Chaos Decimator: Ready for Priming

I finally finished off the Decimator. I had no more flat surfaces to cover, so I had to stop.

Chaos Decimator. GW bits: Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought; Nurgling from unknown kit; cloth and torsos from Putrid Blightking kit; unknown Eldar weapons; flesh sacs and pipes from unknown monstrous Tyranid kit; Plaguebearer head, arm and icon; leg from Skeleton kit; monstrous fangs from unknown Tyranid kit; head and arm from Helbrute kit. Forge World bits: plate from Nurgle dreadnought; shoulderpads from Plague Marine upgrade kit. Privateer Press: skeletons from Cage Rager; back from unknown Trollblood kit. Kneadatite, chains, framing wire, framing nails, pill bottle, pumice grit and bells.

I'm only partly kidding: I had a lot of fun adding layers upon layers of junk onto this model, so I just kept going until it got difficult to do more.
While I didn't intend for a fluid water effect in the plague vat, I ended up with just that. I didn't stop and think about what I was doing when I filled the vat with water effects ... and realized it was just never going to dry.

Eternally moist.

See, water effects — a semi-generic name (like Kleenex or Xerox) for transparent acrylic that comes in a fluid state and cures in contact with air — dries in layers. In this setup, the top few millimeters would cure into a flexible skin, but the inch and a half or so beneath would remain liquid.

As I pondered the unpleasant process of siphoning the water effects into a mostly airtight canister and then reapplying thin layer after thin layer until the end of time, I stumbled upon a solution. "This vat is supposed to be filled with liquid," I thought. "I have a porthole looking into the vat. Why don't I just seal this and have a liquid interior?"

Well, hell.

Well, hell.

This process ended up having its own sets of problems. Sharp-eyed viewers probably noted the drilled hole in the 40 millimeter base; I ended up having to drain some water effects into that hole and letting it cure. (Note the vat is upside-down here.)

And that's what it looks like on the model.

I ended up adding a few more details to the vat later, but forgot to photograph them before I primed and based the model. To wit:

Primed in Golden High Flow Acrylics: Carbon Black, overlaid with Neutral Gray and then Titanium White. Initial base color done with Titan Buff and Quinacridone Magenta.

You'll note the stretched face on the vat and the additional texture on the base.

And that vat again.

You'll also note the added veins, sculpted in green stuff. You can also get a good look at the water effects sloshing around inside the vat — it turned out pretty well, all things considered.

You might be wondering why the vat is silver if I was going to just re-prime parts of it. Well, that's simple; I wanted the base color to be on the area around the clear porthole. I'm absolutely trash at ultra-fine control, so I future-proofed my work by painting the pill bottle before I added the clear porthole and water effects. I'll later go back in with a brush to reapply the silver where necessary.

The next step is to paint in the black-brown-gray veins on the ceramite. It'll be a simple process: Choose ink or paint, pen or brush on the veins, then use the airbrush to overlay a thin, translucent layer of Golden High Flow Acrylic Titan Buff. Repeat until I'm satisfied. (The final effect will make it look as though there are veins running the ceramite.)

After that, I'll get to go back in with a liberal dose of Games Workshop's Typhus Corrosion. It's an excellent textured paint in a neutral-warm brown; I'll be using it as my final touch of conversion, and will probably need to do a final base coat of Titan Buff to portions of the model. Then it'll all be down to brush work!