With the release of Dominion, I started a small set of Thunderstrike armour Stormcast Eternals – I was drawn to the nicely balanced proportions in particular and loved the dark pink of the Celestial Warbringers. Bastian Carthalos was a natural model to want to paint next! The different colour scheme may be controversial to some, but painting named characters differently to the lore can look great.
Hi, I am Tom, I’m a new guest poster here on Tale of Painters. I’m a hobbyist and keen photographer based in Sheffield in the UK. I’ve painted something from most game systems Games Workshop produce, but my main interests are a Legio Xestobiax force for Adeptus Titanicus, the Stormcast Eternals you see in this article and my slow labour of love Genestealer Cult army for 40K.
My top 3 tips for this model and how I have done it are:
1. Sub assemblies are king – I left the head and cape off separately. This is especially useful for white, which is a pain to go over if you get darker colours on it.
2. The gold looks much better than the effort I put in, its simply Retributor Armour, heavily washed with Agrax Earthshade then highlighted with Liberator Gold.
3. Long live contrast paint – Athermatic Blue over leadbelcher gives the slight blue tint to the hammer head, and the same over white gives a subtle glowing effect to the eyes. My other most used contrast paint is Skeleton Horde over Wraithbone, which is a very simple way of getting smooth bone tones such as the skull on the base.
Photographing models is an evolution for me, I like to set something up and then tweak the positions of everything until it feels right. Using flashguns with coloured gels for backlight ties the whole scene together, and using scatter terrain to hide the edges of bases gives a more immersive feeling. I didn’t have a mat that matched the brown mud colour of the bases, so took a scoop of mud from the garden and used this along the bottom of the image. Top tip – remove woodlice before bringing it into the house!
Like the model? Leave a comment below and check out some more of my Stormcast (and more!) over at my Instagram.
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