Wraiths pt 2 Done!

Not much to say here, but I like how they turned out considering I was rushing them as much as I could. And hey, my space bugs shelf looks richer now, so that's good.

Thanks for looking!

Wraiths: Then and Now

Ok, this batch of Wraiths is painted and done, but I'll be taking fancy pics some other day. Today I want to compare the 3 Wraiths I painted during the last week or two to the 3 Wraiths I painted a year and a half ago.

Painting these now and while looking at the old batch, I find the difference staggering. I just want to show you how far I got in the meantime with it comes to layering paints, blending, and precision. Also, if you watched any of my recent streams on twitch, you will have observed that I don't like painting Wraiths. I was trying to get them done and off my desk, not do a careful job.

For example, here are some of the magnetized bits. I'll let you guess which ones are old and which ones are new:

The first thing I notice is - how less textured my paint is now! The old paint job makes me cringe. The orange spheres actually have an orange peel texture to them! Ew.


It doesn't end there. Here are the wraiths themselves. Again, guess which one's which:

It's... gah. Unbelievable. And I'm using the same technique as before: a lot of drybrushing and only an occasional blend. Certainly the key steps are the same.

So what's different? I am using sable brushes as opposed to synthetic. That probably helps with keeping things precise. Second, I'm using a wet palette. That probably helps apply thinner layers of paint. Other than that? I'm definitely more controlled when it comes to drybrushing and cleaning up mistakes, and I probably make fewer mistakes now than I did before.

Anyway, I'd like to repaint those knife edge weapon bits to better fit with my current army scheme. The rest I'll leave as it is, as a memento of how far I progressed.

And maybe I'll paint another batch in 2018, look back at this one and cringe? Maybe, but probably not. I hope to finish this project by then, but hey, who knows.

Thanks for reading!

Wraith Painting Done!

My Wraiths are finally done! There's some more cleaning up that needs to be done, but I want to put them away for a little while. I just wanna paint anything else. They took so much time.

I also added some more magnets to the front claws. Just want pair of magnets per claw wasn't enough to keep blades and whip coils firmly attached. You can see the magnets in the last few pictures.

Here are the bits I have to make them fully wysiwyg:

And here's how I magnetized each claw. Both blades and whip coils have two wedge bits that are firmly sandwiched by the claw sides and don't bulge a bit.

Wraith Magnetization pt. 3: Vengeance

While assembling my third Wraith, I realized that I don't want the body to be glued to the tail. It would be so much easier to just magnetize there. I also have a pile of 5x2mm magnets I barely got to use.

It is straightforward to do this:

The joint is very strong, more than strong enough to hold the body, and to lift the tail firmly when moving the model. The joint is very strong, the model doesn't wobble or rotate. I think smaller magnets might have done just fine too. Anyway, I'm feeling good about this, it will make transport far easier.

Wraith Magnetization pt. 2: The Reckoning

I changed my mind about not magnetizing guns on Wraiths. Magnetization is fun. The fact that I'd have to modify (ruin?) their bellies really changes very little as you don't see it unless you pick up the model. Not during gameplay.

Once again I used only 2x1mm magnets:

Wraith Magnetization

Wraiths come in three variants: plain, with either of two guns mounted on it's belly (left and center models) or with Whip Coils (right model). Of those, the guns are fairly useless. They're expensive, they do not synergize well with the melee assault role Wraiths are great at, and they get in the way of using Whip Coils that are excellent.

As such I decided to not even mount the guns on my models. Magnetizing them would take significant effort and would alter the detail on their bellies. Also, switching between the two gun types would require magnetizing the weapons themselves in addition to their mount to the wraith. I can deal with this many components to be magnetized, but I really don't want to change the detail on their bellies.

I could have put a large magnet on the inside of the belly to keep the detail pristine, but this still leaves the problem of putting magnets on the gun mount side. The arms of the gun mount are very thin, too thin for even the smallest magnets I have. There must be a way to accomplish this if I were to try harder, but I just don't think it's worth it. Besides, the arms of the gun mount hold their own weight without magnets on the one Wraith I assembled so far. Maybe that would be enough if I someday decide to try using those guns.

So that only leaves magnetizing Whip Coils. They cost extra points, can be purchased per model, and are only useful in melee contact. This means that people rarely get Whip Coils for all models. A few Wraiths might die from being shot at before they reach melee contact, so having a few unupgraded Wraiths that will die from shooting makes sense.

Anyway, to magnetize the Whip Coils and the short blades you can put in Wraiths front arms instead, I was inspired by youtuber zakcharnage:

And here are some pics: