Acastus Knight Porphyrion - Complete at last!

If you've read any of my posts over the last month or so you'll know I've been slaving away on my Knight Porphrion. Well, behold the fruits of my labours!

She's such a bruiser.

I started painting her at the College of Artisans event at Warhammer World and made some good progress. This is such a huge detailed miniature though that even with a jump start it still took ages for me to finish. Still, I feel it was worth the effort.

Feels like it's been a long time coming.

The paint scheme uses a lot of the same colours as my Imperial Knights and Adeptus Mechanicus models. However, I added some hazard striping borrowed from my 30k models and tried for a bit of a heat staining effect on the magna-lascannon barrels too. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.

I wore my paintbrush down to a nub.

I also tried to be a bit more creative with the base. For those that aren't aware, the Porphyrion isn't supplied with a base so I had to source one separately. In the end I opted for a laser cut mdf oval which I found on Ebay for a few quid. It seems to have suited my purposes pretty well. However, it is an absolutely huge area of base to cover, so I added, rocks, terrain, grass tufts and some splashes of different colours in an effort to break it up and make it look more realistic. I don't know if it really worked, but I feel like I was able to stretch myself as a painter and modeller when doing it.

Detail of the base.

I have become accustomed to smothering my Imperial Knights with transfers and the Porphyrion is no exception. I even treated myself to a horribly expensive transfer sheet from Forgeworld with which to decorate her. I have to say, despite the price, the Forgeworld transfers are really nice to work with and go on very smoothly. If you can afford it then they're well worth springing for.

Note the gold transfer on the face guard.

I have found that working on a model of this size leads to a bit of scale blindness after a while. So once I was done, I dug out one of my other knights to do a bit of comparison.

Truly titanic!

I hope you all like her. For me, it's been a bit of an arduous journey and I think I'm going to go and lie down in the recovery position for a little while. We'll see what emerges next once I recover my painting mojo.

College of Artisans - A week of painting at Warhammer World!

I've mentioned this a couple of times, but I figured I should do a post about it. In early August I was lucky enough to attend College of Artisans at Warhammer World!

How posh!

For those that are unaware, College of Artisans is a five day painting event held at Warhammer World for a small group of hobbyists. Basically, you bring a project (or two) with you and spend the week working on it alongside the Games Workshop studio painters and the 'Eavy Metal team.

Day 1: The painting area set up in the events hall.

I chose to bring my Acastus Knight Porphyrion to work on during the week. I didn't think I would get it finished, but I was determined to put in a good week's work. I also hoped to get a few painting tips from the 'Eavy Metal team.

I played around with some hazard stripes early on.

To my surprise, the event was sold out, with the maximum ten participants. Speaking with the team at Warhammer World, they hope to increase the capacity next year to allow more people to participate.

The new Primaris vs Chaos display in the exhibition.

Included in the ticket price is a guided tour of the Warhammer World exhibition with one of the curators and a member of the diorama building team. This was a really enjoyable experience and gave me the opportunity to ask questions about how the dioramas are made and what happens to them when they are retired. Horrifyingly, most of them end up in the trash compactor! I'm sure there must be a better home for these gorgeous dioramas once they reach the end of their lives.

Lunch was also included in the price. Yum!

I tried hard on these lenses after some advice from the studio team.

I progressed well with the Porphyrion over the week. I have to say though, painting for eight hours a day is quite challenging and I found myself pretty exhausted on a couple of evenings. Still, it was delightful to be able to carve out such a big slice of hobby time.

Bob Ross was always on hand to motivate me when things got tough.

Getting to meet the 'Eavy Metal team was a delight though. I got a few good tips as well as a couple of 'Eavy Metal brushes to take home with me. Now all I have to do is find a model worthy of being touched by one! It was interesting to handle some of the miniatures which grace the front of the boxes in person as well; you get a much better sense of the techniques used when seen with the naked eye.

A huge pile of Rhino halves ready for the weathering tutorial.

There was a painting tutorial on weathering and battle damage one evening which I hope to use to paint some terrain pieces to add to the base of my Porphyrion. We'll see how it comes out when she's done.

This was as far as I managed to get in the week.

All in all, College of Artisans was a brilliant event run by a team of enthusiastic staff. I was really happy with my progress during the week and it certainly gave a kick start to a huge miniature which might otherwise have been daunting. 

Life permitting, I will certainly want to attend next year.