Retrospective: Devastator Salvage Job part 2

So part 2 then. This is what I had so far, base coated and now washed down to give some tonal depth to the mini. Next step is to increase the tonal variety even more by highlighting up.

My basic recipe for the various colours is as follows:

Red: restore the base colour to the plates, being sure not to disrupt the shading in the crevices. In this case that is with Mephiston Red, thinned down a bunch. Next I apply several more coats of Mephiston (always thin as you like) with the paint on the model still wet. This allows me to do a kind of wet blended effect to transition the reds up gently. Obviously each layer moves further and further from the crevices... 

Once I have pure mephiston on I move to the next shade up. This is super thin Evil Suns Scarlet. Same process again, but keeping in mind how far I wanted to take it (I like the grimdark look). Very final tickle is with Evils Sun's scarlet mixed 80:20 with a yellow...This is literally for the very tips where the light catches. 

I find it quite useful to have a photo of your model to work from when highlighting.  This means you can do some 'objective source lighting' (i think thats the right term) type highlights and make it all look a bit more convincing.  To do this I take a photo of my model just after priming in a dark room with only one light coming down from on top. It will really show you where the shadows fall and what surfaces catch the light.

Other highlight colours I use are:

Leadbelcher to reinforce the silver areas, followed by runefang silver on the very edges.

Gehannas gold to reinforce, and then a highlight of Gehannas and a brass (50:50). Final top highlight of brass and runefang (50:50)...obviously a softer transition if doing a big area...I will do a gold post a bit later on.

Edge highlight of the blacks with 50:50 black and administratum grey. I keep these quite tight to avoid the blacks looking too grey.

So there we go then....the captain is done.  In this shot the base is this fairly dreadful one...so I have changed it to key in better with my other guys, and also because darker bases tends to 'frame' the mini a bit better.  I will hopefully do a bit on basing another day..along with a bit on how I paint the gems. 

Bye for now.