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.

Lannister Warhorse needs plus one for a tourney

Notwithstanding some nervous moments in what was my first significant attempt at painting a freehand design, I have largely come through the experience relatively unscathed. Fortunately none of the four heraldry designs of House Lannister's lion was messed up beyond recognition. Though not perfect, all four heraldry designs are, at the very least, still fairly similar to and recognisable as the lions you would usually see on a coat of arms in medieval times.  

Lannister Warhorse, hear me ... neigh?

More work was done on the warhorse in the way of highlights. So the cloth had the brightest red in my arsenal painted on the edges; the warhorse's tail got some grey highlights; while warhorse itself and it's leather straps received GW Bestial Brown and Snakebite Leather highlights respectively.

More highlighting work was done on the red cloth, leather straps and horse

Incidentally, this was also the first horse I ever painted. But I guess it doesn't really count as most of the warhorse is covered with armour and cloth.

Front (left) and back (right) views of the Lannister Warhorse

Now all that the warhorse needs is a knight to ride him to a jousting tournament. However, work hasn't really started with the Lannister Knight. As you can see below, to date most of him is just white undercoat. From the looks of it, there might be space for another three to four heraldry designs.

A Lannister Knight to be

I hope the knight will be as fun to paint as the warhorse has been. If I can do a good job with the Lannister Knight, it will give me the boost I need to go on and complete a further seven knights from the various other Houses found in the Game of Thrones realm. This project might seem a tad too ambitious for a painter of my skill level but by doing it I I hope to get better at painting freehand. 

Early days of a Lannister Warhorse

Progress on my Game of Thrones Lannister Knight project is still at the very early stages with work primarily concentrated on preparing the canvas for my first serious attempt at painting a complicated freehand design on miniature. With the shield-like emblem measuring just 12 mm by 15 mm, I was first tempted to just use a decal for the heraldry. However, I couldn't find any suitable ones hence my hand was forced and it was either abandon the project or suck it up and try some freehand painting.

Freehand painting of the House of Lannister heraldry

Before making the freehand attempt, I had practised drawing and painting the heraldry for House Lannister on a piece of paper in order to try and build some muscle memory into my hands. Having completed one of the four freehand heraldry designs on the warhorse so far, I must say it is turning out better than I could have ever hoped for. Taking into account, the scale and the unevenness of the 'miniature canvas' involved, I am quite content with the results so far.

Programming muscle memory into my hands with some doodling practice

As for the rest of the warhorse, more work needs to be done especially in the highlights department. That is something I will be tweaking as I go along but most of my effort will go into painting the freehand heraldry designs because if I mess those up, it won't matter one bit how the rest of the warhorse is painted. It also serves as an excuse to get in some badly needed freehand practice.

One Lannister heraldry down ... three to go

Work on the rest of the warhorse still in need of fine-tuning

If all goes well, I should complete the Lannister Warhorse soon before starting work on the knight proper. Thanks for checking out my progress on the Game of Thrones Lannister Knight. Stay safe!

A pumpkin, some candy and autumn leaves

With Halloween just around the corner, my Zombie Girl project takes on an unintended significance.  Despite never having celebrated Halloween, I have always been fascinated with this and all other festivals of the dead that contain pagan roots, and which are practiced by cultures all over the world. I guess it is one way humans have dealt with the great unknown throughout the centuries.   

Jack O'Lantern with some zombie blood

My Knight Models Zombie Girl project begins with the highly detailed base which comprises the Jack O'Lantern pumpkin carving, some Halloween candy and autumn leaves on a road. When painting the base, I had tried to pay very close attention to the details. This meant painting the leaves to reflect the period in which Halloween is usually celebrated i.e. autumn and the candy that is synonymous with the celebrations, both the outer wrappings and the aluminium foil inside.  

Overhead view of the Knight Models Zombie Girl base (without the pumpkin)

For the candy, I went for two particular ones that had instantly recognisable colour schemes ... to me at least as I love the Reese's Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups and Nestle Crunch ... mixed in among generic candy wrappers. For the leaves, I referenced an assortment of autumn period maple leaves that had colours ranging from greenish yellow to brown to orange to red.  

I chose the Reese's and Crunch candy bars for their iconic and easily recognisable colours

Colours of autumn seen in maple leaves

To understand the difficulty I had in creating a close as possible likeness for the candy bars, it is perhaps best to show you the scale I was working with. To that end, my trusty 31 mm paperclip makes yet another appearance to show the comparative size / scale of the base.

Knight Models Zombie Girl base next to a 31 mm paperclip

Dry-fitting the pumpkin and base together gives you an idea on the mood being set for the Zombie Girl to follow. I plan to superglue her to the base prior to painting as the Zombie Girl is too heavy and thus will be unstable if placed on blue tack. An alternative would be to pin her with metal rods (paperclips) to a cork base but I don't think that is a viable method for her.

Knight Models Zombie Girl Base sans ... well .... the zombie

Overhead view of the Knight Models Zombie Girl base

I am now left with the main piece to paint. Getting a realistic looking zombie skin tone (yes I know how oxymoronic that statement is) is going to be very tough. If I don't pull it off, the end result will be a cartoon-like zombie which is far from the creepy realism that I am aiming for.

Work to begin soon on the Knight Models Zombie Girl

As a personal challenge, the countdown begins for me to finish this before October 31 on which Halloween falls. That leaves me with only slightly more than a month to finish the Zombie Girl. Even if I don't make the deadline, I should at least finish most of her paint job. That is the plan anyway.

Quick look at Knight Models miniatures

Throughout my journey as a miniature hobbyist thus far, I am slowly discovering that many popular characters I would like to see produced as miniature model kits for painting either may not yet exist ... or are extremely hard to locate. For example, miniatures in my paint-wishlist range from anime characters such as 'K-On!' or 'Soul Eater' to sci-fi stuff such as the Star Trek Original Series cast members. With Knight Models miniatures, I can at least check off two things on my wishlist i.e. a zombie child (weird I know but I will explain the why later) and comic book superheroes.

Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition packaging

Tony Stark in an iron suit, what is there not to love. The missus digs the goatee while me, I love the armour that he rides in. It is ironic that the Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition (S.E.) comes as an all white metal model kit ... iron ... metal ... get it? ... but it felt right to have an Iron Man miniature with some weight to it as is expected of metal miniatures. The Knight Models Iron Man S.E. will give me the opportunity to try out the non-metallic metal (NMM) technique, a skill I initially dismissed as being unnecessary but I have come to realise that NMM has its place in a painter's repertoire.

Iron Man Special Edition un-boxed

White metal parts of the Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition

Meanwhile, another Knight Models miniature that I will be working on is the Zombie Girl from its Terror Series. I have been searching for a long time for a miniature that I felt best portrayed all that is  terrifying about a zombie namely the perversion of what we hold to be normalcy in our everyday lives. To me at least, nothing depicts that better than an innocent child who has become a zombie. Is a huge zombie monster scary? Meh. But for a child to become a zombie is both sad and creepy.

Knight Models Terror Series featuring the Zombie Girl

Knight Models Zombie Girl un-boxed

The Zombie Girl also comprises white metal parts

Moreover, ever since that zombie girl scene (see below) from Season One of the Walking Dead series, I have been completely sold on the idea of a zombie girl miniature. While the Zombie Girl stands at around 60 mm being at 1/28th scale, most of the other Knight Models miniatures range from 70 mm to 90 mm, also at 1/28th scale. 

A scene from the Walking Dead, Season One

So far, I have only managed to assemble and prime one of the two Knight Models miniatures that I am currently working on. This time around, I got a reasonably good primer coat sprayed on so hopefully that will translate to a smoother painting experience in the later stages.

As she was only dry fitted to the base, the Zombie Girl actually started to tilt sideways as this shot was taken

Knight Models Zombie Girl - primed and ready to be painted

Fingers crossed, I will be able to get some work-in-progress shots taken soon so I should have those photos up in a future blog post soonish. Till then, stay well and happy!