Phantom of the Rock Opera by Muskie

Description	:	This is a shorter version of the description on how I painted this model to be found on my blog with more inprogress pictures and all that. http://blog.muschamp.ca/2006/09/29/phantom-of-the-rock-opera/ The model itself is an old OOP Noise Marine because I liked the pose and sonic blaster looked more like a guitar. I cut the original head off by hand and had to do a lot of filing. Some damage was done to the shoulder pads and the front piece of the power armor which I tried to fix with puddy. This model contain more work with modeling puddy than I'd ever done before. I was quite proud of it though it took a lot of time. When it came to painting the head and neck flaws in my sculpting became apparent. The actual head I used came from a pikeman in one of the regiments of renown. I looked at GW's online catalogues and chose the one which looked the most like the Phantom of the Opera in the movie. I made the mask out of green stuff. It came out pretty good. The cloak is from some fantasy range vampire. For the black portions I did edge highlights using Fortress Grey and Codex Grey. I also used a little armor wash to smooth things out. I also used some tiny lines in addition to just edge highlighting particularly on the cloak. Next I painted the armor's trim Tin Bitz highlighted with Brazen Brass and washed with thinned down Rust Brown Ink. This is the same technique I've taken to using on my plaguemarines. After that I painted the purple flames on the power armor and the purple portion of the cloak. I used three colors: Liche Purple, Imperial Purple, and Tentacle Pink. I also used several thinned down purple washes. The next thing I painted was the tubing, I did this using the same basic colors I use for much of my Nurgle army: Ork Flesh (Dark Angle Green), Goblin Green, Striking Scorpion Green and of course Ork Flesh wash. There wasn't much tubing but traditionally when I paint a marine I do the power armor, trim, and tubing before painting anything else. One of the focal points of the model is the guitar/sonic blaster. It had to be read and I wanted to achieve the sunburst effect you see on a lot of guitars. I spent a lot of time on this and had to fix it when i moved on to the metal parts and some armor wash dirtied up my yellow. The first thing I did was paint the entire guitar with Blood Red, several coats. I then used Go Faster Red and Red Core along with Plasma Red Ink. After the red was looking pretty good I started using orange in the center, first Blood Angel Orange then Fiery Orange. I also used some Orange Wash and started using Red Glaze. I continually tried to achieve a smooth blend with very little space to work with. Although it looked good it wasn't yellow enough. I started using Sunburst Yellow, Yellow Wash, and Yellow Glaze. Ultimately I had to move on, though I kept trying to improve the sunburst effect while doing the metallic portions of the guitar/sonic blaster. I wanted gold hardware. My method for achieving a nice gold involves Dwarven Bronze and Burnished Gold along with an Orange Wash. Parts of the guitar, the strings are in particular are Dwarven Bronze and Shining Silver. I also used Boltgun Metal on parts of the guitar too along with Armor Wash. For the mound of skulls on the base, I used a lot of different base coats. I used three different browns, grey, red, orange, burgundy... I didn't want all the skulls to look the same. I then painted all the skulls Bleached Bone. Next I used a variety of inks and washes: Brown, Rust Brown, Red and Rust Brown, Black, and Black with Yellow. Next came another coat of Bleached Bone. I didn't want to highlight all the way to White but ended up using some anyway, however before I used white I used Beige from Vellejo range on some of the skulls. Then I did some more washes on some of the skulls and some more Bleached Bone, Skull White, and Vellejo Beige. Finally I moved on to the face. I made sure it was good and black. I first painted the flesh Vomit Brown and the mask Snakebite Leather. I used Flesh Wash on the face, but both the pots I have suck so I quickly abandoned that. I used Rust Brown Ink with a little red thinned a lot for most of the face. I also used some black ink mixed with yellow ink on the mask. I used Dwarf Flesh and Elf Flesh on the face many coats and washes. I never was satisfied, particularly the eye inside the mask. The mask was mostly Vellejo Beige with a little Skull White. The hair is Scorched Earth highlighted by mixing in Snakebite Leather. The eyes were white with a blue dot, I used a really old Citadel blue, most of my paints are really old. I keep throwing out pots and replacing them mainly with new Citadel colors but I also use some Vellejo paints now.

From:	Michael Stubbs` (LavronYor)	(Tue 17 Oct 2006 08:45:27 PM CDT)
First, in the title, you can add your name, so we know who painted this. Second, this looks like a cool model, but your photo makes the top look grainy. This might be from your old paint or from a harsh overhead lighting. Still, I like the red on the guitar and welcome.

From:	Muskie McKay (Muskie)	(Tue 17 Oct 2006 09:57:34 PM CDT)
I don't have a light box. I admit that I didn't do as good a job as many do with the green stuff. I tend to chuck out paints when they go bad. I think it is the lighting and the poor green stuff work, you can check out more pictures and other stuff I've done by following the link.

From:	Muskie McKay (Muskie)	(Tue 17 Oct 2006 10:09:48 PM CDT)
The main thing was I painted something, to a standard higher than rank and file, plus I typed out how I did it and even took in progress shots if you check out my blog. I didn't expect to win. I'll see what I can do to take better photos in the future. I've actually been around a long time, I bought that model new in a blister pack, it has to be ten years old.

From:	Rhonda Bender (Wren)	(Tue 07 Nov 2006 09:50:49 PM CST)
Fantastic idea, and the execution of it is pretty good (and you detailed it all, which is neat). The colour selection suits the classic concert rock look nicely. The guitar is the highlight of the piece for me. I like the purple flames, also.

From:	Muskie McKay (Muskie)	(Tue 07 Nov 2006 10:22:19 PM CST)
The guitar was supposed to be the center, though the cloak especially from behind is a big focal. The flames are decent but I think the photo could have been better, possibly shooting it from above... Thanks for the comment.