How I did it: Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought

- I have seen worlds burn and crushed nations underfoot, torn down the idols of false gods and slaughtered kings like cattle. Presume not to order me, tiny man, for I am war, and you are no more than chaff before the scythe... -

Venerable Targas

   Ok! This is not meant to be a whole long, boring, tutorial on every single move I did on my Iron hands Redemptor Dreadnought, but instead a smart look on some of its details, such as its base, positioning etc. If you want to start anew the model following some good (and fast) adivices to create black foundations and weathering I suggest you to have a look here, before reading this post.

   

1. Positioning

    One of the very first feelings I had about this guy the day his pictures started flowing on internet was: "Hey, it's a new version of the ED-209 from Robocop", and right after: "Ouch, how stocky have they made it?".

It's tall as a Contemptor but twice as large!

   Don't get me wrong, it's by far the best Dreadnought GW had ever realised, if we exclude those made by FW, but its chassis inspired me to make some minor changes and pull out a dreddy that people would say "wow, it's a fucking toy!" when looking at.

    And it is. Believe me, every single part is movable but the waist (that's quite a problem indeed, but we can easily get out of it.)

    So, I begun making it less "stocky" lifting its feet from the ground adding some cork right under them, and adding magnets inside its "waist", slightly increasing the thickness to make its figure more slender.

Good 'ol Ikea's coaster

5x1 mm magnets will be good. 2 mm is almost enough to swing its body

   In this way we have resolved our two main problems, for we have a fully positionable, and 

changeable, little slender (a bit, it is a dreadnought, in the end!) lovely robot!

Yes, I like it much more this way, but it's obviuosly a matter of tastes

   Magnets, as well as making it taller, make it super cool to play and show to friends, as you can imagine very cool placements for it.

Does it seems it's moving towards you aiming his wheel?

2. Basing

   I have made a lot of models with this style of base, industrial dirt and junk, debris and rust, but never wrote something about it. Or course this is not that difficult but the mighty look-and-feel which follows is very rewarding.

   I used to make it in order to evoke a setting for my miniatures, and to create color contrast/coherency as well. This is very helpful on a flat color scheme (Iron Hands are a perfect example).

    So the color changes and features added may be less or more depending on the type of the miniature or the size of its base.

On my Imperial Knight (one of the first attempts to create such a base) I had enough space to make a "mini-diorama"

On Kastelan Robots I used this way of basing to darken the whole thing and give to the robot more light

It works in almost same way here

I made it on small miniatures too, sometimes, giving them importance. I can easily say that half of the beauty of my Tech-priest Dominus is his base

   Like the previous attempts, for Redemptor I chose my debris and primered in metal. After this I took my favourite texture of all time, Vallejo Dark Earth and covered all the base, even the cork-stone, under his feets.

   It's very important that the texture is somewhat thick, for I used it to fix all debris on the base.

My life has literally changed when I found out this beauty

This is an example of the POWERS of this texture. It's always the same, Dark Earth, but washed with 8 different shades. Lovely

If you are looking for the banner on the Redemptor base, give up. My wife doesn't like it.

I even prepared it, but women are unfathomable

Here we go! Gluexures!

      Washes, and technicals, as well as pigments, are the key paints to use to make it real. This time I used:

1. Fuegan Orange on the dark mud

2. Agrax Earthshade on the metal debris

3. Athonian Camoshade on the metal debris (a small quantity and in precise places, just to add depth

4. Spiritstone Red around to simulate a cast of something liquid and red

5. Typhus Corrosion (wiped out with fingers) on the metal debris where I would add rust effects

6. Ryza Rust over the dry corrosion

7. Forge World Orange Rust to strenghten the rust effect and add contrast.
8. Mr Hobby semi-gloss topcoat, to fix

    

   Point 7 is one of the most important, for pigments give life to your model. That bright rust orange/red helps to enhance the visual effect of the model. Without it would have seemed even more dull, and all the basing process, at least on a black and white model - such an Iron hands Dreadnought, would have been foiled.

Washes, washes everywhere!

Here you can easily see the corrosion around.

Spiritstone red! They said I have to use to make wonderful gems! I say this is a red liquid crap of an industrial world!

More about the above

BOOOM! Light!

 Final Model:

 Thanks for reading!