House of Zoxe: Hot off the Desk: KDM Gold Smoke Knight

KDM GSK looking fierce in a sea of black.

I've already talked about the build woes with the Gold Smoke Knight (GSK), but here is the finished HotD post.

Quick recap: GSK should have been easy to assemble but resulted in some ugly gaps. I paused assembly while I acquired some Milliput to use instead of my normal filling methods.

Even with excessive work on his left shoulder, there were still some gaps at both shoulders and neck. I was actually relieved to get it this close.

Adventures in Milliput.

Painting:

Once the build was done, painting put me back into familiar territory. The overall process and color choices are the same as the Butcher, and King's Man, and the Hand. There were a few adjustments, and although the GSK isn't much more complicated than the other pieces, there's a LOT of subtle things going on thanks to the different textures on him.

First and foremost, I'm breaking my warm/cold color rule in order to add some AP Greedy Gold highlights. A Gold Smoke Knight needs some friggin' Gold (!!). I've outlined a somewhat detailed process and misc notes below in bullet points (bullet points are cool). See previous posts for more details on how I build shadows with the airbrush; for purposes of brevity (first time for everything! hah!) I'm going to focus on the detailing.

Priming and Base Color:

(Airbrush) Vallejo Surface Primer Black

One note about priming - GSK has a lot of deep recesses on the base, in the armor, and under his arms/cloak. After I set the airbrush down, I touched up those places with thinned primer and a small hand brush and let cure overnight.

(Airbrush) AP Necromancer Cloak
(Airbrush) AP Uniform Gray
(Airbrush) AP Gorgun Hide

AP Necromancer Cloak applied.

Building Shadows: AP Uniform Gray applied.

Building Shadows: AP Gorgun Hide, very light.

Building Shadows: Gorgun Hide reverse view. I tried to grab the folds in the cloak especially.

Wash and initial detailing:

(Dry Brush) Reaper Gunmetal Blue on armor - fairly thorough on all armor surfaces

I wanted the armor to appear a little darker and more like a well worn lacquered piece, so I applied the Reaper Gunmetal Blue BEFORE the wash to build some depth. I wish I'd done this with the other models.

(Wash) Reaper Black Wash, entire model, 12 drops wash to 8 drops distilled water
(Dry Brush) AP Gorgun Hide on fur, cloak, smoke, head, weapon
(Dry Brush) AP Uniform Gray on shadows of cloak to ensure consistent contrast
(Dry Brush) AP Crystal Blue on smoke, followed by a light pass of more Gorgun Hide to soften/deepen.

I've been finding the Crystal Blue to be a great translucent color that really "grabs" over the top of Gorgun Hide highlights, but it can come off a little too "neon" unless you lightly hit the high spots again with Gorgun Hide.

Reaper Gunmetal Blue on armor, and then Reaper Black Wash over entire model. Here I'm just starting to apply AP Gorgun Hide highlights

Non-armor areas complete with initial detailing. About to begin applying the AP Platemail Metal to the armor.

With the initial work done, I sat down and told Mrs. Zoxe, "This is either going to look awesome, or in the next few minutes I'm going to wreck the whole thing...."

Armor:

(Dry Brush) AP Chainmail Metal on armor - highlighting the "upper" surfaces, primarily on the chest plate but also the hands and knee/elbow plates, careful to give the most highlight where light would fall naturally, all while trying not to wipe out the Gunmetal Blue entirely.

This step not only accented the highlights/shadows I built during priming, but was also an intentional backing to make the Gold nice and bright in the next step.
I intentionally omitted the Chainmail Metal from the weapon; the Gold instead went over the Gorgun Hide applied earlier and gives a much more muted/worn result that's distinct from the armor.

(Dry Brush) AP Greedy Gold - very light - on armor, weapon, and parts of the smoke coming from head

The intent with the Gold wasn't to fully cover all the silver. A little goes a long way and I wanted to see both colors in the finished result.
I was originally going to do more Gold on the smoke but kept this really minimal as I was afraid that it would all blend together with the armor and I wanted the smoke to pop a little.

Final adjustments:

(Dry Brush) AP Matt White on head, shoulder fur, and folds of cloak to make them pop a bit more.

I wanted the head to be more distinct from the smoke and shoulders, so I ended up re-glazing the top of his head in Matt White (glaze = very thin paint) and then applying a very thin wash (Reaper Black) to re-grab the details, followed by another light dry brushing with Matt White.

Base: