Sons of Orar Charity Army

Once again, some zombie shots of the Sons of Orar biker squads part of the NOVA Open Charitable Foundation army raffle. (once the whole force is painted Dave Taylor will take army shots and direct people towards ticket sales) The handle bars are drying right now, but once they are ready, I'll be able to mount the marines on their bikes. I'll have to dust up the bikes first, but that is a quick fun 2 minute task prior to gluing the legs on.

Nova Open Charity Foundation Army

It is that time of year again where painters from around the world come together to paint charity armies for the Nova Open Charity Foundation. This year, as in year's past, we are supporting Doctors Without Borders.  One of the especially cool things is that 95% of each donation goes direction to DWB. 

A lot of folks made this happen. Projects like these could not happen without folks like Atlantis Games, KR Multicast, Element Games, and Secret Weapon Miniatures.  They've donated a significant amount of product in order to make it possible for our scattered group of painters to work. 

In the shots above you can see two Sons of Orar bike squads nearing completion. The final paint chipping and weathering is not completed, but enough of the base colors are done that I wanted to share them. We've been trying to keep the SoO a little darker than usual, in order to help highlight weathering and distinguish them from Blood Angels. You might have noticed that the tires do have some weathering. The goal was to use light colored weathering powders to match the bone colored bases supplied by SWM. Tires should be darker where they contact the ground, with dust/dirt build up near the hubs and in the treads. Recipe follows:

1. Prime Black
2. Paint with Vallejo Dark Rubber
3. Gloss Varnish to protect paint
4. Secret Weapon Miniatures Green Earth weathering powder mixed with Tamiya X-20A paint thinner near the wheel hubs and in all of the tread areas.
5. Secret Weapon Miniatures Yellow Earth weathering powder mixed with Tamiya X-20A paint thinner near the wheel hubs and in all of the tread areas.
6. Q-Tips + X-20A to clean up powder and fad dirt into the hubs
7. Vallejo Black + touch of Vallejo Dark Rubber + Retarder to smudge along the bottom side of the treads to darken them. 
8. Mr. Hobby Super Clear MatteVarnish

(not all of the wheels show the process. I only painted the parts showing, but as expected the wheels rotated a bit while varnishing them)

These guys are basically red Ultramarines who are sent out to in perpetual blocking actions. They are the red shirts of the space marine chapters. 

Sons of Orar Marines Part 1

Step 1: Painting White

Add a dark grey base coat using Mechanics Grey. Vallejo thinner works fine with it. 

 Step 2: Using Tamiya X-20A Thinner instead of Vallejo, shade Uthuan grey over the majority of the shoulder pads. Spray the heads from the top and sides towards the front. Do not use vallejo thinner, it will clump the paint in the air brush.

 The gradient can be seen on the shoulders.

Using Vallejo white and Vallejo thinner, add a spot highlight a the top of the pad, or on whichever part of the pad is closest to the light source.

 Gloss varnish the pads in preparation for decals.

 Add a thin coat of micro set to each pad. Then apply the decals. Make certain that there is a cut between the two bottom sides of the Orar symbol. The top won't settle down easily if this is not done. Once the decals are on, apply micro sol and wait. The decals will look terrible initially. This is a patience game. Apply more micro sol as necessary. Go grab a coffee and come back and be surprised!

Marines were painted predominately with Mephiston red thinned with Vallejo thinner. At this stage you can see the colors achieves by layering Mephiston. A tiny bit of Evil Sunz Scarlet was used to edge a few of the plates. Sons of Orar are dark, not vibrant red. This will be toned down with oils and washes.

Soft armor and exhaust vents were painted with blowgun metal, and then washed with nuln oil.

This Zombie marine suffered the result of Vallejo matte varnish. The blue tint of the varnish really deadened the paint job. Some other varnish should be used. I have no idea what to use at this point, but Vallejo is out for red!

 Two oil pin washes were used, dark yellow for the white areas and dark brown around each armor plate.

Chipping effects on tanks and vehicles are easy to apply with wild rider red and german black brown. I usually apply the highlight color first and then add the chip on top of it.

Wheels and any rubber parts like road wheels should be painted dark rubber rather than black or brown. 

Slightly better photos

Pre-Shading Bikes (this can save some coats of mephiston red)

Sons of Orar Bone Basing

 Step 0: Prime Black

Step 1: Base coat with Steel Legion Drab (SLD)

 Step 2: Shade panels with Zandri Dust (ZD). Make sure to leave SLD showing in places.

 Step 3: Shade panels with Screaming Skull (SS). When shading make sure that as many dark edges meet light edges. 

Step 4: Mix a weathering powder wash using Secret Weapon Miniatures Green Earth Pigment (GEP).  Add enough thinner to the water/powder mixture that surface tension is broken so the pigment flows easily.

The last step is to neatly edge the bases using Steel Legion Drab.

Sons of Orar

A Terminator and a spare Rhino side hull were used for this experiment. There were several goals. One of those was to use as much GW paint as possible, and the other was to keep the the mix of colors to a minimum. 

Sons of Orar have white as part of their heraldry. Rather than use full on white, the area is based with fortress grey, and then mostly covered with Ulthuan Grey. A touch of white is used around the edges. It is important to use as little white as possible. White will be used during paint chipping, so it needs to contrast with the grey beneath it. On shoulder pads, whit is only used a the extreme top of the pad. The majority of the pad being left a grayish color.

The main body of the rhino was painted with only two colors. The black basecoat, and mephiston red. The color modulation was achieved using a diluted mephiston red mixture in an air brush. Anywhere two panels came together, more coats of mephiston red went on.

The bottom sides of the smoke stacks were masked off so a gradient could be added.

The gradient is on the right.

With only two panels of the rhino hull completed, the benefits of modulation can already be shown.

Finished color modulation. Wild Rider red was used to highlight rivets. I recommend using this on faces, and front panels of tanks. As the extreme highlight it should be kept minimal. The next step is a gloss coat to protect the paint from oils. Behold the ugliness which is gloss.

A satin coat was sprayed on to dull down the gloss. Vallejo has a blueish tint to their dull and satin coats. I will not use them again for future Sons of Orar, as it interferes with the color too much.

Steel Legion drab was sprayed to add dust to the lower area of the hull. Pigments will be used as well, but I like the tinting the paint does to the the white door and the lower hull.

Side by side with a Sons of Orar Terminator. The pigment used here is Secret Weapon Miniatures green earth.