Painting Plague Drones

Introduction

I had 3 Plague Drones since the dawn of time. They were a pretty good buy too, if you don't consider one missing wing. Now that that's fixed, I can finally get around to painting them. I've also added one more to their number, picked up from a different source.

Prime & spray paint

The group of three was bought primed black. I primed the new guy in white. Then I spray painted their bodies with Averland Sunset, blocking off most of the carapace and wings with painter's tape. 

Paint by brush

Painting the flesh

I aimed for maximum contrast (yellow-purple), and so I decided to follow this skintone. Back then I still thought that not giving the exact names of the paints was a good practice, but with now being committed to the Vallejo Game Color range and having a multitude of paints, this just means that I now have some difficulty in following along old articles. As you'll see below, it's not a perfect replica.

After some tiny corrections using Heavy Goldbrown, I washed the flesh with two layers of Athonian Camoshade.

Drybrush Heavy Skintone, then Elf Skintone. The second drybrush is barely visible, so I did some edge highlights with this color.

With the flesh now painted, I moved on to the faces in the tears by basecoating them in Elf Skintone.

Following along the tears in the flesh, I washed the tears and faces in Reikland Fleshshade.

Reestablish the color on the pustules using Heavy Goldbrown, then wash Carroburg Crimson.

Highlight Sun Yellow.

Superhighlight Fluorescent Yellow. Make them shine!

Wash around the tears in the flesh with Druchii Violet, then drybrush Bonewhite.

I originally aimed for light skintone faces and eyes. However on closer inspection, the faces in the tears are not perfectly sculpted, with their eyes semi-closed and features distended. I still did my best.

Highlight with just one layer of Elf Skintone.

Basecoat the eyes and teeth in White.

Wash the eyes in black and the mouths in Agrax Earthshade. Edge highlight the teeth in White. Complete the eyes.

Eyes, mouths, teeth

I painted the eyes in Waystone Green for that shiny green look.

This one rot fly has a regular mouth (and a tiny alien mouth protruding from the abdomen) with teeth. The inside of the mouth gets a simple progression of Hexed Lichen, Warlord Purple, Reaper Pink.

The teeth get the bone treatment.

Claws and stingers

Start a simple grey progression with Heavy Charcoal basecoat.

Drybrush Cold Grey.

Second drybrush Stonewall Grey.

Paint the stingers using the same progression, but line highlight instead of drybrush.

Dripping venom

Basecoat Sick Green.

Highlight Escorpena Green.

Carapace

Undercoat black, for even coverage.

Basecoat Heavy Violet.

I tried some stuff here, but I wasn't happy.

First of all, I did a thick stripe of Royal Purple along the beginning of each segment, then feathered it out, thinking that I'll have a nice progression from darker to lighter violet. It's not visible at all.

Second, I tried to highlight the cracks in the carapace using Hexed Lichen, then mix 1:1 with Reaper Pink, then Reaper Pink. Barely visible.

Thankfully, one has friends to advise. Thick edge highlight Warlord Purple.

Paint Off White into the crevices.

Wash Carroburg Crimson.

Wings

Basecoat white.

Overall wash Biel-Tan Green, diluted with medium.

Second wash Biel-Tan Green, diluted with medium, but only on some of the segments. Do the same with Coelia Greenshade. Then pure Coelia Greenshade across the segment boundaries.

Drybrush the wings with Off White.

Rotation magnets

I tried a medium magnet, which I've used before. Now there is a position where the center of gravity is perfectly aligned...

... but look at it the wrong way and the model falls over. And I haven't even mounted the rider yet.

So I tried a large rotation magnet. The hole in the magnet is too large for a standard GW flying stem, so I had to break out these custom sized transparent rods that I had for some reason.

They are a perfect fit!

Cut the rod to size and glue to the base and magnet.

Cadia stands!

Paint the riders

The 3 eBay riders were primed like this.

Wash Athonian Camoshade.

Drybrush with a 1:1 mix of Dark Green and Dead Flesh, then second drybrush just Dead Flesh.

For the 4th rider, prime white and apply the Nurgling treatment. In fact, paint the details with the same techniques.

Basecoat the sword in Tinny Tin.

Drybrush Gunmetal. I covered the rest of the model with a napkin so that the flecks of paint don't contaminate the paintjob.

Wash black.

Then Coelia Greenshade.

Corroded bronze banner and bell.

The rest of the details finished: medium brown shrunken heads, light brown leather cords on the banner and trophies, bonewhite drumstick and claws.

More magnets

The rotation magnet holds, even with the rider mounted.

So the squad is ready to go!

A word on varnishing...

I just acquired a can of Munitorum Varnish, and sprayed a good two layers on the Drones. While this was quick and super effective, it killed any trace of shine on them.

So I applied Nurgle's Rot to the intestines afterwards...

As well as gloss varnish to a number of areas: wings (to make them look shiny and bug like), eyes and bronze metalics (to give back the shine).

Basing

Square bases

These are the original bases. I decided to spice them up.

Wash patches of Seraphim Sepia, Agrax Earthshade and Black Wash.

Drybrush Khaki, then Bonewhite.

The 4th base I created myself, trying to imitate the other three. It did come out somewhat lighter, due to the shade of sand I'm using.

Here's all four, painted, flying stand glued in, and some dry bushes glued on for variety.

Round bases

Dark earth with toxic puddles, but this time, learn from the mistakes.

Finished! 

But due to the length of this article, I'll put the pictures in another post.