House of Zoxe: Hot off the Desk: KDM Phoenix

Polly want a cracker?

This is kind of a part 2 in a 2 part series. For my build notes, see here.

I'm following a set of self-imposed color rules for my KDM set. If this is your first post in the series (see summary page), here's the part that I copy/paste:

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Color Choices: For my KDM set, I'm using an airbrush to provide shadows in a pseudo-statue, almost monochrome paint scheme. I want a lot of high contrast from light to dark, with near-black in the shadows and near-whites in the light. I'm using warm colors (creamy grays, buttery whites, and a bright mustard yellow) for the SURVIVORS and cool colors (blue-grays and a neon blue) for the MONSTERS.

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So, as a Monster, I should be breaking out the grays and my Crystal Blue. But, the Phoenix is a special piece. It's big. It's a wonderful sculpt. I wanted to do it justice, and the thought of ending with a mostly black and gray bird made me sad.

I also realized that I have a LOT more KDM coming, and while the Blue/Gray scheme will work for many in Wave 2 and beyond, there are also several expansions that will also deserve/need their own tweaks (Dragon King, I'm looking at you). I didn't want to lock myself in completely to the same handful of colors from now to eternity. I needed the Phoenix to be that bridge to the "something different" without breaking the overall feel of the project.

So, I started a plan. Initial thoughts, written before I even applied primer:

A good Phoenix should be big, bold, and fiery.
Stay faithful to the overall look and feel of my set, even if I were violating the color palette rules. In other words, I still wanted a lot of contrast; very bright highs and very dark lows and I wanted the same muted color, abstract feel (I've called it "comic book style")
Honor and tie into the main color scheme if possible, i.e. maybe warm colors high and cool colors low.
I did NOT want to end up with a super-vibrant Rainbow Chicken, nor did I want the entire thing to be a solid "General Lee" Orange.

Priming:

As usual, I used Vallejo Surface Primer, Black shot from my Badger 105.
Due to the model's size, I didn't glue to the base initially and primed the underbits and other hard to reach areas.
I mixed more primer than I needed, so I also put a layer of primer over some of the areas I filled to see how they looked, and decided to go back and re-sculpt some of the filler on his left wing joint.
With this first round of priming done, I decided to glue to the base, then primed the rest. It took a LOT of primer to get the coverage I wanted.
My filling isn't perfect (not intended to be). I also found some mold lines during priming that I decided to let go. My standard of painting is "tabletop plus" and will win no awards. I'm okay with that.

Underbits primed. The Watcher was under assembly and moved him for this shot. I even found all the pieces after.

Priming complete. Base is held to the block of pine with plasti-tac.

Shading:

Readers of the series will find no big surprises here, but the first adjustment to my color scheme takes root here.

(Airbrush) ArmyPainter Necromancer Cloak, shot basically from all angles but focusing "head on" as much as possible.
(Airbrush) AP Uniform Gray again shot mostly "head on" and leaving lower surfaces a little darker.
(Airbrush) UPPER SURFACES (head, and tops of body, tail, wings), AP Skeleton Bone, and reduced the angle more to be almost totally "head on" and giving more brightness to the leading edges of the wings and the head/neck.
(Airbrush) LOWER SURFACES (underwing, arms, lower body, feet, log), AP Gorgun Hide. I tried to shoot this mostly head on and high, but angles were restricted by the wings, etc. - did the best I could.
You'll notice that this means that the lower surfaces are primed identically to my other Monsters, while the upper surfaces are now very close to my survivors.

Head on shot, after the upper wing has been shaded.

Reverse view, same as above, demonstrating the impact viewing angle has on the apparent brightness.

Wash:

(Hand brush) Before I did the wash, I basecoated the beak, talons, and fingernails in Reaper Adamantium Black. This is a metallic charcoal black that I'd like to use more of. I thinned it liberally, and some of the airbrushed highlights still came through a bit.
(Wash) UPPER SURFACES - AP Soft Tone Ink, thinned 2:1 (thinner than I normally use it). The shadows were already forming nicely and I didn't want to darken the top very much.
(Wash) LOWER SURFACES - Reaper Black Wash, also thinned 1:1.

For the wash, I dug out a 1/2 inch flat brush I found at Hobby Lobby several months ago - it's a "Master's Touch" brand. It's got fairly fine, soft, but short bristles and a square tip. This was the perfect balance between speed (avoiding dry-lines between sections), control, and bubbles.

Washed model, desk light

Dry Brushing:

For large areas I used the same 1/2 inch flat brush, but grabbed my normal ArmyPainter brush for detail work.

UPPER Surfaces:

(Dry Brush) AP Skeleton Bone all over to brighten.
(Dry Brush) AP Phoenix Flames on head and leading edges.
(Dry Brush) AP Chaotic Red for trailing edges and darker areas
(Dry Brush) AP Lava Orange over Yellow and Red areas to brighten and fade
(Dry Brush) AP Daemonic Yellow for highlights (leading edge and feather tips)
I made several passes with the Lava Orange, Phoenix Flames, and Daemonic Yellow to make sure the wings were more or less the same left to right, and get the fade the way I wanted it, and accent the tips of each feather.

Beak, Talons, Fingernails:

(Dry Brush) AP Skeleton Bone
(Dry Brush) Reaper Adamantium Black for adjustment

LOWER Surfaces

(Dry Brush) AP Uniform Gray underwing lower body
(Dry Brush) AP Gorgun Hide for highlights
(Dry Brush) AP Crystal Blue for fun (hands and wing tips)
(Dry Brush) AP Gorgun Hide to soften the Crystal Blue

Base:

It had some overspray from airbrushing and also got the Reaper Black Wash. For other models I had done things to brighten the base, but the model already had a LOT going on, so I simply dry brushed with AP Necromancer Cloak to make the blending consistent and called it done.