My social media has been doing ok recently, and I’m not smart enough to figure out what the algorithm wants in any given month. So no promises, but maybe it’s time to focus more here, a space where I can write more if I want to and give some deeper thoughts on my projects.
I finally finished my first Deimos Predator, after many months of working on it here and there. In the process, I’ve also completed a mega build commission of 8 Horus Heresy vehicles plus a Leviathan dreadnought for my friend Amy.
For the Predator, I wanted to focus on anti-tank so it’s equipped with lascannon sponsons plus a melta cannon on the turret. I could have magnetized, but opted instead of “finish faster”. I’ve also discovered that lascannons are incredibly boring to paint and my least favorite of the sponson weapons. Good thing I have four more sponson pairs to paint. Whoops…
As per usual, I wanted to aim for a realistic look to this tank; something that feels grounded and like it could potentially exist. That for me includes a lot of weathering, using sponge chipping, brush chipping, pin washes, and enamels. I began with sponge chipping, and honestly maybe I went a little heavy in some places. It wasn’t until the end that everything kind of came together and I was happy with the final result. Sponge chipping is faster, but can lead to repetition if you’re not careful with your sponge work. Doing the chipping and scratches by brush is actually pretty therapeutic for me, so I enjoyed that quite a lot. For the first time on this tank, I did transfers before all the damage, and I think that worked well.
Like all of my tanks, the turret is a separate color to add some visual interest. I vary between a few different paint colors but they all end up a similar kind of tone in the end, and working the turret was a lot of fun itself. The main weapon was painted Dark Bronze(ProAcryl) and then received a heavy enamel wash to tone the color way down.
The tracks are.. not my favorite. I tried a new method of painting the pigments on, by making a wash using airbrush thinner mixed with pigment, then ended up hating the way it looked and washing most of it off again using a very wet brush. Then I reapplied the pigments and used pigment fixer. I think I prefer my previous method, which was to dab them on and then fix them in place with water. They rarely get touched, so wear is not really an issue.
I will admit that I’ve been trying to catch the attention of AMMO by MiG, a hobby company that focuses on a lot of scale modeling for historical models. They have a brand new paint line out, which unfortunately my friendly local game store is unable to get in, but I’d love to try those paints, plus their other weathering products, on my minis. In my head I have this grand idea of doing a Horus Heresy tank completely in scale model techniques and some kind of WW2 color scheme. But that’s for another time.
Meanwhile, here are photos of the finished Deimos Predator for my Alpha Legion army.
The 73rd Harrowing 