Making short work of the detail work that was left on my Rune Priest, I was able to get him finished yesterday. The majority of my time taken up by working the metallic areas so that they looked appropriately deep and didn't detract from the rest of the model by overwhelming him. I'm actually quite happy with how this model came out in the end, especially when I was so apprehensive about it when I started this project. It's been some years since I've worked on an old style terminator model and it's good to know you can still make them look cool after all this time.
The model followed the color scheme I've had laid out for some months now and didn't really diverge too greatly from that. The biggest hurdle with this model was defining what areas would be gold and what would be silver. With the Rune detailing taking up so much real estate around the model, I was afraid of them taking the model over and ruining the overall feel. Originally I had these pegged for gold, but thankfully I started washing all of the other details first and was going to go back in on the runes carefully with Sepia. But once I had the major gold sections washed, I began to see the runes in a different light. They had a cool blue hint thanks to all of the Shadow Grey surrounding them and weren't standing out, instead they worked more like a part of the armor and helped to break up the monotony of gold that would have taken things over. I decided to leave them in Mithril Silver and went back on each with a hit of Badab Black to tone them back a little more.
Water-slide transfers can always be a pain, especially on a rounded surface. To help things along, I used a military modelling trick of old and painted the shoulder pad with VMC Gloss. This allows the decal to slide into place easier and helps to blur the edges. I also gave the transfer a few small slits with a hobby knife before placing it on the pad, which will let the transfer buckle in and out a little in areas that would normally pinch. I couldn't use the typical Y pattern that a lot of folks talk about, but instead cut where I could that I could easily fill back in should it spread too much. I was also able to cut it directly on the shoulder at pinching spots, a sharp knife and just enough pressure to cut did the trick. The gloss coat helped to protect the paint in this maneuver as well, so yet another bonus to going with that step! Once the transfer was in place I used Micro-Sol, a dissolving solution, on the decal to soften it up and allow it to form better to the shoulder. When it was dry I used my finger to help stamp down any trouble areas and hit it again with Micro-Sol. Rinse and repeat as needed and it was finally flat to the shoulder. A few spots spread from the cuts I made so I went back in with Chaos Black to fill them back in. A final coat over the entire shoulder pad with VMC Matt Varnish and it was done!
While I was at it with the shoulder Gloss coat, I went ahead and touched the gems with it to give them a little more luster. It's a small thing but seems to work out nicely. I tend to varnish my entire model after it's finished with Krylon Matte Finish Spray, but even through that stage the gloss seems to add a touch more to those areas I've done in it.
One the Matt Varnish was dry, I finally finished the models base using my typical snow method.
I have a lot of old models like this just sitting around in cases and in bits boxes. They never really find the light of day but with this 'test' I might be considering more of them in the future. With this model I get my Space Wolves army up to around 850 points of terrible battlefield ability. Some day I'll add some armor and long range to them but for now they're just pretty to look at and easy to kill!
