Bleak Brotherhood CSM test model

[Plague Dave]

Hey all.

So after years, and about 2500 pts of painting pure Death Guard (and one Berserker squad), I decided I would add to my horde by including a renegade CSM squad to give me the option of fielding heavy weapons once in a while.

After scanning the codex, and various things online, I chose the Bleak Brotherhood. For one, the only bit of fluff for them mentions they were at the Cadian Gate, and my legion of Typhus' Death Guard also hang out in that area. For two, they looked like a super fast, easy-ish paint scheme (mostly solid black). And for three, I can't recall ever seeing any others painted up outside of a termie on GW's site (and that didn't even stay true to the scheme).

So here's my test model:

Given that I have horrible free-hand, I don't think he turned out too badly at all. The bull (?) skull symbol in particular turned out 'good enough' [i fixed that little bubble on that shoulder after noticing it in the pics]. And just as I'd hoped, he was a lot faster to paint than my Plague Marine scheme - done in a couple hours vs most of a day.

The main concern I still have is highlighting black. I don't want to make it pop on the edges with a straight-up gray highlight like I do on the tubes and joints, but the slightly lightened up black I did in places just looks odd to me.

Thoughts? Comments?

And thanks for looking.

[templarboy]

I really like the test model. The blue looks great. If your grey highlight looks odd, try a really dark blue. It might be more harmonius. You should also look into using homemade decals for the legion symbol. Your free hand is fine but I am in love with making my own decals. Freehand is really frustrating for me.

[Captain Hwarang]

My black recipe of late has been charadon granite with a badab black wash, highlighted with charadon granite, highlighted with adeptus battlegray, and highlighted with codex gray. But be warned though: it's not black.

 

Another option would be to start with the chaos black undercoat, and then try the above recipe, being sure to leave a significant amount of chaos black under the first layer of charadon granite.

 

That could be more work than you're willing to do though. It doesn't take too long. I'll try to post a pic of one of my test models soon too so you can see what I'm talking about.

 

Also, the dark blue highlight suggestion made by templar boy sounds like a good idea as well.

 

Good job.

 

-Captain Hwarang

[Muskie]

There are some good flame painting tutorials and over black it is dead easy. In fact you could just paint the model green then shape the flames with black. I did something like that on the insignia for the Hakanor's Reavers tutorial.

 

Good luck, maybe do a second test model. I've done two test bezerkers and I did four test models before I decided how I was going to do the black for the Nefarious Fire.

 

Cheers,

[Plague Dave]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I might have to see what I could do with a blue highlight. I know I've seen it before on other models that have looked alright.

 

I'll also check out some of those flame painting tutorials, and look around the internet for homemade decal info. The latter would certainly save some time.