Age of Sigmar: Stormcast Eternals Army Painting WIP 1 - Undercoating and Celestial Highlights

Note: All photos are of work in progress!!

I've personally been a little tired of the paint scheme's for Sigmarites. I know they are a new army, so the community hasn't had a lot of time to develop a diverse body of work, but I also felt that GW missed an opportunity to really offer something more angelic in a paint scheme. While gold definitely comes to mind, personally I much more imagine a softer, cooler tone to the stormcast eternals. So I set out to create this army to reflect that softer-tone.

I apologize for the bad camera and even worse lighting.

Tools used:
- Sparmax MAX 35 Airbrush and compressor
- Tamiya Acrylic paints, thinner, and reducer
- GW Washes and glazes
- Milliput
- Railroad Ballast, various sizes plus sand
- Gardening Mulch Chunks

Step 1: Base Coat / Primer

I started by priming the models with a middle grey. This was on purpose as the models top layers of paint will be effected by the base coat(s) that are applied. I want the models to be brighter, thus the avoidance of a black base. This color is almost indistinguishable from 'sprue grey', so ensuring total coverage was a tad tricky, but I did it as a batch of the entire Stormcast army from the starter box and by the time everything had one coat the first models were dry. The matte finish was much easier to see, and touch up coverage was done to finish up the models. 

Step 2: Celestial Highlight and Focus highlights

The models will have a blue/silver shadow color, which transitions to a gold highlight at the top. To help make this change more dramatic I am basing with two colors. Once the grey dried I did a celestial style highlight with white, making sure to always stay at least 45 degrees above the model. I also picked the few places I wanted the observers eyes to be drawn to, usually the head or the tips of the spikes of light, and made those solid white as well. It may be hard to tell from the image above that the step is completed, but that in some ways is the point - you are artificially creating what a larger object would naturally do with light and shadows. It should at least be easier to see greater details on the model, and the shadows appear 'deeper'.

Step 3: TMM Armor Spray

Now for the armor, I begin by doing a reverse celestial spray with a blue metallic, making sure to hit the model from the bottom angles. What I am going for here is any part of the model which is pointing down should be blue tinted. Anything which is flat facing the horizon will be silver, and anything facing up will be gold tinted, giving us the temperature feel of the lighting. I then do a top celestial spray of TMM silver, but allow the paint to also cover the areas on the sides. 

Finally, I give the top most portions a TMM light gold spray, while also using brushes at this point to edge highlight with the gold, as well as pick out points of the armor which I think should be gold regardless of angle and position. But, I greatly thin this gold step - first because it helps create the smooth transitions even when using a brush, but also so that the gold will be strongly impacted by the color underneath. So even in the tops of the shin guards, for example, the gold is cooler, while the tops of the helmet the gold has no blue tint at all, it is more white. 

For a sense of time, all of these steps took a total of about 2 hours for the entire starter box Stormiest eternals army. I can't stress how quick and easy it is to get great results from an airbrush. Many could throw a wash on and be done at this point, and your army would look great. All the future steps will require brush work, and are thus much slower. 

Hope you enjoyed the work, and please provide criticism and comments, plus questions welcome as well. More coming soon.