War Griffons Warhound Titan
At the start of the year me and my mates realised we were all keen on painting Titans, and March of the Titans was born – paint any Titan at any scale by the end of Mars’ month. I fancied rewinding time to 1989 when Warhound Titans first appeared in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and painting one in the seminal War Griffons colours.
The original advertisement for Codex Titanicus in White Dwarf 116.
I’ve been the proud owner of a secondhand 40K scale Armorcast Warhound Titan for years now, and it was the perfect excuse to repair and repaint him. Here it is with the previous owner’s, frankly terrifying paintjob.
The Chaos Titan Sclera Morphiosa ready to stare down opponents.
Several baths in various chemicals melted away the thick paint, revealing the bare naked resin. I prised away the putty embellishments like the Chaos Star forehead and the odd groin-face, thankful that these were additions made without damaging the original model. Evenings were spent refilling casting bubbles, reshaping with car body resin, sanding and preparing the kit for a glorious War Griffons paintjob. I bought greenstuff rollers and brass wire to do some extra greebling, and planned designs for the legio’s banners.
Reconsecrated for Imperial service.
Only now the March deadline was looming. And I’d never painted a kit this size before – the biggest things I’d painted recently were a couple of small Blood Angels vehicles in 2015, and vehicles are not my strongpoint. Excitement had turned to dread as the remaining timeframe meant the paintjob would have to be chronically rushed.
Fuuuuuuu…
And so I changed tack. I paused the 40K scale Titan and painted an Epic scale one in the same scheme. I could lie to you and say it was a deliberate move to practise the colour scheme and study the challenges of painting its 40K scale counterpart, and the matching weapon options back me up. But it wasn’t. It was a cop out. A tactic to avoid getting bullied by the likes of Asslessman and Rochie who had already finished their March of the Titans offerings.
Introducing Improcerus Compromissum, with Vulcan Mega-Bolter and Turbo-Laser Destructor.
I spent a while squinting at the original Wayne England illustration, trying to work out what the dappled grey pattern on the carapace was. Was it WW2 German dapple camoflague? Was it an attempt to emulate the airbrushed textures of H. R. Giger? Was it depicting a beaten metal texture as opposed to the trimming’s chrome? Was it the artist trying to give a sense of immense scale? Twitter consensus was that it was a dapple texture, so I painted and highlighted a series of blobs on the carapace. I refined the technique as I worked around the Titan – you can see the inside of the Titan’s right leg in the photo above being different to the other areas.
I’m dead chuffed with the freehand Legio Gryphonics devices on the banner and the calf.
I interpreted the golden yellow areas as actual gold, rather than matt yellow (as Rochie has on his Legio Gryphonicus). I’m unsure if this was the right decision, and I might switch it to yellow for the Armorcast one. Yellow is much bolder than gold, and would give the Titan a much more toyriffic vibe that’s completely in keeping with the goofy anthropomorphised animal design. Let me know what you think in the comments.
Improcerus Compromissum supported by the 2210th Imperial Navy Fighter Wing and Dark Angel Space Marines.
Check out Asslessman’s Warlord here. And you can check out Rochie’s Warlord here, which is accompanied by a Warhound from the War Gryphons just like mine.
Stay tuned to Ninjabread for the completion of the 40K scale Armorcast counterpart.
Honestly, you managed to get away with it by painting the same model so that’s all fine with me, We will need to see that guy in 28mm at some point though !
You are making not painting more epic even harder !
Shit JB, I’ve been braced for your scathing remarks for weeks now. Phew!
Fabulous Curis! I love the realisation of the Wayne England illustration into 6mm. The dapple could be be useful for horses perhaps?
What did you use to strip the Armorcast resin? I have some old yellow resin of my own that needs stripping.
Oooooh, hadn’t thought of a non-mechanical application for the pattern. Good call.
I used 99p bottle of acetone-free nail polish remover, as recommended by JB. C Critical that’s it’s acetone-free else it’ll quickly dissolve the resin. Dunk the resin in the AFNPR for thirty seconds and toothbrush it off instantly, not mixing it with water. Too long a submersion of Armorcast resin in the AFNPR will chemically alter and damage it.
Like fuck it was JB, thanks for the credit Chris :P
Were it? Oops! You two look so similar – like resin brothers.
For a minute there I thought the first pic was of your paint job. I laughed out loud at the cringe worthy boggly eyes :D
As for the cop out, I think it’s more than ok Chris. That mammoth titan is not something that you wanna rush.
He looks great man :)
AJ’s been cautioning me for being too hard on the original paintjob, lest the original owner is out there reading the blog. But sod ’em! I purchased the Titan, the right to mock the original paintjob is legally mine.
Although the 40K version would have been grand, this epic version is still quit nice. I think yellow would have popped more.
Cheers! I think you’re right, gold trims BUT yellow head is the way forward.
That looks great, good work. I think you should do yellow for the full size version though ;)
Yeah! Well, of course *you* would, as I’ve seen your retro-styled Primaris Marine where you switch modern gold areas into classic yellow. Instantly anchors the scheme in the 1990s. Good call.
Looks great – I always loved the War Griffons based on WE’s artwork of the day, though painting that dapple pattern that he often used was too much for more than a couple of models. You’ve done some pretty amazing freehand on that Epic Warhound – I assumed they were transfers until I read the text.
As for yellow vs gold. I think it needs to be gold if you want it to be “realistic”. Yellow will just turn out way too toy-like – especially on a model this size – unless you weatherbeat it all to hell.
As an aside. I have a couple of these in deep storage. I’m going to love seeing what you do with yours, Maybe you can get me inspired and motivated to open up the ancient box and paint one of mine, so I’ll be watching keenly. No pressure or anything, though…
You’re right that yellow would turn out toy-like, but that would be a massive plus in my book!
Which ones you got in storage, the 40K or the Epic ones?!
Yes. ;)