Tips for Painting a Wraithknight, a How to

This is the third Eldar Wraithknight I've put together.  The first time you sort of get an idea, second you learn a lot more, third you assemble it the way it should be assembled.  I am thankful for my clients letting me learn on their models before I ever started working on my own Wraithknights.  Thank you Shawn and BeeCee.

Looks like one of those fossil reconstruction finds.

JJ typing,

Tools used:
DIY store paint sticks
Poster tac (purchased at Blicks)
Airbrush
Paint

Placed some poster tac so I can basecoat the legs and torso at the same time.  Purpose is to get an uniform coat across both halves.

Poster tac works.

Now time to stick some bits to some wood.

Poster tac strikes again.

Also using an olde stand-by, double-sided tape.  Originally saw Rob Baer do this on Spikey bits when painting his Purifiers shoulder pads.

John Kovalics Black Armoury Primer.

Decided to not glue the heavy wraithcannons because the basecoat would mess with the black.  Ultimately didn't matter because I would paint them black again.  Next time I'll glue them in place.

 

Little airbrushing with some Citadel and Vallejo Model Air paints and armoured bits are done.  Don't glue them on.  That will be the last thing you do after you've completely painted the model.

There was a change of plan with the armoured gauntlets.  Didn't mesh with the rest of the blue faded.  Re-airbrushed and put light blue on the fronts like the rest of the bits.

Some bright silver for the spike and black for the face plate and head is almost done.

Some water effects or gloss varnish, saw a guy at Renegade who did this for his wraithknight, on the face plate and its done.  Need to work with gloss more to figure out how to put it on larger surfaces.  Took three times to get it to "right".  Still much room for improvement, in my opinion.

Here you can see the fade on the weapon gauntlets at the front/bottom not sides.

Always like seeing pics like this.  Gets me an idea of behind the scenes painting.

Then assemble and you have a fancy wraithknight.  I believe painting the armoured bits separately and not gluing them on til the body is finished helped pull together the model.  This is something I'd like to do with more of my three-colour minimum paint jobs.  Doesn't take much time and adds a lot to the model.

slainte mhath