This is Part III of my deep-dive review on the Questoris Knights kit for Legions Imperialis (Part I, Part II).

 

I was pleasantly surprised with how these Knights painted up. I’m of course, a medium sized avian with a bad attitude, so take my opinions as presented with a grain of salt. Or bread. A big chunk of bread. *HONK*

 

Now, where was I? Right. I’m showing off the way these Questoris Knights are painted to show what a decidedly average painter can do with the model. Too often I find that photos show these professionally painted masterpieces that can be extremely intimidating to look at. Mine are not that, they’re solidly tabletop ready. Tabletop Plus, if you’re feeling generous.

 

I hope you look at these photos and feel motivated to go out there and lay brush to model, and focus on improving a little bit every model. If there’s one thing to remember, unless you’re playing Emperor’s Children, you can never achieve “Perfection”. (Disclaimer: Neither can the Emperor’s Children, but don’t let Fulgrim hear you say that)

 

Questoris Knights, Painted?

 

I used mainly traditional acrylic paints for these Questoris Knights. I did try to mix in some of the newer contrast paints to see how well they worked with the designs though and I’ll highlight when I did.

 

All of the models were primed black using Games Workshop Chaos Black spray. You can use other sprays if you so choose, but I have found that I like the coverage and surface finish that Chaos Black gives. It’s also readily available to me, so that’s a big plus. (Much like the Swiss flag.)

 

Knight #1 – Bob

 

 

Bob has the misfortune of being the first Knight I attempted to paint, so he has a bit of an odd finish. I normally do a three stage drybrush to layer underneath my main colours (I find it gives a bit more dynamic range to the base colours, when thinned). However, when I laid on the drybrush using my normal Battletech approach, I found it was too thick, and left a discernible texture to the model.

 

So, rule #1 of drybrushing these guys, very, very light drybrush.

 

I used a warm tone grey underneath, (ProAcryl Dark Warm Grey, ProAcryl Warm Grey and ProAcryl Bright Warm Grey) each progressively lighter, covering less of the model. I then quartered out the areas that I wanted to do the split with (ProAcryl Dark Blue and ProAcryl Bold Pyrrole Red)

 

They worked out nicely overtop, as I often find ProAcryl paints do. A 2:1 thinning of paint drops to water drops worked nicely and gave me a decently smooth finish, despite my earlier mistake.

 

I trimmed him out in gold metallic. I opted for ProAcryl Rich Gold on Bob. This is because I wanted to keep it a very yellow gold tone for his trim. Historically, I would have reached for a Scale75 Metal N’Alchemy paint for this job. However, I found that they work better for larger trim surfaces since they require a couple of passes. The ProAcryl metallic however, was nearly the perfect consistency when I put it on my palette.

 

Once this was done, I painted up his livery with his initial. (R for Robert, of course) Painted up a white starburst (ProAcryl Plum and Ivory respectively) and finished up the rest of the exposed workings with Vallejo Metal Air Steel.

 

A wash of GW Nuln Oil to give some shadow and a GW Drakenhoof Nightshade on the base finished up the model.

 

Knight #2 – Doug

 

 

For Doug, I tried to use some GW Contrast paints to examine how the approach would work. After, I used the same three stage grey drybrush overtop of the black primer that I used on Bob, however with a decidedly lighter touch.

 

I used ProAcryl Dark Green paint mixed with ProAcryl Green to achieve a very nice mid-green that I opted to leave in place, rather than play with further.

 

To paint the yellow, I started with a ProAcryl Magenta pass overtop of the grey drybrush. I find this gives a much warmer finish to the Yellow tone when laid underneath. I then covered over it with a generous coat of GW Imperial Yellow contrast paint. Lo and behold, a reasonably okay yellow with a minimum of fuss.

 

I used GW Black Legion contrast to paint the black trim. I was pleasantly surprised with how well it stuck into the work area. The instinct to take a dollop of the contrast paint (admittedly, one that is encouraged by how thin it is) hides a real value for doing work like this. I did have a bit of minor leakage though. Usually caused by too much loaded onto the brush. It did remarkably well overall for a contrast paint. I finished the visor in GW Soulstone Red and the planet and starbursts used the same ProAcryl green mix and the ProAcryl Ivory I used on Bob.

 

The metallic work was Vallejo Metal Air Steel, which is honestly my go-to dark silver metallic paint. I cannot recommend them enough. The yellow received a wash of GW Agrax Earthshade, and the green received a little bit of GW Kroak Green.

 

Knight #3 – James Wilhelmson Von Astrick IV (We call him Steve, he hates it)

 

 

Steve, as we call him, is probably my favourite Knight in the batch.

 

The green is ProAcryl Jade, which is just an absolutely gorgeous colour, paired against the ProAcryl Dark Blue. Coincidentally, Dark Blue wasn’t originally going to be the colour to go against the Jade. The plan was set on using a Purple or possibly a red. I just happened to grab the wrong ProAcryl bottle. I paired the two colours against ProAcryl Copper for the trim. This was because I wanted a more brownish gold tone. Overall, it turned out pretty good as far as a palette is concerned.

 

I used the same Vallejo Metal Air Steel, GW Soulstone Red and ProAcryl Bold Pyrrole Red that I used before to finish up bits of the model.

 

Conclusions

 

Overall I would say that the Knights were straightforward to paint. There were only a few spots that were tough to get the brush into. Those spots, conveniently enough, require the person checking out the model to look up the Knight’s pauldrons (scandalous!)

 

I’m not sold on the Nightshade for concrete, and might do a bit of a drybrush of something to bring it back towards a grey. It might clash pretty aggressively against the Civitas Imperialis terrain that the game is aimed at.

 

I hope you enjoyed this breakdown, and I look forward to seeing some painted Questoris Knights out there on the tabletop soon!

 

*HONK*