Chaos Space Marine Chopper Bike - heavy custom

[Elfboy]

I love all things custom and the Space Marine bike lends itself well to customising. So, since I seem to be accidentally creating a Slaneesh army I thought I'd share an in progress picture of my latest. I've still got some filing and filling to do but I'm happy with it so far.

Click to see full-sized image
Larger image at my site: https://www.stoneorchid.co.uk/artonline/ ... /chaos.htm

I'm not a very good sculptor, but I make up for it by being fairly good at 'patchwork' customs like this one. Almost everything you see was originally part of the bike except for the forks (propshaft from a Ford Thunderbird model), spotlights on front arch (Space Marine backpack), dials & back wheel (Ork truck), second headlight (another butchered Space Marine bike) and the boltguns (spare parts from Tactical Squad).

I'm avoiding the normal spikey Chaos look, I want something sleek and smooth for this army

[Elfboy]

Update on this model since I've made a start on the colours now. Getting the result I want is proving difficult since Chameleonic paint follows it's own set of rules but I think I'm doing reasonably well. Finished the panels with a metallic silver glaze to give the illusion of metallic paint but it doesn't photograph as well as I'd like.

Click to see full-sized image

Larger image at my site: https://www.stoneorchid.co.uk/artonline/miniatures/

Engine and metal bits will be NMM chrome/silver and the seat will hopefully be a white brocade.

[mahon]

I really like the effect you have on the exhaust pipes! I think I'd go even bolder with a few more glazes to enrich colors.

[Elfboy]

Yes... but what to glaze it with that would work without making one or the other colour look odd? I can't think of a single colour that would work over blue and pink that well that wouldn't spoil the wet-blending already in place.

[mahon]

why a single color over the whole surface????

go on with layering/feathering but use translucent glazes instead of opaque paint.

Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

so - use the normal method of applying more and more layers, but use translucent paint (glazes) instead of opaque.
this will enrich your colors and they won't look 'washed' this way.

so: apply purple layers on purple and blue on blue

[Elfboy]

Advice like this is why I'm here: it stops me being stupid XD

[mahon]

generally there are two common ways of using glazes:

1. apply a coat over the whole surface, to bind the colors together and to reduce contrasts, often making transitions look much smoother

2. paint with it like with normal paint. the previous layers show through the next ones and add to the effect. this way you can achieve vibrant colors, and blend such transitions you wouldn't expect. blending from green to red may be tough with wetblending (red + green turns into some brown dirty color) but when you overlap layers of reds with greens in the central part you can achieve interesting effects with glazes.

think of it as of putting colored glass over your miniature - one layer will change the color of surface a bit, two layers will change it even more. blue layer, then yellow layer = green tint of the base color, etc.

a lot of room for experiments

[Tomi]

I like the idea of this bike... For me, I don't know if I think proparly, it looks like american chooper.
I would like to see a special conversion of Space Marine on it one day...

And now I would like to ask Mahoń a simple question about the glaze... one more time...
How can I check that the "paint" that I prepared is a glaze, not just a "colour water" which will not work like glaze but like ink ?

[mahon]

Here are some additional explanations about glazing. Enjoy