Phantom of the Rock Opera

Last summer I converted a miniature, but I didn’t have the time or the energy to paint it. Recently I started painting again and after warming up on some goblins as well as some plaguebearers and plague marines I decided to tackle the model I dubbed the Phantom of the Rock Opera.

After seeing the movie at the urging of a friend and classmate, I got the idea for a conversion of a Slaneesh Noise Marine that incorporated visual elements from the Phantom of the Opera. It was also intended as a gift for someone, but they don’t seem to want it.

I used an old OOP Noise Marine because I liked the pose and the sonic blaster looked more like a guitar. I cut the original head off by hand and had to do a lot of filing. Some damage was done to the shoulder pads and the front piece of the power armor which I tried to fix with puddy. This model contains more work with modeling puddy than I’d ever done before. I was quite proud of it though it took a lot of time. When it came to painting the head and neck flaws in my sculpting became apparent.

The actual head I used came from a pikeman in one of the Regiments of Renown. I looked at GW’s online catalogues and chose the one which looked the most like the Phantom of the Opera in the movie. I made the mask out of green stuff. It came out pretty good. The cloak is from some fantasy range vampire, I bought it at Conflict Vancouver from their bitz table.

The base I bought off of Nic and Jana Tompkins and their company Epicast. I’ll have to send them a high resolution photo of the finished model. They were going to use one of the other models I painted in their online gallery.

After assembling the model I spray painted it black with GW’s primer. It then sat in a box for a year or so. The first thing I painted was the cloak and armor. The color scheme is the one I intend to use on my undivided Chaos army, black power armor with purple flames, green tubing, and brass trim. When I paint the army I’ll have to come up with a faster drybrushing based technique but for this model I did edge highlights using Fortress Grey and Codex Grey. I also used a little armor wash to smooth things out. I also used some tiny lines in addition to some edge highlighting particularly on the cloak.

Next I painted the armor’s trim Tin Bitz highlighted with Brazen Brass and washed with thinned down Rust Brown Ink. This is the same technique I’ve taken to using on my plague marines.

After that I painted the purple flames on the power armor and the purple portion of the cloak. I’ve always had a knack for painting flames and I particularly like purple ones. It can be done with only two colors but I believe I used three: Liche Purple, Imperial Purple, and Tentacle Pink. I also used several thinned down purple washes.

The next thing I painted was the tubing, I did this using the same basic colors I use for much of my Nurgle army: Ork Flesh (Dark Angle Green), Goblin Green, Striking Scorpion Green and of course Ork Flesh wash. There wasn’t much tubing but traditionally when I paint a marine I do the power armor, trim, and tubing before painting anything else.

One of the focal points of the model is the guitar/sonic blaster. It had to be red and I wanted to achieve the sunburst effect you see on a lot of guitars. I spent a lot of time on this and had to fix it when i moved on to the metal parts and some armor wash dirtied up my yellow. The first thing I did was paint the entire guitar with Blood Red, several coats. I then used Go Faster Red and Red Gore along with Plasma Red Ink. After the red was looking pretty good I started using orange in the center, first Blood Angel Orange then Fiery Orange. I also used some Orange Wash and started using Red Glaze. I continually tried to achieve a smooth blend with very little space to work with. Although it looked good it wasn’t yellow enough. I started using Sunburst Yellow, Yellow Wash, and Yellow Glaze.

Ultimately I had to move on, though I kept trying to improve the sunburst effect while doing the metallic portions of the guitar/sonic blaster. I wanted gold hardware. My method for achieving a nice gold involves Dwarven Bronze and Burnished Gold along with an Orange Wash. For other metallic parts of the guitar, the strings in particular are Dwarven Bronze and Shining Silver. I also used Boltgun Metal on parts of the guitar too along with Armor Wash.

The main portions of the model were now finished. I decided to leave the head and face until last though I never had a problem with rubbing paint off. I had to re-highlight the edges of the cloak several times and the base though I did it second to last as it also suffered from some paint being rubbed off due to rotating the model. I painted the guitar strap my standard leather colors which consist of: Snakebite Leather, Vomit Brown, and a thinned Rust Brown Ink. I also painted some studs Brazen Brass and some other metallic bits Boltgun Metal, Shining Silver, Tin Bitz, and Brazen Brass. I also used some Armor Wash on the chain on the model’s shoulder in particular.

I also painted the skulls on the cloak and on the shoulder pad at some point. I used Snakebite Leather over the black primer then a coat of Bleached Bone. I then washed it with thinned Rust Brown Ink. I then used more Bleached Bone and some Skull White. I did not paint the skulls on the base this way however.

For the mound of skulls on the base, I used a lot of different base coats. I used three different browns, grey, red, orange, burgundy… I didn’t want all the skulls to look the same. I then painted all the skulls Bleached Bone. I then used a variety of inks and washes: Brown, Rust Brown, Red and Rust Brown, Black, and Black with Yellow. Next came another coat of Bleached Bone. I didn’t want to highlight all the way to White but ended up using some anyway, however before I used white I used Beige from Vellejo range on some of the skulls. Then I did some more washes on some of the skulls and some more Bleached Bone, Skull White, and Vellejo Beige.

Finally I moved on to the face. I made sure it was good and black. I first painted the flesh Vomit Brown and the mask Snakebite Leather. I used Flesh Wash on the face, but both the pots I have suck so I quickly abandoned that. I used Rust Brown Ink with a little red thinned a lot for most of the face. I also used some black ink and yellow ink only on the mask. I used Dwarf Flesh and Elf Flesh on the face many coats and washes. I never was satisfied, particularly the eye inside the mask. The mask was mostly Vellejo Beige with a little Skull White.

The hair is Scorched Earth highlighted by mixing in Snakebite Leather. The eyes were white with a blue dot, I used a really old Citadel blue, most of my paints are really old. I keep throwing out pots and replacing them mainly with new Citadel colors but I also use some Vellejo paints now.

I’ll probably cross post pictures of this miniature at CoolMiniOrNot, once I get the logistics all worked out. I’m not saying it is my best work ever, but it is painted pretty well. Parts of it are painted better than others. I spent several weeks converting the model and painted it slowly while working on other models throughout September. Here is a higher resolution picture. All pictures were taken before sealing and not always with the best lighting FWIW.

Now I’m working on adding more highlights and lowlights to some of the older models in my Diseased Sons army. The oldest and least well painted models will eventually be stripped. I never expected to have so much time but things don’t always work out.

I eventually started a miniature painting blog but my post-MBA career has not gone well which isn’t a surprise to anyone paying attention during my MBA.

Now it is 2021 going on 2022 and I’m once again editing old blog posts to try and improve quality and to try and direct people to my lastest if not greatest work. In 2022 I hope to paint more, but Covid may continue to put a damper on most gaming plans. I now live in Calgary which is a bit ironic, but that’s a story I’m tried of telling. If you want to instead read my latest battle report and my first game of Warhammer 40,000 in seven years, boy do I have a blog post for you.

This entry was originaly posted on September 29th, 2006, it was last edited on April 29th, 2024 and is filed under: DIY, Hobbies, & Interests and tagged: 40K, Chaos Space Marines, Miniature Painting.