Tutorial - How to paint Chaos Daemons - Daemonettes of Slaanesh

Hi all, thanks for dropping by. I was experimenting with some Contrast Paints and my next squad of Daemonettes of Slaanesh and had such a great result really easily I thought I'd do it again but share the step by step. My Daemonettes have darker skins than the box art for which there are many tutorials, but I like my alluring daemon sirens to be darker and match somewhat the previous squad 30Kplus40K Rob painted for me HERE.

I'm no Golden Demon artist, however this tutorial will give you a more than decent tabletop standard. The paints you will need are:

Daemonette Hide - Base

Magos Purple - Contrast

Shyish Purple - Contrast

Abaddon Black - Base

Eshin Grey - Layer

Dawnstone (Codex Grey) - Layer

Leadbelcher - Base

Nuln Oil - Shade

Retributor Gold - Base

Reikland Fleshshade - Shade

Screamer Pink - Base (or a hair colour of your choice)

Pink Horror - Layer (or a highlight of your choice)

Daemonette Hide over all the flesh and claw areas

Magos Purple all over the skin, claw and reptilian areas

When previous area is completely dry, use a small drybrush to highlight the smooth skin areas, leaving Magos Purple in the recessed areas, do the face at this stage catching the raised areas

The reptilian skin, lower legs and claws are given a coat of Shyish Purple, then removing the paint from the brush, feather the edges of these darker parts into the smooth skin areas next to them so you don't leave a straight line separation.

I love the effect this darker purple gives over the large hooked claw talon above, this is the main selling point for contrast paints, they give a natural highlight and shade, especially effective on organic type miniatures like Daemons.

Go over the leather, cloth and horn/claw areas with Abaddon Black. Also using a fine brush, add the eyes, black pupil-less eyes.

Highlight the leather, cloth and horn/spike/toe claw uppermost surfaces

Add a finer highlight to the leather, horn/toe claw and cloth areas, leaving some of the Eshin Grey visible. Also pick out any teeth at this stage if they are showing the fangs.

Any Armour plates and Corset trim and metal areas with Leadbelcher

Wash the metal areas with Nuln Oil

Use Retributor Gold for any ornaments or earrings and when dry wash the recess parts of the gold with Reikland Fleshshade.

Top off the model doing the hair with the colour of your choice, I'm using Screamer Pink.

Highlight the hair with a lighter base colour, I've highlighted the Screamer Pink with Pink Horror.

Finally, base to match the rest of your army. A quite quick and effective scheme, I was pleasantly surprised with the result and the speediness, I hope someone finds this useful.

Cheers, Siph.

Mounting Titan Banners - How I do mine Tutorial

Hi Titanseers, I am lucky enough to be involved with Titan Owners Club and a friend of the co-originator Drake Seta. He is a whizz when it comes to designing graphics and banners and has done banners for all the TOC UK staff, free of charge! Ace mate! So, I received an envelope in the post before the recent amazing Titan Owners Club Walk UK held at the end of June. 

So, I got the banners ready for the Walk! Here was how I did it, there are many other ways but hopefully this gives someone a hint on where to start. I added the Titan Certificate numbers to the reverse of the Warhound Banners, and amended the numerals on the base of the Warlord banner to reflect the roman for '104' now 'CIF' which is also very similar to 'Siph' so happy with that!

Firstly using a sharp hobby knife I cut out the banner from the paper, following the lines as best I could.

Using a length of brass rod cut to size I used paper glue to glue both sides of the banner together around the brass rod. Then I applied some bends around a paint pot to simulate the banners flapping in the breeze, and applied a thinned layer of PVA (Elmers) glue to both sides, this helps the paper hold the shape once dry, and dries clear. For a more realistic look, I sealed the white edges of the paper with some black paint and added a few cuts to the lower edge before stippling with brown and black to show fraying and battle damage. You can do this to your taste.

There are many ways to secure the banner to a titan, I chose some model railway gauge steel "brass look" chain and for the Warlord a picture 'eye' hook. I carefully opened the hook-eye so a chain can be put in and out of the central ring.

The Warlord has a deep groin so an ideal place to add an unsightly hook, again you can manufacture small 'staples' from wire and add those if you want it to look scale, but no-one will be staring up the Warlord's groin - I will paint the hook black to disguise the final set-up. How to insert the hook? Using a pin-vice I drilled a small pilot hole and using the pin-vice itself as a handle, screwed in the hook-eye into the Titan groin. (the points of the clippers were to manipulate the pin vice head tangs apart). Long nosed pilers would have been a better choice, but as i didn't have any, I adapted.

Using a pin-vice I drilled a small pilot hole and using the pin-vice itself as a handle, screwed in the hook-eye into the Titan groin. Here was the simple pin-vice handle screwing in the hook-eye.

I finished with the hook-eye forward-to-aft so the banner chain would sit in line with the hips and legs, facing forward.

I measured the chain length needed to hang the banner in the desired length and space.

Using the clippers I shortened the chain and opened and then close a link to form a loop of chain on itself.

This was then threaded up the banner and rod.

The two ends of the loop were gathered up and formed the vertical lengths of chain.

I ensured both loop ends were married up to take equal strain and the double chain gives some gravitas to the chain length. I added some AT markers as finials for the cross beam, the cog and skull marking is quite fitting.

This loop was simply hooked through the opened hook-eye and the chains adjusted freely to make sure the banner hangs vertically. I think the advantage of this method is there is limited fiddly hooking and wire bending, and the banner is free to be adjusted and removed if wanted without any further modelling or repairs.

Finally Dominus Victoria has a heraldic honour banner to record all her glorious kills!

The Warhound Banners were cut out the same and placed around the rod, this time constructed from an over sized paperclip, straightened and cut to size.

The chain was cut to the desired length and the end links were opened and then clamped shut around the ends of the paperclip rod. These were then sealed in place with superglue. I used two skulls from the Box of Skulls to act as finials and also as extra strength to prevent the chain links from moving. The banner bottom was weathered the same as the Warlord.

I did the same for the second Warhound, but this time, clamping the links in position after the banner was already in place. Both the banner and the links were sealed with superglue.

Due to the placement of the chain, I felt it unnecessary to add finials. The loop of chain was placed in the small gap between the armour plate and the groin superstructure, and a couple of drops of glue sealed the chain in place along the edge of this gap. Minimal effort to fix in place was needed due to the gap present at the lower half of the groin plate.

Well, that;s what I did for these banners. The most difficult part is really either designing or obtaining decent banners. The scale model chain was the easy part. Honorum already had a banner designed by the rather excellent Ron, formally from From the Warp and now Sketchbook Gaming blog. Here is Honorum's Banner.

###EDIT### Since writing this, Lyden P, also at TOC showed me his genius method - simplicity in itself, drill and mount two small magnets flush to the underside of the Titan and use a steel chain, the magnets hold the chain in place and the banner and chain is removable for storage. Genius, why didn't I think of that!

Cheers All, Princeps Siph.

Legio Crucius - Reaver Titan - How I installed the LED's Tutorial

Hi one and All!

I just thoguth I'd do a quick post about the Reaver, and how I fitted the lights into the Head/ Torso of the model.

The first part, and I can't stress this enough was to plan the installation before I started cutting into the model, one mistake could wreck the model irreversibly. So I planned, and researched how others had added lights to model. I have also experience know with LEDs via the ones I've added to the Knights, FW Knights and Armigers, so I know what space is needed, and how the LED lights need to be housed and positioned.

I wanted to retain the head so that the Princept and crew were present, and initially wanted to have the techmarine in the torso, however I realised this would need two power packs for ease, I opted to forgot the torso- and likewise to paint the features inside other than the head. The eye sockets were drilled out first with a hand drill, then a power tool, making sure not to go all the way through to damage the screens. I then cut into the head, behind the control panels to allow access for the LED's and wires. The wires were run either side of the princept, so it looks a little like more cables running through the head.

The neck was drilled through to allow the cabling to pushed into the torso. The head/Neck is not glued into place so this made this section a lot easier. The wires were then connected via a plastic 2 way connector to the power pack.

Over the whole process was mostly planning and re planning, I think by having thought through the process first helped to get the results I wanted. Happy to offer any advise if anybody would like to do the same..

Cheers LH

Imperial Knights - How to add LED lights to your Knights

Hi one and all,

Thanks for viewing this guide. To start, I've never really done anything with electronics other than plug in the PS4 to the TV, so the thought of adding lights was quite daunting at first. I wanted to add lights to make them 'stand out' but also I think the model is made to have them.

The knights were built- during the build I added 2 holes straight through the head, around 2mm, with the holes in the back of the head extended to allow the 3mm LED to be placed inside the head. Another hole was then added to the torso for the wires/leads to pass through.

For the Lights I used:

2x 3mm LED's

A wire connector

2x CR2032 batteries

Battery holder pre-wired

The LED's were poked into the wire connector, and the wire from the battery holder was added to the other side to correspond with Live wire to live part of the LED.

The switch on the battery pack was turned on and done - we have light (maybe I should have used a resistor in this circuit, however I opted not to for ease of build, as well as some guides online indicating that a resistor isn't really necessary for lights this size).

From here the LED's are poked thought the holes in torso, and the head then is positioned and glue to have the LED's in the correct position for the light to be seen. I checked this, and that I was happy prior to gluing the head into position. The body of the knight is great as there is loads of room to store the battery pack and connector.

The light from the LED lights up behind the head and within the torso- which I quite like the look of. I also added a deflector between the helm and head of the knight to produce the 'glow' of the eyes. This was simply a piece of plastic cut from a milk bottle.

Thanks for looking! I hope this guide is useful for anybody who intends to add LED's to their models. I am working on lights for my Forge World Cerastus Knights - these are a little trickier due to limited cavity space.

Cheers, LH