From the workbench: Old Adeptus Arbites

 

After a pretty nerve wrecking week of studying for an exam I decided to let inspiration flow freely and pick out something to paint from my boxes of mini; The mini that tickled my fancy ended up being this Arbites with Bolter from around 2nd Edition/Necromunda 1st Edition(can't say where it appeared first). Either way, I have had two five man squad of these guys kicking around my collection for years now 

and since one of my goals this year is to work through my Heretics and Ordos collection I figured I could start with these guys; Plus they have been stripped, painted and stripped again twice now lol.

First evening was relatively productive, I started painting his face as that was gonna be the most difficult thing to pull off. Other things painted that session was all of the black armor and the metallic details. I have painted black armor and cloth with the same few paints for the past few years, but for

this guy I tried the classic eavy metal approach with less large glazes and more tightly packed highlights, turns out it looks pretty neat. The metallics were whatever, my gold recipe switches on any given day via whichever gold paints I find first and the iron is the typical gunmetal recipe. I ended up painting until 2 am if I am not mistaken, so yea I may have gotten carried away. Before I had begun to paint this guy I also prepared my usual Heretics and Ordos bases, a simple texture roller cobblestone base; Since I wanted to keep the tab on this guy though I had to carve a slot into the base and let that dry for later processing.

Next day I spent an hour before work painting all the red accents as well as basing the brown leathers; At this point I had more of an idea of how I wanted this guy to look, I wanted him to fit in somewhere between 2nd and 3rd edition 40k with a degree of cleanliness that would make him fit in somewhat

with more modern sculpts as well. So while he still sports a classic red bolter it is a little bit less saturated, yet still sports a fiery highlight. I also spent the time fixing two panels on the back I forgot to properly paint the other night, not realising I had also forgotten to paint the fingers, whoops.

After work I sat down for what I thought would be the final stretch, painting all the leathers as well as finishing his fingers, pleased with myself I retired a bit earlier only to realize while painting that I had

forgotten to do paint the rivets, classic. Also on a somewhat unrelated note, while painting this guy I listened to some World of Darkness lore videos on Werewolf and Changeling by TheBurgerkrieg, just thought I would give him a little shout as his videos have steadily driven me deeper into the World of Darkness after being engaged in it by Hunter: The Parenting. Anyways, back to space cops.

Today; I began by doing the rivets all over and saw I forgot even more details such as the lenses and cables on the Bolter's rangefinder(I think?) which I quickly painted green. This left the base for last;

First I made sure to cut as big a slot into the base as was necessary and then carefully glued the Arbites into place. After the glue settled I put on a small bit of Miliput and covered the tab, carving the brick texture into it to cover it up. Once that was dried I did my usual basing shenanigans, painted and then filled the recesses with light sienna pigments to simulate sand accumulating inbetween the stones. 

And here is where I kinda messed up. Throughout painting an amazing hobbyist on Instagram recommended I enter this into Olden Demon this year, given how much positive feedback I received for this guy made me consider it heavily. Anyways, in my infinite genius I decided since there was a good chance this guy was also going to get played with I varnished him. And that's when I got reminded, that Matt Varnish desaturates and mutes colors... yea. All the crisp detail? Washed out. Not to say he looks bad, but god if it isn't a noticeable downgrade from before he was varnished; I pray when properly photographed he will look a bit better, but I have low hopes. On top of that the Varnish left a bit of a texture on the base rim which also irks me. 

So yea, I should probably wait until I have taken some proper photos of a miniature before I varnish it huh? Anyways, I will put up another post for when I have this guy properly photographed, so finger crossed yea?