Wednesday 15 February 2017

How i did it: Lord Celestant on Dracoth

   - You are my avengers! You are all, each one, warriors who cursed chaos with your last breath! Who called upon me for strenght, not salvation. Strenght! And I answered.
Sigmar addressing Celestial Vindicators
The Realmgate Wars - Storm of Blades


   My personal journey through Stormcast Eternals' dimension go on, reading books, playing tournaments, writing background stories and, of course, painting them. Painting the Guardians of The Ages, my custom stormhost. 
   These are very good times for them; these very days their second Battletome will come out, and many new models are about to join the fray, and the battle for the Mortal Realms, such as the Vanguard Hunters. I'm already planning a new Chamber, but first I wanted to finish the Extremis one, so I bought my first two Dracothian Guards and painted them in few days: tomorrow I'll have the second box of them and, waiting to find enough inspiration for the Stardrake, I'll surely hurl them on the tabletop in my never-ending campaign against a friend of mine who plays the Bloodbound.
   So I decided to share with you a brief tutorial about Guardians' dracoths. Soon we'll move forward to the new range so the time is right.

   First things first. Stormcast Eternals are models very similar to each other so I'll refer you to this page for a detailed tutorial about my painting scheme for them.
    Here we'll be talking only about the dracoth (and free gifts, such as thunderaxe super fast tips).

   Let's begin!

   The most famous Dracoth of the whole eight Mortal Realms is, of course, Calanax, Vandus Hammerhand's steed. I read so much about him that I naturally took inspiration to make my own dracoth. I called him Veive (for the ancient Etruscans that was the god of vengeance) and I created a scheme to fit the rest of the army (cold shades of blue, I wanted my sigmarines to appear as algid as possible): actually making a variant for Duncan Rhodes' Calanax.

   I based his skin with Dark Reaper.



   Washed with Nuln Oil, pure. I wanted a petroleum tone.



   Than I began to reprise the original color drybrushing again with Dark Reaper. In this step you have to go quite heavy, avoiding only the recesses.



   The second tone was Temple Guard, drybrushed only on raised areas, spines, face and, most important, scales.



   On with the next step: Baharroth Blue and Blue Horror. They are both colors from GW's Edge range but I find them really cool products so I suggest you to buy one or two of them. They allow you to use a fixed ultra-light tone of something instead of making it everytime taking the risk to make mistakes in the composition.
 
    Drybrush them in the same way as the previous, don't bother if they cover the Temple Guard. Edge colors are very very thin and, if you are gentle, you'll see different shades popping out your work.

   As a last step for the skin you have to take Blue Horror and highlight it with careful devotion, paying attention to the face; it's going to be the center of the light when someone else will look at your model so take heed.

   For an alternative way for making beasts' blue skins check here.



   A brief chat about the mouth, too.

   Coat with Screamer Pink and wash with 50% medium and 50% Carroburg Crimson.


   Highlight the inner edges and paint the tongue with Evil Sun Scarlet.


   Then finish highlighting with Flash Gitz Yellow, on the tongue too.




   Now, for the horns I refer you to this my old tutorial.
   And for the battle-worn leather you can check here again.


   As last thing I'll share with you a few thoughts about Aefandrun's thunderaxe.
   After following all the steps showed in my main Stormcast tutorial for making blue-ish metals, take your smallest drybrush and brush the axe's tips and center with silver, then Blue Horror (a small amount) and Ulthuan Grey (a smaller amount).


   Add Blood for the Blood God using a stippling brush, covering the rest of the model with a piece of paper. Finish using the same color with a normal brush... be careful, use only old or damaged brushes.


   Final model:



Thanks for reading!

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