Skaven Warp-Skryre Tower Painting Journal, Part 4

As part of a friendly scenery challenge with my friend Ron Kruzie, I had given myself about two weeks to complete all the painting and assembly on the Warp-Skryre Tower. The idea was to put a deadline on our projects as a motivation to get them finished. After grinding away at this monstrosity of stone, wood, and metal, it's come down to the last few days...

 

 

Friday, June 21st, Day 14–

My initial plan was to paint the orrery on Friday, and the telescope on Saturday, but I decided to slow down a bit and work on the smaller component (the telescope). Before priming it, however, I addressed one bit that had been bugging me the entire time– the small handle on the back. I didn't like how it was attached or how it looked, so I pulled it off and modified it:

 

 

I wasn't able to completely finish the telescope on Friday, but I painted all the metal, leaving only its lenses and wooden platform. I also painted the tiny telescope and orrery that would be by the mouse hole on the rocky base.

 

 

Saturday, June 22nd, Day 15–

On Saturday, I fell even further behind. There wasn't much time to paint, so I focused on finishing up the telescope and getting the base metal on the orrery. The metal was basecoated with Army Painter Gun Metal, then washed with a mix of FormulaP3 Bloodstone, orange, and brown ink to make it look rusty. When the wash had tried, I drybrushed the edges with more Gun Metal.

 

 

Sunday, June 23rd, Day 16–

By this point on my calendar, I was supposed to be finishing up the last of the painting on the lens array. Instead, I spent all day finishing the orrery. The brass planets all received a basecoat of either straight GW Retributor Armour or a mix of Retributor Armour and Gun Metal. Then, I washed them all with varying combinations of GW Coelia Greenshade and Nihilakh Oxide. When the washes were dry, I drybrushed the base metal color back up. On some of the planets, I painted swirls of Nihilakh Oxide to evoke cloud swirls or continents. The green planets were painted with successive drybrush layers of P3 Gnarls Green, P3 Iosian Green, and GW Moot Green, with white for the final drybrush, and a bit of Moot Green glazed over it. 

 

 

 

Eat your heart out, Aughra!

 

Monday, June 24th, Day 17–

This was supposed to be the final day of the project. Unfortunately, I still had a handful of parts left to go, and not enough time in the day to finish them.

 

 

But, as I said at the outset, finishing was not the goal; the goal was make a significant dent in the project and do more painting than I would otherwise have done without this challenge. So, in that regard, I succeeded– Only the top of the tower remained unfinished and I could tackle it in another day or two. I did manage to maintain my #HobbyStreak, however, and finish up the smoking braziers:

 

 

Tuesday, June 25th, Day 18–

There was a brief temptation to stop at the end of the deadline, but if I did that it might be months before I went back and finished the project, considering that the remaining bits were some of the most challenging– I wasn't entirely sure how I would tackle the glowing swirl and the lenses, and I could easily put them off for something easier. But it would only take a couple days to finish those parts, so forced myself to power through and find a solution.

I painted the glowing swirl and the warpstone on the collector. I really wanted these to be eye-catching and really glow. Using a mix of washes, drybrushing, and glazing, I built up the color, keeping it darker at the center so it would match the dark green at the base of the warpstone. For the green light being reflected on the metal, I drybrushed GW Moot Green and white over the surface, and glazed some of the metal color over top of it. 

 

 

Wednesday, June 26th, Day 19–

That only left the lens array. Definitely the trickiest bit to paint, with the three separate lenses, and I used most of the afternoon and evening to finish it. I painted the back of the array with a green glow, and kept the front of it as regular rusty metal and brass. For the lenses, I painted them much the same as the telescope, with a bright green highlight at the bottom, dark top, and a white highlight (the same technique as painting gemstones). Then, I added a circle in the center with fine electricity crackle emanating out from it.

 

 

Once the array was attached to the collector, I was officially finished! Here is the final calendar, with two extra days tacked on at the end. It took just under 20 days to paint everything, start to finish, and I can finally bring this project (which began in January of 2022) to a close.

 

 

I took a few photos of the finished tower, and I'll make a proper "scenery showcase" blog post and YouTube video with lots of angles and detail shots in the near future. 

 

 

For now, the Skaven Warp-Skryre Tower can take its place on my scenery shelf. It is definitely the tallest of my pieces, standing about 16.5 inches tall. Although I managed to keep a nice, small footprint for it (something I've been regretting with my Warscryer Citadel, which you can see overhangs the shelf considerably).

 

 

If you want to look back at this build, you can see my entire project log from start to finish under the label Project Log: Warp-Skryre Tower.

'Til next time!