Entries tagged [nova]
Modeling Spotlight: Speedpaint Kaddar Nova!
Posted on Wednesday Jun 22, 2022 at 05:00pm in The Karist Enclave
- by Iain Wilson
My adventures with Army Painter Speedpaints continued this week, as I'm slowly piecing together a force from various miniatures to run as an Imperial Guard army in 2nd edition Warhammmer 40000. This week's addition was a plastic (and slightly converted) Karist Kaddar Nova!
This model uses mostly the standard Kaddar Nova parts, although I added in a right hand, glaive and pistol from the Faction Expansion sprue, as this chap will be fielded as an Inquisitor Lord armed with a force rod and hand flamer.
As per normal for Speedpaint work, I started with a white spray basecoat. The armour is Zealot Yellow, hung upside down to dry so that the paint would pool into upper recesses. For the skin, my initial tests with Crusader Skin straight over white were not what I wanted, so this time around I tried an experiment. Starting with a coat of Skeleton Bone, I applied a very light drybrush of Matt White and then the Crusader Skin, and was quite happy with the result. The eyes are a thin strip of white with some black dots in the middle, and then any mess around the edges cleaned up with some more Skeleton Bone and Crusader Skin.
Proper curing time is still something of a mystery with Speedpaint, and in certain conditions the paint can reactivate when painted over if it is not completely cured, so I have taken to applying a light coat of Anti-Shine varnish over the first, main colour and then applying any white touchups and subsequent Speedpaint colours over that, and this seems to do the trick.
I used Grim Black for the black parts on his tabard and arms, and Gravelord Grey for exposed metal parts. The grey gives a good metal stand-in without actually being metallic, and there's enough of a contrast between the grey and black for the two to wind up looking sufficiently different.
The blades on the glaive and the various glowy blue bits were painted with Highlord Blue with accents of Matt White, while the handle of the glaive is Hardened Leather.
The tabard is Blood Red, applied in two layers - one for the initial colour, and then after that dried, some additional red dabbed into the deeper creases for some extra shading. Then, with all of the colours in place, I added some highlights wherever seemed appropriate on the model with a little Matt White.
Finally, I painted the base with a coat of Dark Wood, drybrushing when it was dry with a little Skeleton Bone, and then added Matt Black around the rim.
So, that's one squad and a character down, and the rest of the force in progress.
Stay tuned for more!
To build your own Psychic Lord of Proxied Doom, pick up the plastic Kaddar Nova kit from the Maelstrom's Edge webstore!
While you're there, you can download the V2 rules from the Trial Rules section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here. The Beta rules documents contain all of the rules for playing V2 games, but keep in mind that these are just 'preview' documents - some rules may be revised based on feedback, and the final layout including background material for the factions and the Maelstrom's Edge universe, artwork and other 'flavor' material is missing.
For other modeling ideas, tutorials, army spotlights and conversion walkthroughs, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.
What are you working on? We would love to see your models and terrain in the Comm Guild Facebook group!
Tags: kaddar karist nova painting speedpaint spotlight walkthrough
Modeling Spotlight: Karist Kaddar Nova
Posted on Monday Oct 22, 2018 at 06:00pm in Models
- by Iain Wilson
This week, I'm having a play around with another of the original models released with the Battle for Zycanthus boxed set: The Kaddar Nova!
The Kaddar Nova is a member of the Karist Enclave priesthood, but they are often granted operational control on the battlefield due to their experience and the reverence paid to them by members of the Enclave. Equipped with an incredibly powerful cybel reactor that serves as both a power source and a weapon, the Kaddar Nova is a distinctive figure. Their bodies are enlarged and twisted by their constant exposure to cybel energy, and their ravaged faces cut a stark contrast to their powerful frames.
As the leader and figurehead of the Karist forces, the Kaddar Nova needed a suitably impressive model kit, and so the sprue comes with a nice array of parts to build them. But as always, of course, the sprue is only the starting point, and below I'll go through some quick and easy ways to further customise this fearsome individual.
Building your Kaddar Nova straight off the sprue lets you choose from three different sets of legs, two different arms for each side, two different heads, and an optional crown piece for the more formal-dressing Kaddar.
The indents in the crown mimic the extra eyes of the alien Angels that often accompany Karist forces. You can use this to make a more mysterious Kaddar Nova by taking the head with the scull-cap, trimming his nose down flat and gluing the crown piece on upside down over his face, so that the upper rim sits just below his eyes.
Headswaps are another easy way to mix things up on your models. The necks on the original Karist sets weren't all interchangeable (something that we've corrected in later Maelstrom's Edge models) but thanks to them being plastic that's easily fixed with a little cutting or filing. On the below model, I have used a head from the Tempest Elite set, with the helmet crust removed as it would hit up against the cybel reactor.
A more inscrutable look can be achieved using a Karist Trooper helmet with the neck trimmed down to fit, and the eye lenses sanded down to produce a blank faceplate. The staff on this model is a modified Cybel Glaive from the Faction Expansion sprue.
An advancing pose can be created with some careful cutting - trim a wedge out of the groin area where the legs join, so that they can be attached in a less spread position, and glue them so that one leg is to the rear slightly. Once the glue has set, cut or file the waist down flat and assemble the rest of the model - his robes largely hide the joint, but you can use a little modeling putty to fill any resulting gaps.
Alternatively, you can look for legs from elsewhere in the range. Trooper legs are too small, as they're not cybel-enhanced like the more elite Karist warriors, but by cutting through the waist of a Tempest Elite model with a razor saw, you can replace the Kaddar Nova's robed legs with walking, armoured legs instead.
Shadow Walker legs also work, although they're a fraction shorter. This Kaddar Nova is obviously just not quite as cybel-swollen as his compatriots yet.
The Kaddar Nova is only one aspect of the Kaddar priesthood, and others will be fleshed out eventually. In the meantime, though, it's fun to see where mashing bits together can lead you... The below model is a combination of Kaddar Nova and Shadow Walker parts, with some small tentacles taken from a couple of Mature Angel kits. I call him a 'Kaddar Noctis'.
Hopefully, this has given you some inspiration for your own Kaddar Nova builds! To get started, you can pick up the Kaddar Nova along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge model range from the webstore here.
As always, feel free to pop along and share your work, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!
For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the article roundup here.
Tags: conversion kaddar karist modeling nova spotlight tutorial
Conversion Spotlight - Kaddar Nova Mini-Diorama
Posted on Monday Jun 12, 2017 at 05:00pm in Models
- by Iain Wilson
Sometimes it's nice to take a break from putting together armies and just paint something for fun. There's nothing better than taking some plastic and doing something new and shiny with it for getting some creative juices going, and it's a great way to explore the rich background of the game.
When I first got my hands on the plastic Kaddar Nova kit, I had an image of him standing in some imposing fashion unleashing a minnow like a trained hunting bird. I built the bare bones of this little diorama some time ago, but only just found the time to get it finished off and painted.
This piece was assembled from 3 different kits. The balcony was assembled almost entirely from components from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue, with a little plasticard to fill in around the sides. The balcony floor is cut from a garage door, with the windows filled in with the gratings from the support struts cut into a trapezoid shape. The railing is made from a ladder, with one side trimmed off. The trimmed off side served for the sides of the staircase, with the stairs themselves made from lengths of support strut glued in detail-side down.
The Kaddar Nova is largely stock, although there was some small alteration of the legs (narrowing the groin area to bring his legs closer together and bending out the right foot so that his toe-tip would touch the lower stair).
Likewise, the Minnows are assembled as normal, with the one launching off the Nova's hand losing his original tail and a new one made with a length of wire and some green stuff. The wire is glued into a small hole drilled in the Nova's forearm, which is covered up by the putty.
When painting something unusual, I like to try pushing my boundaries a little as a change from the repetitiveness of painting gaming forces. For this piece, I decided to go for a nice, bright, white armour, as I generally tend towards darker colour schemes. The trick with white, oddly enough, is to not make it white. Most white things aren't actually white to look at. Shadows add layers of grey, and reflections add other shades to the mix. (This goes for black, as well!) I wasn't about to try painting reflective armour this time around, but I did use Vallejo Light Grey blended into the white to shade the armour. The end result is possibly a little more grey than white, but I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out.
The Minnows were painted using a slight variation of the scheme I used for my winged Mature Angel a couple of weeks back. They were undercoated black, and then drybrushed with dark grey (Vallejo Heavy Charcoal, in this case) and then with purple (some old Citadel Warlock Purple and Tentacle Pink mixed together). This was then washed with some Army Painter Dark Tone to smooth out the drybrushing.
The balcony was painted using the weathered metal recipe shown in the article here, with the addition of some scratches, hazard stripes and yellow detail around the window/vents to break up the expanse of rusty metal a little.
The end result is a simple little scene that I think is nicely evocative of the Maelstrom's Edge setting. If you want to try something similar, you can pick up the components used here from the Maelstrom's Edge webstore. As always, feel free to share your creations on the Comm Guild Facebook page!
For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the article roundup here.
Tags: conversion diorama kaddar karist modeling nova painting