Iron Man Assembled

After what has been the longest prep work I have ever done for a miniature ... this is the pride and joy of Stark Enterprise after all ... the Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition (S.E.) miniature is done. Being a metal miniature, he already looks super awesome without a paint job. But as tempted as I am to just leave Iron Man just as he is on the display cabinet, the call to paint him is just too strong.

Knight Models Iron Man S.E. assembled

One thing is for sure, painting the Knight Models Iron Man S.E. will afford me plenty of practice to perfect the non-metallic-metal paint (NMM) technique. That is one painting technique that I have never truly tried so I need to do some research before layering on the first paints.

Iron Man's Arc reactor offers a possibility for some object source lighting

Putting in the hours necessary to carefully take out the mould lines and giving it a good cleaning up / polish with some fine steel wool was important to ensure that the next step (i.e. priming) has every chance of coming out with a smoother finish.

Having the various parts of its armour open up makes Iron Man look that more dynamic

So for the next step, I now have to decide which primer to use. It is a toss up between Citadel Chaos Black undercoat spray and the Tamiya Fine Surface Light Grey Primer. While the former would perhaps give a very smooth finish, the latter would require less layers of paint to cover up the initial undercoat / primer layer. Both are valid advantages in the painting process.

Small armour parts on Iron Man's upper back and lower leg / ankle required patience to glue on

Putting together the Knight Models Iron Man turned out to be easier than expected seeing that it doesn't come with any assembly instructions.Initially I was a bit apprehensive in having to figure out where all the small pieces of armour accessory were supposed to be glued to. But in the end, it was fairly easy to figure out what went where by looking at detailed pictures found on the Knight Models website. Based on those pictures, there was actually two small extra parts left over which I believe are an optional / alternative parts (second, clockwise from the right in the picture below). 

Iron Man prior to having his accessories glued on

Working on Iron Man also improved my handing of small metal parts. With time, my patience in gluing small parts together or on to bigger pieces has increased thus resulting in faster and better work.

Behind the scenes prep work on Iron Man
In my usual prep work for metal miniatures I rarely used fine steel wool to polish up the surface. That stems largely from laziness and a tendency on my part to rush through the prep work in order to start painting as soon as I can. This time around I have been more patient and thorough with the prep work so I hope it pays off in the later stages of the painting process.

Using fine steel wool to polish or clean up imperfections in the metal miniature

White metal parts before (left) and after (right) some not too rigorous cleaning with fine steel wool

Below is a picture to compare the relative size of Iron Man with another warrior in armour, the Chaos Space Marine. Now wouldn't that be a sight for sore eyes ... Tony Stark versus W40K armour.

Who has the better armour?

While assembling the Knight Models Iron Man S.E. 1/28th scale miniature has provided me with a pleasant diversion from my usual painting routine, I had better get back to my other Knight Models project i.e. Zombie Girl if I am to make the Halloween deadline for finishing her paint job.

That's it for now until my next work-in-progress pictures of the Knight Models Zombie Girl.