Hobby | Mechanical Horrors of the Deep

With the ghost ship now painted and completed, I had one more major piece of nautical folklore to add to Black Seas. The kraken is such a famous bit of lore, so much so that I'd be remiss if I didn't include one. Luckily, Dreadfleet also has a kraken model, albeit of a mechanical variety. Very 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea-esque. One could almost see Captain Nemo piloting this about. 

In Dreadfleet this "ship" belongs to the Chaos Dwarves, and as such has this huge dwarven emblem on the mantle of the kraken. This would be fine if I was leaving it solidly in fantasy land, but since I was bringing this model into our world, it'd be a tad strange if there were dwarven iconography all over. So I scraped it off and smoothed it out. Honestly, I like it better this way, so it wasn't a hard decision to come to. 

Otherwise the model is exactly as it comes in the box. In the lore of Dreadfleet, this is known as the Black Kraken, and most people I see go with a black or dark metallic color scheme. I wanted something that at first glance might fool the eye into thinking it was organic, before revealing on closer inspection that it is in fact a mechanical monstrosity. So I pulled out the same Ochre Yellow/Dragon Red mix I've been using, but I leaned more into the yellow side of things. 

A drybrush of GW Ryza Rust all over gave me a very vibrant orange that contrasts splendidly with the water base. The water is the same recipe that I used on the Ghost Ship: a base of Tallasar Blue Contrast Paint, washed with Army Painter Blue Tone then drybrushed with Army Painter Deep Azure, then further drybrushed with successively lighter mixtures of Deep Azure with GW Flayed One Flesh. I then dabbed bright white on the crests of the waves, and washed GW Nuln Oil into the deepest recesses to get a nice contrast going. After I varnished the model I went back over with GW Ardcoat to get that glossy look to it. 

The mechanical bits are quite simple. For the gunmetal, I painted AP Gunmetal, then washed with Riekland Fleshshade and a bit of GW Biel-Tan Green, before a final drybrush of AP Shining Silver. The gold I started with AP Rough Iron, then GW Retributor Armor over that, leaving a thin line of the Rough Iron showing through to give some built-in shading to the gold metal. In some places I didn't cover it in any gold, to keep those areas darker. 

The eye is super simple, a Vallejo Lime Green base washed with GW Biel-tan Green. The water droplets around the tentacles use the same water recipe, just no drybrushing, only good old-fashioned edge highlighting. 

That's the model. Fairly simple, albeit tedious to get all of the colors clean. It has been a nice palate cleanser while sticking within the nautical theme. The colors are very vibrant, even more so when you put it next to a ship. 

 -The Space Dinosaur