Bot War Painting Challenge 2021 - Atlanticans Rising

Today sees Leviathan get his first few coats of paint. Having primed him at the start of this project he has always just been sat to my side waiting patiently for his turn.

Leviathan is the combined form of 5 other bots, the 4 mud warriors I have already painted, and Octo, who I purchased during this project but didn’t get a chance to build him…. He will get painted very soon though or I won’t be able to use Leviathan on the table.

The basecoats started as usual with Vallejo Metal Air Black metal and then Gun Metal. This gives a solid base with dark recesses that I could then lay Chrome over for the topcoat, the photos above don’t have the chrome shown, but after I had finished the 3 colour workup I wanted to do something to help create contrast and interest.

Taking Liquitex Carbon Black and Dark Umber inks I added these to some Black Metal and thinned it with I star Water+, this created a nice bronze like shade.

Painting this inky shade into the deepest recesses I then used a drybrush with Vallejo chrome mixed with a very small amount of the Umber to then buff in a slightly coloured highlight. You can see in the following photo the difference this makes, whereby I painted the left leg in this method, and the right is left with the chrome.

I liked the effect the Umber ink in the chrome created, it warmed the metals and I figured it would also mix with the contrast I’m about to lay over the top to give a nice colour.

Taking the same approach as the mud warriors I created a mix of Akhelian Green, Terradon Turquoise and Dark Angle Green Citadel Contrast paints, thinned with a little contrast medium and water+ so it’s ready for the airbrush.

Working my way gently over the model I applied an even coat of the mix so that all of the metal was totally coated, I didn’t mind about the non-metal parts as they will be painted separately so I didn’t need unnecessary layers to have to paint over later.

The overall effect of this has come out well. It’s not quite how the same as the other bots, they each have their own variation of this workup, but this version on Leviathan matches the same colours as the Mud Warriors just on a much larger scale.

And that’s it for Leviathan, this sets me up well for the last 2 days, one to paint the yellow and grey details, and then the final one to edge highlight myself into oblivion.