Holy Zealots Monolith Bearer

     Spent quite a bit more time on this one than I would normally on a single miniature. Not because I painted it exceptionally well or anything but I had a couple challenges in painting this particular miniature. Whenever I start to visualize how I'm going to paint a model, what colors are going to go where, what techniques I'll use to achieve the desired effect, etc.; I'm often tempted to just stick to what I know and get it done. I could have done that here and the model would still look good. However, when I think or have seen the way I want a model to look or an effect that would look good (if done well anyway), I try to make myself attempt it if I've never done it before. Even though it takes much much longer to paint the model, I will now have a new skill or technique to use in the future.
     For this particular miniature I wanted to try a couple effects I've never done before. I wanted the metal pieces on the monolith to look tarnished and oxidized and the monolith itself to resemble white marble reminiscent of ancient roman or greek architecture. For the metal I played around with some different washes and settled on using thraka green wash followed by asurman blue wash over a base coat of glorious gold. I then made up a wash mixing about 3:1 of enchanted blue to dark angels green and future floor wax then washed only in the deepest recesses of the metal. I went back and drybrushed gold highlights followed by silver highlights on sharp corners. For the marble effect I searched the Internet and found some decent ways to do it but in the end I just experimented on spare models and practiced different ideas until I came up with something I thought looked relatively legit. The entire model was airbrushed black as a base and I started with a coat of bubonic brown (which is really more of a yellow)over that. Then I took some pure white, watered it way down and did a couple thin coats over the bubonic brown so that the white was semi translucent. To achieve the "veins" inherent in marble I used a .005 micron pen and drew them in. I then went over the veins with one last watered down coat of white. During this final coat of white I wet blended faint yellow and light brown lines and inconsistencies into the final coat to achieve this effect. Once the entire model was finished I sealed it with Vallejo matte finish then went back and hit the monolith sparingly with a gloss finish to give is just a little bit of sheen.
     It took me probably twice as long from start to finish to complete this model, but I learned some new skills along the way and I'm relatively happy with the results.