This is the story of how this Deimos Pattern Rhino got painted.
The Rhino is the most widely used armoured personnel carrier in the Imperium. Based on ancient STC technology, the fundamental design is robust, reliable, and easy to maintain, with an adaptive power plant that can run off a wide variety of fuels, making it perfect for the wide-ranging armies of the Great Crusade – and the wars of the Horus Heresy. As such, the Rhino chassis serves as a basis for many other war machines, and these transports are produced in their thousands – several distinct patterns are in common use throughout the galaxy, with the heavily-armed Deimos being the most widespread amongst the Space Marine Legions.
I was pleased to see one of the new Horus Heresy releases announced at Warhammer Fest was the Plastic Deimos Pattern Rhino. So when it was available for pre-order I clicked through and ordered the kit from my local FLGS.
Looking at the sprues there are a lot of parts, a lot more parts than when the original plastic Rhino kit came out in the 1980s.
The model has many more parts and is a more detailed kit than the original plastic Rhino kit that came out in the 1980s.
It does go together quite easily, though I found some parts challenging.
I did think the rear door ramp was hard to attach.
Also ensuring there are no gaps with the top superstructure was a bit of a challenge.
I decided not to paint the interior, though I am tempted to get another kit and do the interior on that one.
I added the final parts to the model.
I went with a simplistic version, single bolters.
I have left the tracks off and will be painting those separately.
I gave the model a white undercoat.
I then let this dry. I also undercoated the tracks, which I left on the sprue.
As I have decided to go with the Imperial Fists I then sprayed the underneath of the model with Citadel Zandri Dust in preparation for painting the the whole model yellow.
This is designed to add shadow.
Games Workshop don’t do a yellow spray and I don’t have an airbrush. I did use a paint comparison site to find a close alternative to Yriel Yellow. The Daemonic Yellow spray from Army Painter seemed like a good choice, and my local FLGS had one in stock.
I gave the model a couple of light coats of Daemonic Yellow.
The rear view.
I will be painting the exhausts and bolters with Leadbelcher. The next step after that will be shading the model.
For the tracks, still on the sprue, I gave them a spray of Mechanicus Standard Grey.
I then picked out some details, the exhausts and bolters using Leadbelcher.
The next stage will be a Shade or a wash, haven’t decided yet.
The tracks for the Rhino after their a spray of Mechanicus Standard Grey. I then did a heavy drybrush of Gorthor Brown. The tracks, once dry, I then gave them a wash of Agrax Earthshade Shade.
After painting and shading them, I drybrushed them lightly, first with Leadbelcher. I then did a very light drybrush with Terminatus Stone.
I am quite pleased with how they have turned out. Once I have finished the main model I will affix them to the Rhino.
It was then onto shading the model. I used some Citadel Reikland Fleshshade Shade.
I then did some additional shading using some Citadel Seraphim Sepia Shade.
Didn’t quite get the result I was looking for. It now looks a little too old and battered, but I have decided I can work with that.
For the next stage I used some Citadel Layer Yriel Yellow. I took a large brush and gave the model, what I would call, a heavy drybrush. I put paint on the brush, and then used some kitchen towel to remove most of the paint, and then using a stippling process added paint to the model.
The plan was that this would take the flat surfaces of the model back to the base colour.
I then gave the model a light drybrush of Citadel Layer Dorn Yellow.
I had thought about doing some edge highlighting, but I realised that I didn’t really have the skill to do this.
I was quite pleased with how the model was looking.
I had painted the tracks on the sprue. These were removed from the sprue and using superglue I attached the tracks to the Rhino.
You have to be careful when attaching these, as they are specific to each side of the Rhino, but they do attach to the Rhino quite easily.
I touched up the tracks using Gorthor Brown and Leadbelcher.
I have been added details to the models such as the headlights and other features such as enhancing the towing hooks on the front.
For the front headlights I used Citadel Layer Dorn Yellow. I then did the protective grilles with Citadel Base Abaddon Black. I do need to touch and neaten these up before adding some Citadel Base Leadbelcher highlights. For the other lights in the headlights I used Citadel Base Mephiston Red.
For the towing hooks I used Citadel Shade Seraphim Sepia.
I also used Citadel Shade Seraphim Sepia to add some rust and shading effects to the tracks and some of the bolts.
Here is the Rhino on my desert terrain.
