The Black Coach

By Anthony Karl Erdelji

The Black Coach is a perfect example that you don't have a model exactly like Games Workshop's version. Meaning, just because its called The Black Coach doesn't mean you have to paint it black. This model was also a good example showing how important it is to plan out a project before you start. As you will read, several of the problems I ran into while assembling and painting this model was due to my lack of planning.

When I bought the black coach I knew I wanted to be a special model, but I couldn't decide whether to convert the heck out of it or to give it an interesting paint job. I didn't want to do both because one look would take away from the other. I finally decided to go with the later and keep the conversion work to a minimum. I left off the skeleton horse's plumes and the banner pole. The flaming torches I replaced with skulls from the ends of a mounted wight's standard. I also added a carrion rider to back of the coach as a bodyguard.

I decide to paint and assemble the entire model in sections to make it easier to get to the hard to reach areas. The first problem I ran into was when I assembled the main section of the coach. The coach is made up of four pieces, a top, bottom, and two sides. The problem lies in trying to hold all for pieces together while the glue sets. If your not careful the sides may tilt while the glue dries and you wind up with a leaning coach. I used 5 minute epoxy glue so I would have enough time to get all four pieces together before the glue set. Even doing this my coach ended up slightly tilted. The rest of the coach went together smoothly. I left off the coffin, wraith, horses, carrion rider, and the horses harness. These would be painted separately.

Be sure to test fit the wraith in his seat before you glue him together. If you glue his two halves together wrong, he won't fit. Also the bell has to be glued on at an angle to make room for him. I didn't discover this until I tried to glue the wraith in place. I had to break the bell off and re-glue it in its new position.

For the paint scheme I decided to replicate a marble effect over the entire coach. Keeping with the paint scheme of my army I'm using red over my black. This marble technique will also work with blue or green or any number of colors.

After washing and drying the model I primered it black. I then brushed on a basecoat of black, making sure everything was well covered. For the marble, I began by taking Vallejo cadmium maroon plus a drop of dark red and using an old #4 flat brush I stippled it over the black in random patterns, keeping it light in some areas, heavier in others. To stipple, wipe some of the paint off of your brush like you would when drybrushing, but leave a little more. Take the brush and repeatedly "stab" the surface of the model. Try practicing on some scrap card until you get the paint consistence right. By the way, this will utterly destroy your brush. I wasted two brushes on this project. If you get too much of the red on the model, simple stipple over it with black to tone it down and try again. I went back and forth with black and cadmium maroon until I was happy. While I was stippling I realized that it would of been a lot easier to get to the undercarriage if I left the wheels off until I was done.

The next step was a light stippling of dark red. I only worked the dark red over the areas where my cadmium maroon was heavily concentrated. Following that was a very, very, light stippling of white. The white contrasts with the red well and helps to bring the red  out. For the veining, I used a 20/0 brush and thinned white and I carefully painted zig- zags all over the coach, just like painting lightning bolts. Actually, it didn't look anything like real marble veining should, but I was happy with the results.

For the gold trim I used Gunze Sangyo Mr. Metal Color brass. Its an extremely fine lacquer based metallic. The only down side of it is that acrylic washes tend to dry blotchy when applied. Still, I did managed to add some depth with chestnut then brown ink. I brushed the ink on then wiped it off the raised areas before it could dry entirely. The wood wheels and curtains were highlighted with dark gray, then light gray on the edges. Using gray to highlight black give the black a worn look.

The final step was several coats of Testors glosscoat. Normally I don't like using Testors gloss coat since it has a habit of coming out blotchy for me, but in this case the mixture of gloss and dull flecks help to bring out the look of the marble. I let the glosscoat set for 24 hours then brushed dullcoat on the skulls, wood areas of the wheels, and the curtains.

In the beginning, I was planning to glue the coffin lid onto the coffin, covering up the dead vampire. If you read the Vampire Counts book, the coffin is suppose to contain the dust, not a body. (Don't GW's sculptors read the history of the models they are sculpting?) I decide to leave the lid off instead. If he's there, I might as well paint him. Not being one to waste anything, I still painted the lid and glued it to the top of the inside of the coach. The lid and outside of the coffin was painted exactly like the coach. The vampire's skin was basecoated  with white and a couple drops of flesh. I shaded him with a flesh/purple wash mixture and highlighted with pure white. His clothes were basecoat black, highlighted with blue/black, then again with blue/gray along the edges. I sprayed the coffin with glosscoat then later brushed dullcoat onto the vampire. Both were then carefully slide inside the coach and glued into place.

The wraith driver and carrion rider were painted in the exact same color scheme. Both were sprayed with dullcoat and glued into place.The horses and assorted skulls were basecoated in buff, then highlighted with buff and white. I finished them with my standard black, burnt umber, and raw sienna oil wash.

I purchase some .080" thick sheet styrene to use as my base. Originally I wanted to glue the horses directly to the base without using GW's rectangle bases so both the horses and coach would be level. I then realized that it would be next to impossible to hold the horses in place while lining them up with the coach's harness and glue everything in place. My other option was to leave the horses on their bases and then raise the coach to their level. Using four extra cavalry bases and a lot of Testors red putty to fill in the gaps I made a nice flat surface to glue the coach to. The horses were glued and puttied into place and ground texture was added with Basetex. I then painted it dark brown, followed with a drybrush of flat earth, then with yellow brown. The entire base was sealed with Testors dullcoat. When dry,  static grass was glued in place with white glue and drybrushed  with yellow orche.

With the base done now it would be easier to line up the harness and the horses, right? Wrong! The harness would not fit around one of the horses and still line up with the center of the horse. After trying to bend the harness to fit with no luck I finally gave up and cut off the offending rib that was keeping it from fitting. The harness could then be centered and glued into place. One benefit of cutting off the rib was that I kinda liked the look! I liked it so much I used my knife and clippers to cut off and bend some of the other ribs. It added some character to the horses. With the harness now in place the final step was to glue it to the coach and then to glue and pin the coach to the base. All done!

Whew! An impressive model on the battlefield, but a pain to build. Though I can't blame Games Workshop for that. Most of the problems I had with this model were do to my bad planning. I could of finished this model a week earlier if I thought this through before starting.