So after a hectic holiday season I got back to the paint station and banged out an Invictor Tactical Warsuit in just a few weeks, which is pretty quick by my standards. However, there were a few disasters that occurred and let’s just say I am going to do several things differently for the next Invictor.

The plan for the Invictor involved looking at the sprue and instructions first in order to gauge what the sub-assemblies would be. It became apparent that the the legs and the top body would be kept separate, as well as the various armor plates on the body and the pilot. Also, the Invictor has two options for main weapon so I will have to magnetize the weapons somehow.

After figuring out the assembly plan I got to work and dealt with the first major hurdle which was the magnetization of the main weapon. The kit only has one copy of the piece that connects the main weapon to the arm meaning that one of the weapons will have a large cavity instead of the connector. So to remedy this I filled the cavity with milliput and when it dried I sanded it smooth. Then I drilled the appropriate sized hole in the milliput and glued the magnet in which was an N52 magnet that was approximately 3mm. That particular size was small enough to fit in the arm piece and the connector piece in the other weapon and thus is pretty hidden when it’s all together.

The other major hurdle and probably the worst part of the build were the feet. One of the Invictor’s feet is one solid piece with it’s toes in set position but the other foot has three of it’s toes as separate pieces that you need to glue on. The problem is that I attempted to pose the Invictor as if it was just starting to take a step meaning the toes had to be in a particular position. Not only that I failed to realize that by doing that I had created a situation where that foot no longer offered a decent point of contact to the base and thus offering little structural support. Eventually I had to pivot and attempt to make the foot in motion coming off the stone on the resin base in the hope that I could use enough superglue to create a bond that would support the model in the end.

With those two major hurdles out of the way I put together the rest of the sub-assemblies and primed the Invictor and the base black.

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After priming the Invictor I moved to airbrushing the base layer of Scale 75 Misfits green. With the base layer down I then highlighted the Invictor with some different colors than what I normally use. In an attempt to bring more saturation in the color scheme I used Scale 75’s Greenskin Flesh as my first highlight and Goblin Flesh as my top highlight. They are very similar to Army painters Goblin Green and Greenskin which I used before but are just more vibrant in comparison.

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With the highlights down I realized the front panels are pretty bare and decided to try my hand at something new which is decals. I had always intended to do decals at some point so awhile back I did some research and got my hands on Micro Set and Micro Sol. The process was pretty simple and it starts with applying a gloss varnish over where the decal will be (remember to clean the surface first unlike me). Once the gloss varnish is dry I choose out my decals and place them in a shallow dish I have for paints where I then brush on copious amounts of Micro Set. While the decals soak in the Micro I make sure the surface where the decals will be placed is clean by passing a clean damp brush over the area to get rid of any dust or particulates. Once the area is clean I use a synthetic brush to check to see if the decal has lifted off the backing paper, if it has then I quickly lay down some Micro Set on the model in the area where I am placing the decal. One the Micro Set is applied I carefully pick up the decal using some fine tweezers and gently slide the decal onto the model using a brush. Once the decal is on the model I move it into position with the brush and once it’s where I want it I dab off the excess Micro set with some Q-tips which I also use to very carefully smooth out the decal. Afterwards I let the decal dry completely and once dry I check to see if it applied smoothly. Since it seemed to be completely smooth I locked it in with another coat of gloss varnish and voilà the decals were done.

After that the paint job was fairly typical except I didn’t realize just how many metallic areas there were. A majority of my time was spent just painting Scale 75 Black metal onto all the metallic areas such as the weapons, the roll cage, the engine on the back, the arm mechanisms, and the antennae. The weapons were painted using P3 Skorne red with a GW wild rider red edge highlight. The green armor edge highlight was done using Vallejo Lime Green as it had better coverage than the Scale 75 Goblin Flesh. Any gold was done using Scale 75 Necro Gold which is my usual go to for gold on Grimdark models.

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So with the Invictor finished and let’s just say I am going to do several things differently for the next one. First off the roll cage will not be attached to the cage in order have more access to the cockpit. The magnets worked out just fine but I will look into an alternative method where I will place the magnets in the connector piece so that it can slot into the weapons which will also have magnets. For the feet I am going to spend some extra time and make the base from scratch so that I can solid contact points for the Invictor and not have to wrestle it like I did this time. There are some areas where I am going to change the placement of the highlights, in particular the armor near the hip joints where I will invert the shadows and lights.

Overall it was a fun model yet frustrating at times ,mainly due to some lack of foresight. However, I feel that the next one will go a little smoother and hopefully look a little better too but right now it’s time to start working on my pieces for this year’s Capital Palette and I have a long road ahead of me.

Till next time my wayward compadres.