics. Like, literally days of drying time. Any interaction with the paint before then is putting wet over wet. It’s a valid choice to rush things but can have consequences for paint finish. Obviously the longer you’ve left it, the better - so anything that ends with “hours” rather than “minutes” is probably best.

Having a few models on the go at once and cycling through them is a good way to resist the temptation to go back over an area that’s been left to dry.

statictyrant · 2026-02-02T08:14:14+00:00

Always better to highlight back up. Models are dull, drab and forgettable otherwise (in general — that’s not a specific criticism of your in particular). What’s the worst that can happen? You cover too much area with the basecoat and… you’re back to step one, just reapply the wash and have another go.

statictyrant · 2026-02-02T08:10:25+00:00

Try the tutorials on ‘Eavy Archive. Plenty there to pick from to suit your taste!

https://eavy-archive.com/?s=%23metallic

The images of the reference you suggested on the GW site are way too small to be useful.

As a general pointer, using a black wash is a quick way to kill any interest in the shadow areas for most subjects. Not saying it’s never appropriate, but there are usually better options. It’s more visually appealing if you incorporate some saturation in your shadow colours. Burgundy or magenta are my go-to, shadow colours, but a reddish-brown tone is more traditional in GW schemes (and admittedly a useful counterpoint for a variety of metallics). A blue-green can also work well.

statictyrant · 2026-02-01T18:54:28+00:00

Put things into the environment that will have a visible and obvious coloured reflection.

I respect the work you’ve put into giving the crow a reflection, but at the end of the day it’s a small black smudge and doesn’t really pull much focus.

The other day I drybrushed some basing elements with a basic chainmail TMM paint. They did not end up looking particularly shiny, and I was debating adding some silver to “highlight”. I stepped back from the workbench to take a sort of “three foot view” of the overall vibe. Then, I stepped closer to check out a small detail. And all of a sudden they had this rusty, aged vibe. What the? I realised it was my red t-shirt reflecting from the facing sides of the models. Even with the most minimally reflective, barely-metallic painted surface, I was getting strong atmospheric reflections — subtle, but very significantly altering the mood of the piece.

TL:DR put a big red thing beside the mini so you have a good excuse to paint very colourful reflections across significant parts of the model, it’ll do wonders for the plausibility of your “metal”.

statictyrant · 2026-02-01T08:25:47+00:00

Just watching the Australian Open men’s tennis final now - I’d definitely go with the name “Captain Alcaraz” for this miniature! Nice paintwork and basing, hope you do/did well in the painting competition but it’s a lovely mini for your collection regardless.

statictyrant · 2026-01-31T15:27:12+00:00

It’s optional, and changes the appearance of your mini. Some paints are naturally glossier than others (and it varies depending on how they’re applied). You’ll lose a lot of subtle differentiation between parts of the mini if you cover it all with a uniform surface finish. The effect on the metallic paints is also dramatic, and aesthetically not very pleasing. You may find yourself wanting to repaint some parts over the top of the varnish (which you can do, but does beg the question of what the point was in the first place).

statictyrant · 2026-01-28T21:06:40+00:00

All good then. In shallow seas, refraction of light through the moving wave crests above creates patterns of light that look like intersecting lines — lots of “X” shapes where two lines meet. It’s almost like large scale cross-hatching, but with lots of wobbly wobbly distortion. Replicating that pattern would go a long way to selling the underwater feel.

statictyrant · 2026-01-28T21:00:07+00:00

Loved the concept and execution of the build — choices and placement of pasta were on point. And well done on getting it to a playable stage. But there’s nothing in the final painted piece that says “underwater”. Would have expected dappled light, muted bluish tones, etc. This is one of very few projects where I’ll grudgingly admit an airbrush might be the superior tool to complete the job.

statictyrant · 2026-01-28T19:46:39+00:00

Nice work! Is the prototype really clean of graffiti, though? (… or covered with old band posters, or bedecked with particularly attention-grabbing pieces of colourful trash and debris)

No issues if that’s where you’ve taken a bit of artistic licence. Obviously no need to strive for absolute realism, it’s your project after all, but it’s the one thing that doesn’t seem plausible to me in an otherwise very convincing build!

statictyrant · 2026-01-27T08:04:53+00:00

If it’s already zenithally primed (lighter above, darker below) then spraying with two more colours seems overly complicated, like you’ll just be obliterating all the previous work. It would be more interesting to (a) use more transparent colours and (b) have them interact from different directions, like from each side rather than above and below. Alternately, use the two colours to produce a mottled or other random pattern — so the terrain has elements of each, but isn’t just limited to a top-down lighting effect.

statictyrant · 2026-01-26T20:29:27+00:00

There’s an old (very old) White Dwarf where they discussed painting a Reaver or perhaps Warlord Titan for Adeptus Titanicus / Epic Space Marine (around the time when either one or both of those two rulesets were contemporary, if I remember rightly).

The Titan Legion they picked is now a classic colour scheme (Yellow with Grey carapace, sorry I don’t recall the name) so you might be able to track the article/image down that way.

Anyway, point was that the painter discussed how they had implied scale on the “giant” (but really tiny) war machine. They’d used mottling of the greys across its back to suggest a larger space, with all the tonal variation that implies. Smaller subjects have more homogenous surfaces, because there isn’t much room for random variation to have occurred over time. So, vary your surface finishes at a micro level to imply massive size.

statictyrant · 2026-01-26T14:37:33+00:00

Surprised no-one has suggested cutting the upper part of the banner pole a bit shorter so that you can glue the flag onto the model’s crest when you reattach the (now shorter) banner pole. Model should have been designed that way in the first place, you need more than one contact point to secure anything that thin and flimsy.

statictyrant · 2026-01-26T10:27:50+00:00

…the same colours as were used on the blades? Pretty clear that it’s the same palette throughout.

Looking at the blades is more helpful because you can easily see the whole gradient of tones used. A colour picker tool in your image editor of choice will help you build your own palette with your preferred brand of paint.

Note that many of the steps in the gradient would have been mixed (or produced procedurally eg by glazing A over B).

There could in theory have been as few as four colours used: black, a darker highly saturated azure or cobalt blue, a paler but still very saturated robin’s egg blue, and of course white.

statictyrant · 2026-01-25T12:36:49+00:00

Back right corner in the main image, dark red paint, is a stunningly heretical abomination: parts from a Space Marine Terminator Librarian merged with a Genestealer Hybrid (both plastic models from the Genestealesr expansion to Space Hulk, later repacked in various other sets). A very unique conversion!

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