A couple of days ago, I had the opportunity to sit down with John Vas and take a close look at his Grey Knights.
John is definitely lavishing on the details for his Grey Knights, and nowhere is his keen eye more apparent than on his Castellan Crowe.
Crowe has a painstakingly embroidered cloak which features a pencil thin border and dagger motif.
It's with Crowe's sword that John really stepped out of the box and pushed himself, here he is to explain how he went about painting it, "the fluff behind Gerran Crowe's sword is that it is demonic and that only he can wield it, so to represent that, I wanted to give it a shimmering effect. What I did was put down a base of Dheneb Stone, then a layer of Skull White, making sure it was nice and bright. Next I used the Asurmen Blue wash. In the sword there's a lot of grooves, rune writing, and I had to go over it three times with the wash, dribbling the wash into the grooves, letting it dry, then doing it again until it was really dark. After that I went with the Warlock Purple and stippled around the edges of the runes and then further out from that with the Enchanted Blue, doing all of that before taking white again and lightly brushing it on the very inside of each rune's edge to give the sword the feeling of contained power."
With non-metallic metals sweeping the hobby scene, John is sticking with metallic paints, and to great effect. His Inquisitor Coteaz is a prime example off his skill at building depth and highlighting with metallics.
"I start with Calthan Brown, you should always basecoat with a brown for golds, then a layer of Dwarf Bronze. Next I apply shining gold, which is great because it's pretty translucent and the bronze underneath
Crowe has a painstakingly embroidered cloak which features a pencil thin border and dagger motif.
It's with Crowe's sword that John really stepped out of the box and pushed himself, here he is to explain how he went about painting it, "the fluff behind Gerran Crowe's sword is that it is demonic and that only he can wield it, so to represent that, I wanted to give it a shimmering effect. What I did was put down a base of Dheneb Stone, then a layer of Skull White, making sure it was nice and bright. Next I used the Asurmen Blue wash. In the sword there's a lot of grooves, rune writing, and I had to go over it three times with the wash, dribbling the wash into the grooves, letting it dry, then doing it again until it was really dark. After that I went with the Warlock Purple and stippled around the edges of the runes and then further out from that with the Enchanted Blue, doing all of that before taking white again and lightly brushing it on the very inside of each rune's edge to give the sword the feeling of contained power."
With non-metallic metals sweeping the hobby scene, John is sticking with metallic paints, and to great effect. His Inquisitor Coteaz is a prime example off his skill at building depth and highlighting with metallics.
"I start with Calthan Brown, you should always basecoat with a brown for golds, then a layer of Dwarf Bronze. Next I apply shining gold, which is great because it's pretty translucent and the bronze underneath
