LII - Tutorial: (not the usual) Golden Stormcast

Hi readers!
I am painting a quite big group of Stormcast Eternals, the starter pack army to be precise.
They are not the first stormcast to suffer my attention -the old one were painted in grey and black-, but this time I decided not to invent a painting scheme, but to try do twist the golden classical one to my ideas.

The golden bright classic painting scheme is too much bright, with too much colours and happy to me: I have read the basic background of those bulky guys and I wanted to underline the feelings of impeding, grim, strong, incorruptible hammer of thunder they represent.

Furthermore I really hate yellow: there are very few examples of yellow paint I like ( I am talking to you Greg) so I wanted to make the gold less bright yellow. The painting scheme is going to be simple, as I like, few colours, but well -I hope- used.

I think you can use this tutorial for all the gold things you paint: the result is going to be a worn out yellow, a bit cold and dramatic.

As always it is not the best way paint stormcast eternals,  but only my way, hoping to be helpful.

First,  black primer. Sorry I forget to take the pics of this step but I think you can imagine it easily.

Second, gold with airbrush, and then a second hand of it only from above, leaving shadows with only one hand. I am finding very interesting the idea to use the primer as a kind of base colour to use.
Again,  I forget to take pics, so here a back of a model (then the explaination of why this happens ).
I used vallejo air metal for gold: they have in my opinion big pigments that make the metal shine, but they have a crispy finish. To my purposes this is gold -eheheh-, but for a smoother finish I think you ought to pass more than two hands, or maybe use gw metal -do not know the air line, the brush line is cool to me-.

Then I used Vallejo steel to put from above lights, only on front a very few on backs, to have a zenithal and dramatic result. This is why the backs of the models are less clear an more golden than the front.

I passed another hand of black on the base then highlights with white primer. Not a problem if not too much precise, the legs are going to be dark and this imprecisions make them more worn out.

Generous wash of umber wash.
We have to make the shadow less shiny.

Black wash on the shadows.

Then recall the lights with steel vallejo, to make more shiny the lights. Model air of vallejo are amazing also with brush.

Watered down black on the shadows to make them deeper and neat. As you can see the vertical lights done with steel are making the effect of lighter upper part and darker part of legs. The shadows are real, not made with lights trick!

Dark grey vallejo on cloths, black on shoulderpads and shield.

Glossy paint on shoulderpads and shield. You can do it at last but, to me, is too much fun to resist and wait. I use it because I love the contrast that glossy leaves.

Neutral grey vallejo, black and dark grey vallejo with wet blending on cloth and parchments.

A black wash (mix of black, black wash, water) on cloth a pair of times. I put black on the trim of the base.

Vallejo dark metal on hammer: I use gw mithril silver to highlights because the gw chaimail, more near to it dark metak than mithril, has a slight brown hue. All this with wet blending. Meanwhile I added watered down charadon granite on bases and vallejo air steel on the studs. This pics is a bit darker than the result.

Umber wash on the hammer.
Also this pic is darker, but take a pic of metal is very difficult to me.

Black wash on the hammer.
Base: I  used real earth for base fixed with hairspray  ( I have found a good one, do not trust in all of them: use a watered down white glue to fix it in doubt). An hand of charadon granite gw (previously done, look some steps before this) and a wash of watered down black: this way is going to use the lights and shadows of the primers, making the basing more easy and natural imho than using drybrush.
Then death grass and gloss on the base trim.

Finished!

Here the first 5 guys. It is not a unit because I did a small mistake, two of them are equal so one belongs to another unit and it is missing one of this one. Not  big problem, I have to paint all of them.

I painted something red -as a marker of an higher status - for the champion, using vallejo hull red as base, and a wet blending of black red vallejo, scarlett red vallejo, black and vallejo neutral grey. You'll see it better in the showcase -hoping soon despite the huge quantity of models. The painting scheme is very simple as I like, and the red add a bit of variation.

Here the first one made as a test versus a blightking. If interested, the tutorial for the blightkings is here. Looking the Stormcast's face the blightking is quite disgusting so you are warned!

Hope you enjoy it!