Prince Apophas [1]

No don't worry, I haven't started another army. This is a gift for my friend Chris. He gave me the Games Day Skaven miniature the other week because I have a Skaven army, so I thought what would be a nice way to reciprocate the gesture? He's just started a Tomb Kings army for Fantasy, so I thought I'd paint up Prince Apophas for his army. I chose Apophas because he didn't have it in his army, but also because its a damned cool looking model, and I thought it would be interesting to paint with all the scarabs swarming across the figure.

I originally thought about painting the scarabs with that chromatic paint that changes between colors depending on the angle you look at it, as that's the way scarabs look, and it would look fantastic. Unfortunately the paint was horrendously expensive - about $500 for a small can of it, so that wasn't really an option. So I thought of trying a purple and emerald green, and airbrushing it on to try to give the impression of color shifting across the scarabs. After I basecoated the figure with Vallejo Black Primer, I gave the figure a light airbrushing with the purple. When that was done I sprayed through some areas with the emerald green. I just back and forth through those colors till I felt there was a reasonable balance on the figure. I'll probably end up washing the beetles with Badab Black to bring some of the black back into the figure, and add in some shading. They will also need some edge highlighting.

I gave the base a quick airbrush of Beige Tan as i'll end up finishing it to look like sandy desert.

I began to pick out some of the other details on the figure, starting with the skulls which were painted with Khemri Brown, then Kommando Khaki, highlighting with Bleached Bone, and tiny Chaos White highlights. All the gold was painted with Tin Bitz first, then Shining Gold. Some highlights with Burnished Gold were added for interest. The gold was washed with Devlan Mud to put some shading and texture into it.

The gems were painted with their darkest color first - Necron Abyss for the blue, and Mechrite Red for the red gems - then worked up through the respective shades. Red went to Red Gore, Blood Red, Orange, while blue went Regal Blue, Enchanted Blue, Ice Blue. Then a dot of Skull White in the top left, and a slight curve of white following the bottom right edge of the gem. All the gems will be covered with Gloss Varnish after the figure is completed to help complete the shiny gem look.

Some of the large detailed scarabs were given an edge highlight of Mordian Blue, before I started on edge highlighting all the scarabs with Hawk Turquoise. I resisted the urge to dry brush them as I wanted the highlights to be very controlled on the scarabs, so I methodically worked my way around the model adding the highlights. When they were done, the large scarabs were given a further highlight with a little Ice Blue to make them stand out on the model a little bit more. I may add a very small spot light of Skull White to some of the scarabs carapace's to make them look shiny. Overall though, the subtle emerald green, and purple spray I gave the scarabs looks great! Can't wait to have them all glossed up with varnish.

And here's Prince Apophas all finished up! Chris seemed very pleased with it, which made my day too!