I'll take the green in size 256

I've now completed the feet and ankle armor for my DreamForge Leviathan Crusader.  I cruised around the net to find what other paint schemes people had done and looked back at the initial background that was written for the Iron Core universe for inspiration on my paint scheme.

I came away with a couple of firm opinions.  First,  I won't be using camouflage or over the top Gothic style heraldry.  On the camouflage, it seems like a waste of time to camouflage a fifty foot tall robot.  On the heraldry, I found some very lovely painted examples, but they strayed too close to the Warhammer 40K aesthetic for me.  I'm not looking for a titan proxy.  I want the Crusader to stand on it's own merits.

In the end I opted for a dirty green color for the armor plates and I'll let the exposed mechanical bits remain dry-brushed metal.  I'm using a black primer, with a base coat of Army Painter "Army Green" spray.  To that I apply a couple of black washes and then I weather with some dark grey, metalics and some rust effects.

The weathering was a little ham-handed, as I haven't weathered anything this big in a while, but at tabletop distance, it holds together.  My plan is to have the most wear on the feet and then get cleaner as I work farther up the model.

I'm not really in love with the design style of the feet.  They are a little more pointy and Gothic than I'd like to see, but I'll get over it.  Any fear I had that the joints were too loose disappeared when I got the armor on.  With all of the fully painted parts put together, the feet and ankle joints are quite stiff.  I can still move them, but it is significantly harder now.  When complete this certainly won't be an action figure.

Here's a shot of the bottom of the foot and the first deviation to the instructions I've made.  The kit comes with a plastic base, but assuming that I ever use this guy on the tabletop, I'll want to make it removable.  The solution to that, as always is magnets.  The central foot pad had a circle at the center of the "x" just about  1/4" across.  It was easy to drill out this area and insert a 14" diameter, 1/8" tall rare earth magnet in each foot pad.  I plan to place an opposite pair into the model's base.  It will not be a terribly strong joint, but it should suffice for a static display model.  I've found in the past that when using magnets, the paint tends to chip out rather easily.  To prevent that, I used a triangular hole punch to create a thin spacer from .01" sheet styrene.

Things are actually progressing a little faster than I had imagined and I should have the leg and knee armor done this week.  Famous last words I know, but this project might finish up faster than I planned.