Step-by-Step: Bastion Seneschal

Before I got my new Mercenary army last week, I finished of a Menoth Bastion Seneschal. Here's the play-by-play for this very cool figure.

The Exemplar Bastions needed a 'Jack Marshal...then one showed up as a pile of metal.

Standing with the resin/plastic base unit models, the new Seneschal measures up nicely (unlike the anemic Black 13th next to the Gun Mage unit...what planet did those guys get sculpted on?).

OK...so started with construction, but left the flags off to be painted separately.

Mounted the model on a plastic cylinder and spray primed black. This was the first time I used the P3 black primer. I usually use the grotesquely overpriced GW Chaos Black primer. In comparison, I'd say that the P3 spray does not cover as well. It took a couple of coats to get a solid black undercoat.

So the first order of business was getting the Menoth White layer down. After many years of wrestling with the color white, I've decided that the best way to get it down with with an airbrush. I started with Vallejo Model Air Sand, and over-sprayed those areas that would end up white on the model. I made sure to leave the edges of the areas with a hint of the black undercoat to accentuate the shading.

Here's the back side of the model. More white on this side. In the Privateer Studio scheme for this model, the shoulder pads are gold. However, I felt that scheme was too gaudy, and wanted to stick with a more "realistic" or "workmanlike" paint job...whatever that means. Well, what it means for me is white shoulder pads.

Next, I highlighted the white areas with thinned down Menoth White Highlight, making sure to stay away from the panel edges and ensuring a little bit of the sand color showed up as well.

Finally, I highlighted the white armor with a quick spray of Vallejo Model Air White...again just trying to concentrate in the center of the panels.

At this point, I just wanted to block out the main color areas...so next up was Reaper Shadowed Steel for the silver areas, and P3 Molten Bronze for the gold areas.

Now that the three main colors were down, I switched over to washes. The white areas got a very thin wash of P3 Gun Corps Brown. The silver areas were hit with P3 Armor Wash, and the gold areas took an orange/brown wash.

I'll be doing the dark blue cloth and sanguine tabard colors later.

Highlighting pass. I left the white pretty much as is, but did a few touch ups where I'd messed up with metal paint and crossed into the whites. Anyway, the silver got a drybrush of GW chainmail, and the gold areas were highlighted with P3 Gold and Radiant Platinum.

Again a rear view. I was trying hard on this model to get more of a gradient with the whites. I still need to be braver with preparing the shades for this color. I can just never commit to really dark white areas.

OK, time to finish the model off. Black menofixes, highlighted in grey. The tabards and tassels took a few shades of P3 Sanguine Base and Highlight. I also did the jewels at this time. I painted the disks black then started working up a red underside on each one. They then got a dot of white to highlight where the light is hitting them.

Cloth was Foundry Storm Blue and trimmed in Sanguine.

And here he is with his finished base amongst friends.

The flags had fairly robust locating pins, so I've just glued them in without pinning. If them fall out later, I may have to pin them at some point.

A very pretty model, and I like the metal cast way better than the plastic that the base unit is made from.

Well, there he is. Now it's time to move onto that Mercenary army.

'Til next time.