WIP: Black Legion Forgefiend

Over the past week, I managed to get some more work done on my Black Legion Forgefiend albeit at a very slow pace due to the highly detailed miniature. Below are some work-in-progress shots that I took in between my painting sessions. My apologies on the badly lighted photos - I was a tad tired out from the painting sessions when I took the shots resulting in, unforgivably, less attention being paid to the lighting hence causing muted looking shots. I hope to do better for the completed mini.

On the Forgefiend's exhaust/furnace section, I decided to go for the metallic cum organic look, the result of which you see on the above photos. Originally I had intended to leave more red and orange showing in the mouth and eyes of the skull but settled for a more realistic look and what a furnace would look like in full blast (see photo below). I am planning to paint some pure white into the furnace section in order to add more contrast to the overall furnace effect.

An actual furnace at work

Another part of the Black Legion Forgefiend that I found myself spending a lot of time on was the flesh and muscles covering its mechanical leg and forearms. Here, I was trying to paint them to look like necrotising or dying flesh. It took about two different layers of colour and two different washes, not necessarily in that order, to achieve the effect I wanted.

Forgefiend's mechanical legs and forearms covered with necrotising flesh

For the tube coverings, I kept things as simple as possible partly because I got mentally exhausted from painting all the details of the Forgefiend. These tubes run all the way from the neck to certain parts under the torso before ending up at the tail. The coverings were painted to look like living skin.

Forgefiend neck section

Forgefiend tail section

Top of the list for the most infuriating thing to paint for the Black Legion Forgefiend was its trimmings and the line highlighting surrounding the trimmings. However, one good thing came out of this exercise - it allowed me to practise painting thin lines and to a certain extent has helped build some muscle memory into my hands (in terms of painting strokes).

Lines and more lines

Thus far, the part I have most neglected is the Forgefiend's front lower part of its torso, which still has a lot of work ahead of it, be it line highlighting or some furnace-like effect on the "vents".

Lower part of the front torso is unpainted

Other than that, the two head and weapon options also are in various stages of completion.

Like the front torso, both of the Forgefiend's heads remain largely unpainted

Much better progress on weapons but also in need of much love and attention

Thanks for checking out my WIP photos on the Black Legion Forgefiend. If you have any criticisms or feedback on the uncompleted paint job, please feel free to do so. For example, the missus thinks the exhaust/furnace looks too yellow so as I mentioned earlier, I am contemplating some whites for contrast. Till next time, may the Hobby Gods always steady your painting hand.