Duel of the Fates

Before I start a note on paints.  All of the paints used are from the Citadel Range unless I specifically mention otherwise.

I decided to go with Darth Maul first, more to get it out of the way than anything else.  I think Darth Maul is probably my favourite Star Wars villain and killing him off was such a wasted opportunity.  Don’t get me wrong, Christopher Lee as Dooku was still excellent, but Darth Maul had a rawness about him – he was scary like Darth Vader was scary but he had awesome lightsaber moves.  And Star Wars is nothing without laser swords and star fighters.

Being clad entirely in black, I do not relish the task as black is not a colour I am particularly good at painting.  The first thing I did was to block in all of the main colours, which was kind of interesting I suppose, given that most of the model will be black.

I used Mephiston Red for the face, which I painted entirely in red before going back over with Corvus Black (which is essentially charcoal grey) to pick out the main areas of tattoo.  The final lines, which are far too small for my skills to be able to highlight, I will paint on at the end.  I used the same shade for the lightsaber, with the handle being painted using Iron Hands

The next task was trying to figure out how exactly to differentiate between the sea of black that is his clothing.  So I found myself a reference image

There are some areas that stand out based on texture:

1. Boots, Gloves and Waist Girdle
2. Coat/Robe
3. Trousers
4. Tattoos

It’s quite hard to see from the picture but the trousers are actually a very dark grey, quite a warm tone.  Leather areas are all going to be naturally more reflective, The skin has a slight blue/grey tinge to the highlights and doesn’t seem as dark in the shadowed areas.  Finally that leaves the robes themselves, which represent the bulk of the model and can be considered to be the “background” of the piece onto which the rest of the detail appears.

So I went with the following choices.

For the robes I simply used the Black Templar contrast paint which acted as a very strong wash, but left some nice lighter areas on the upper parts of the torso – the camera hasn’t really picked up on that.

For the leather I then applied a coat of Abaddon black which looks surprisingly stark against the robes.

For the tattoos I used Corvus Grey but would highlight by mixing in some blue greys

Finally for the trousers I mixed some Death Korps Drab with some Corvus Black to warm it up a little and create a more browned appearance.

Again my camera let me down 🙁