Chief Librarian Tigurius (Ultramarine Librarian model)

This is the figure I plan to use as Chief Librarian Tigurius in my 1500pts force.  He will be my only HQ choice.  After painting 3 batches of 10 men recently this came as a welcome break.  With HQ and 2 (4 x 5 man units) Troop choices sorted its time to get back to the tanks.  I will however briefly discuss how I produced this model, as I made effective use of Humbrol Maskol to enable more airbrushing.  I have aimed to build this figure with a '35k' younger Chief Librarian Tigurius in mind, to fit in with my themed Ultramarine Army.

After cleaning the bits up with my scalpel and fine sand paper, I mounted the parts onto paper clips by drilling 1mm holes in areas which would be hidden after final assembly. I primed the model the same way I always do using Vallejo Grey primer.  This new plastic Librarian is a great little kit in my opinion.

I wanted to do a dark red, through yellow, to white transition along the weapon.  This was pretty easy to do, just leaving a small amount of the previous colour showing after each additional stage was applied.  The under cape was painted VMA Fire Red and VMA Armour Brown was used to apply shadows carefully. To do the fine work I thinned down my paints and dropped down to 10 psi allowing really fine lines/strokes with the airbrush.

To do the next stage (the tan cape) I applied Humbrol Maskol over the red under cape carefully right up to the edges.  This dried and allowed me to paint VMA Flat tan over the cape.  This was then shaded using VMA Sandy Brown before using a brush to reapply Tan as a final highlight.  I did mix Tan with white later on to make a few of the edges really pop.  This stage dried and was then coated in more Humbrol Maskol.

The helmet was taken from my Tactical marine boxed set and was already painted thanks to the batch work I did with the second Tactical Squad recently completed.

The staff was masked the old fashioned way using blue tac.  I reapplied Vallejo Grey Primer on areas that had been hit with over spray and began painting the blue - VMA French blue, Dark Sea blue for shades, Light Sea Blue for highlights.  I went heavy with the Light Sea blue to make the overall tone of the armour lighter as he is a Librarian and I wanted some difference between him and the darker Tactical Marines.

The blues now done, I peeled off all the Maskol and was pleased to see all the earlier stages had been protected perfectly.  All the details were then completed - pipes and metals VMA Black Metal and highlighted, all the golds, Liquid Gold Old Gold and highlighted.

This is another shot of the finished model - in my hand I the kit looks great and am really happy with the direction this force is heading.  I need a better camera and photo set up and this is something I will look to sort out soon (iPhone 5 doesn’t cut it!).  Time to get back to the tanks!