Month 2 - Imperial Knight #1 pt 6

(Holy Cow it is starting to look like an Imperial Knight!)

Well, almost done except for a bit of the recess wash and some touch up, and of course the decals.

Thanks to the good guys and gals over at The War Store, I've got some Testors decal paper on the way and that should finish up this Knight.  I hate to say it, but the decal sheet that comes with the Imperial Knight kit has a few interesting markings, but is a bit short on the kill and honor markings!
   So with all of that in mind, here is some of the steps that brought us to this point:

A fairly naked, but completely blue-washed Imperial Knight.  As I've talked about before, this is nothing more than the Black Primer with a heavy drybrush coat of Army Painter Gunmetal that is then hit with a wash of AP Blue Tone.  Something I found that was a bit different than when I used the technique on my Inquisitors, was that I needed a lot more of the area to be covered with the AP Gunmetal to give the overall blue-hue to the model.  I've tried to place this wash over an painted AP Gunmetal and AP Dark Tone paint job and it just doesn't look as effective as the drybrush technique.  Even though the head of the Knight was going to have one of the masks on it, I made sure to hit the head with both the Blue tone and a drybrush of the Antique Copper on the hoses to make sure that it has enough interest to differentiate it from the rest of the Knight's structure.

Here's a shot of the two halves of the torso before and after the AP Blue Tone so you can see the level of drybrushing I'm going to in order to get the technique to work.

The upper carapace needed to have some tape applied for the large cross to be masked out.  A little white touch up and the overall shape looked good.  I'm not sure if I'll use the same pattern on the second Knight, or if I'll do a different geometric pattern, but either way, it turned out much better than the "pencil line" suggestion in the "Painting Imperial Knights" eBook. 

I like the look of geometric shapes on top of the Knight's carapace, but I don't think I can take any more of the overdone hazard stripes.  They looked cool the first time I saw them on the AdMech Knight Houses, but they have started to bore me.

Here's an in-progress look at the upper carapace with the window painted, and most of the touch-ups done but before the shoulder pads were painted up.  The icon at the front has also been given its initial coat of Dove Grey (another *gasp* craft paint) with a wash of AP Dark Tone over it.  A quick hit of Vallejo Ghost Grey should give it the depth it requires.  We'll see if I use any AP Tones over the top to either make it look more like stone... decisions, decisions! Since the window is Vallejo Jade Green, I'll probably use layers of Vallejo Foul Green and AP Wolf Grey to give the window some reflections.

Here's a terrible shot of the top, but at least it shows the AP Gunmetal on the rails and the completed edging in Antique Copper along with the Lagoon Blue of the shoulder pads.

So now I'm off to get the washes done so that I'll be ready when the decals roll in later this week.  Now I'm only a few days behind schedule, and the shipment from The War Store also contains Knight #2... TIME TO GET TO BUILDING again!!