Shadow Force Dragomir - A Raven Guard Army

[Dosjetka]

*headdesk* Damnit, missed those photos. I was looking at the ones towards the top of the page. Guess I need to visit the Apothecarium, my Occulobe implant seems to be on the fritz again...

Don't worry, it happens B)

 

Ludovic

[SCC]

OK, the Librarium Painting Challenge has been met, my vow is complete and I have a playable force for the first time in years. So, the next phase is to expand the army with some Fast Attack, the last Tactical squad and some vehicles. The first steps have already been taken with my first bike constructed and two more Tac Marines completed. The following steps include knocking out a transport for the Second of the Fourth - the Rhino Moriorum:

Regulation Rhino with some FW gubbinz - eagle on the front armour, RG Tac symbols from the etched brass set and some skulls and purity seals. Contrary to what you may imagine the inside hasn't been left plain grey, it's actually Tamiya spray TS-66 IJN Gray, it's damn near a match to plain plastic though isn't it? Overall the Rhino looks nice and RG without being too bling I think. Note sure how I'm going to do the etch on the doors, all white? White Tac arrow and black raven? And I also need to remember to pick out a few plates in white to make sure it's visibly different from Justus Mors even at a distance on the tabletop.

The front plate was a swine to fit, warped (cured with warm water), ill-fitting (the visor slots were the wrong size, I had to break the resin, extend it and GS the gap to fit the visor and finally the whole thing was too small. That was cured with a few bits of plasticard and some putty, though not a terribly good job of it.

The inside paint job was a swifty, IJN gray as the base coat, highlighted with Codex Grey and the details quickly picked out. Given how rarely I open the things it seemed a waste to spend too much time on it so I went with tabletop quality and left it at that...

[Dorns Padawan]

Still very impressed every time I view the thread SCC. Are you going to have any other 'main characters' aside from Dragomir? Rhino is looking nice, I like the purity seals on the inside, nice touch!

[Ravendove]

OK, the Librarium Painting Challenge has been met, my vow is complete and I have a playable force for the first time in years. So, the next phase is to expand the army with some Fast Attack, the last Tactical squad and some vehicles. The first steps have already been taken with my first bike constructed and two more Tac Marines completed. The following steps include knocking out a transport for the Second of the Fourth - the Rhino Moriorum

 

Congratulations on getting a playable force finished. Only just got there myself so I know what a great feeling it is. Your Rhino interior looks fantastic, very subtle and muted - just like the Raven Guard should be - but still clean and crisp. Grey was a bit of an unorthodox choice, one I haven't seen before, but it really works. Nice touch with the purity seals.

 

As for the painting on the door I would personally do it white arrow with black symbol. While I think the whole white doors would look sweet, it feels a little overt. Depends on how much you want your vehicle to stand out or blend in with your infantry.

[celes]

I had the same problem with my FW rhino parts, are the side doors too small as well? I'm so jealous of people who paint established chapters, they get access to so much cool stuff like those brass etch tac arrows. If only FW made stuff with eclipse symbols, I'd be laughing. Did you make any more progress on the apothecary or has he been shelved for now?

[Metal Apostle]

You'd think that black marines can only look so good but man... these are something else altogether! I'd say Forgeworld needs to start paying you soon for advertising!

[SCC]

Are you going to have any other 'main characters' aside from Dragomir? Rhino is looking nice, I like the purity seals on the inside, nice touch!

Well, I like to think each of my Marine is a main character :P

 

But in terms of HQ or marquee type models, well, I have a First Company veteran (in game Captain) and his squad of veterans there to provide advice to young Dragomir, so they'll be fairly pimp-tastic in a Raven Guard way and there's also the lovely FW RG Venerable Dreadnought to do, he'll be quite the character I imagine.

 

@Ravendove: I thought about the usual bleached bone or even a metallic interior but in the end decided to go with grey as more 'functional' and in keeping with my vision of the RG. Glad to hear folks think it's working along with the minor detailing inside.

 

@Celes: The Rhino doors from the eagle door set (matched with the front plate used here and an unused as yet rear ramp) are tiny, they fit the FW extra armour perfectly but would be nigh useless for regular Rhino doors. Given how well they fit that may be intentional but it's daft if you ask me, what if I'd only bought the EA or the eagle door set and not both? Maybe the website said something about it and I missed it? Oh well, at least I did buy both, eh...

 

@MetalApostle: Thanks man, I'd be perfectly happy if, one day when the army was finished, it featured on the GW or FW website or something, no payment required ;) I got my Brazen Claws in the letters page of UK WD a few years ago so it'd be nice to repeat the feat with the RG.

[SCC]

OK, so I've had a number of requests for a tutorial for painting my version of the RG and more for how I paint black in general. Not many, but enough that I thought there'd be some value to me taking pictures at each step of my painting process for a standard Marine. However, neither my back nor eyes nor hands will let me sit and paint a Marine in one sitting so I'm going to take my usual time and pause to take photos as I go.

As a result this tutorial is going to take me several days to put together but as a result you can paint along at home even if you're a slow painter like me! As usual we're aiming for the higher end of table top quality with the miniature and our mantra will be 'play, not display!' I'll assemble a full tutorial from the bits and pieces I post for those who want a simple document to refer to at the end of it all. Please feel free to chip in with your own advice and opinions, I'll grab the best tips and tips for the finished tutorial!

Now, being lazy and an aficionado of good painting/modelling tutorials I'll link you to OwlandMoonGuy's excellent pre-painting primer article from the B&C's Librarium - Cleaning, Preparing (& Converting) Models instead of taking photos of my preparation and building phases. My prep/assembly process is essentially the same as OMG's so follow his guide and you'll have a good base to work from. If you're new to modelling/painting also take a look at OMG's Common Issues for New Modeller's thread, there are some great tips for beginners in there.

Normally I don't glue the helmet in place but I have for this model so that I can line up the arms & bolter properly when I get around to gluing them on. I've done this so that the overall pose of the model (carefully posed to look like he's stepped up to the concrete bar in the foreground when in fact it's a pair of plain old regular Marine legs) maintains the watchful, aware intensity I'm aiming for with this pose. The direction he's looking in is and the angle of the helm are key to that so I've glued it in place right from the start to make sure I carry it through.

Having done my prep and glue the head, legs and torso into one I've then primed the mini:

The arms/bolter are just tacked on at the moment to show you the pose, they'll be painted separately along with the shoulder pads and backpack. You can also see here that I've included my basing as part of the prep work, I do this regardless of whether or not the base is part of the pose (as it is here) simply so I can hit it with the black spray undercoat so I can work up from there.

Having primed and dried the mini my next step is to tidy up any areas the basecoat missed, like the inside thigh/underside of the groin (always a problem area to reach, eh, eh? :) :) , nudge, nudge ) as shown here with Chaos black:

That done I'll wait for everything to dry before moving to the next stage - the first highlight. While I'm waiting I might take some photos of the gear we'll be using in this tutorial.

[SCC]

OK, it's a little bass-ackward but here are the recipes and equipment we'll be using to paint our Raven Guard Marine.

Brushes:

A Privateer Work Brush and a Kappel size 0 Kolinsky sable brush will take care of our needs for this mini. For the base I usually just grab a beaten and battered old brush for drybrushing the rubble and sand etc.

Mediums:

I use a piece of white plasticard as a palette and I often use some of these mediums to help me with the painting process. The acrylic thinner is used for...thinning obviously. The retarder helps slow the drying process and is great for doing really simple almost wet-blending and the flow medium helps make sure things flow smoothly.

As well as mixing these mediums with paint on the palette I often add them straight to GW or P3 paints to thin them out and make them a little more usable. Vallejo I like as they are so I leave 'em alone (plus it's really hard to get things into dropper bottles!).

Raven Guard Black:

The basic black is pretty simple:

1. Spray undercoat black
   
2. Tidy with Chaos Black and Badab Black Wash
   
3. Broad highlights of 'RG Black' (a very, very dark grey I made from approx. 1 part VMC German Grey to 3 parts Chaos black with just a touch of Foundation Adeptus Battlegrey to tie it to the highlights).
   
4. Badab Black Wash
   
5. Fine highlight of 50/50 RG Black/ Adeptus Battlegrey
   
6. Final highlight of ABG
   
7. Black lining with Micron pen and/or Black Ink
   
8. Black wash as required to tone down anything too bright
   
9. Touch up highlights as required
   

I know, I know, I said it was pretty simple then listed a whole bunch of steps. The simple part is the fact that covering mistakes and making adjustments is a cinch with black, worst comes to worst you just whip out the Chaos black and start over :D Having made things simple I'll make them unsimple and note that whilst this is the basic black it always varies from mini to mini, just a little, as you'll see as I put up the various steps.

Aquila White Recipe:

This is the recipe I've been using to knock out white areas on my RG:

1. Foundation Astronomicon Grey
   
2. Vallejo Pale Grey Wash
   
3. Reaper Dragon White
   

I pretty much slather them on in that order, the Vallejo wash helps give depth and definition where necessary. For an area like the Aquila I'll also often use black ink or the Micron pen to define the feathers.The Codex Grey is there only for large areas, so I won't use it on this mini but it's there for completion's sake.

Yellow Eyes Recipe:

1. F Calthan Brown
   
2. F Tausept Ochre
   
3. F Iyanden Darksun
   
4. VGC Gold Yellow
   
5. VGC Sunblast Yellow
   
6. VMC 915 Deep yellow
   

I'm still working on this recipe but again, I just work them onto the eyes in the listed order. I make sure to use the retarder for this and try to get each layer on quickly to smooth the blend.

Tactical Marking Green:

This guy will join a Tac squad so he'll have a green rim to indicate that. The green is pretty simple:

1. Orkhide Shade
   
2. VGC Dark Green
   
3. Snot Green
   
4. Scorpion Green
   

Goes on in that order with a little retarder and flow aid to smooth the transitions.

Metals:

Now, there's a lot of metals in this picture but generally I'll just use three. For this mini I'll likely use my homemade gunmetal blue and the two standard GW metals. The Vallejo air stuff is interesting, loads of metal and reflectivity in there but not much flaking, it's designed for airbrushing so I'm still trying to get a handle on painting it with a brush.

Basing:

And finally, here's the stuff I'll use for the base:

1. Charadon Granite
   
2. Khemri Brown
   
3. Industrial City Dirt powder
   
4. Dheneb Stone
   
5. Industrial City Dirt powder
   
6. Standard Rust powder
   

The ICD powder gets put on twice, the first time a little more heavily, the second round is much lighter.

[Dosjetka]

Thanks for the tutorial SCC, it really is appreciated, by myself, at least. So, again, thanks a lot :D

 

Ludovic

Edited March 28, 2011 by Battle-Brother Ludovic

[SCC]

First Highlights:

OK, so the first stage in highlighting the black is the broad highlights of RG Black:

You can see the first stage of the eyes has been done here, the thinned Calthan Brown needs another coat to cover things fully though.

As you can see, when I say 'broad' I mean it. I find it easier to 'backfill' with black than I do to paint the initial highlights to be honest - it just seems easier to judge where those initial highlights should be once everything is highlighted.

The next step will be a thinned wash of Badab Black to tone things down a touch. After that I'll touch things up with the RG Black mix in the areas that'll get the first RGB/ABG highlight.

[SCC]

Second Stage:

OK, so at this stage the black armour has been washed, toning down the first highlights nicely. I've touched up a few areas with the RBG mix and then given the eyes a second coat of Calthan Brown, cabling has been done in red and the first stage of the metals (my home-grown gunmetal blue) has been laid down too. Finally Astronomicon Grey has been laid down on the Aquila, you can see that's a little untidy at this stage, there's some white on the armour and the Aquila needs some more layers to make a good strong base.

Next step is a heavy wash for the metallics and the first RBG/ABG highlight layer. I'll also layer on some more red and Astro Grey to smooth out the bases for the cabling and Aquila.

[SCC]

Third Stage Highlights:

OK, so in these images you can see the next level of highlighting for the black . You can also see the results of washing the metals - the joints have much more definition now:

You can see here how I've brightened the highlights on the black - instead of just a straight 50/50 mix of RBG/ABG I've added an extra dab of one colour or the other to the mix here and there to give the highest points higher highlights and left the less obvious places with less highlighting. This is most obvious on the back of the left leg in these shots - the flared area above the heel has a brighter highlight whilst the area behind the left knee isn't as obviously highlighted.

All the work has been done with the Privateer brush, it's about a size 1, so I have control but plenty of paint so I'm not constantly going back to pot/palette for more. That means I can work relatively quickly and keep the paint moist (with the help of the retarder medium) so I can adjust the highlights as I go.

You can also see why I prefer to go back and fill in the black areas, my hands need a lot of rest to be steady enough to do fine detail so I work the highlights quickly and relatively roughly while my hands are OK but wait 'til my hands are good before going back in with the Kappel for the teeny-tiny stuff.

So far I'm at about 75 minutes of painting for this guy across a five or six hour period and the main body of the figure is now coming in to focus. He'll be left to fully dry over night - the retarder obviously adds to drying times - and I'll come back to him tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll lay down the fine highlights and if my hands are up to it paint and ink in the black areas. That'll help make sure that my black looks black instead of the dark grey it appears to be now in some places. It's a balancing act but, provided you have good light, one that isn't too hard at all.

We'll also try and knock over some of the detail tomorrow - eyes/lenses, Aquila, cabling and the metallics. That's it for today though, if anyone out there is painting along be sure and sing out and maybe show us some pictures!

One last note - the last thing I do when I'm done painting for the day is to properly clean my brush(es). I use some Master's brush cleaner - basically soap for paint brushes - to clean all the colour I can out of the brush, give them a good rinds and store them upright for the night. Even the brushes I use, which are mid-range at $15-20AU a pop are worth looking after properly, even if the money isn't an issue if you care about results you'll get better ones if you care about your brushes.

[Olis]

Excellent tutorial SCC, I shall find it useful for tweaking my black clad marines. Thankyou.

[SCC]

Highlighting Stage #4

Here we're at the final basic step of highlighting - Adeptus Battle Grey is added to the highest points in a very fine line:

Here you can see very fine lines of ABG on the tops of the knees, the helmet ridge and the feet.

From the back the flared area over the heel has been highlighted as has the lower side of the back of the right knee, which, like the flared areas, juts out and catches the imaginary light from the imaginary sun above the mini.

Shading

I know, I know, shading a black mini is counter-intuitive but these pics will show what a difference some shading can make even to a black mini:

I've used both my Micron pen and Black Ink here. The pen has been used to darken the panel lines, you can see the difference on the thigh panels quite well in this shot. I've also inked in some of the areas I'd over painted with my original broad highlights, looking at the thigh panels again you can see how I've used the ink to darken the panels but leave the highlights intact around the edges so they stand out more.

From the back you can see the slight sheen left by the inking, that'll get killed by the Dull Cote that is the last stage of the painting process. I've also tidied up the whites, red and yellows at this stage, they're now at their base levels. They'll be highlighted next and then we'll move on to the arms and backpack.

[SCC]

Detail Highlighting Stage #1

OK, the black is, by and large, done so now we're going to move on to highlighting the detail:

The eyes have had some Iyanden Darksun added to the front 2/5ths or so and the back 2/5ths has has two washes of Devlan Mud leaving the middle third Tausept Ochre.

The cables have had two coats of very thin Gore Red applied to the upper halves and the metals have had Boltgun metal added to those areas standing out the most. The Aquila has also been very quickly highlighted, Dragon White has been added to the tips of the feathers and the upper half of the eagle body. I then used the Kappel brush to carefully dark line the recesses between feathers with straight Black Ink.

You can also just see the blue and red detailing on the right leg and underneath the helmet targeter respectively. The recipe there is simple, prepare your base, mid and high tones on your palette, only a tiny amount is needed, be sure to add a little retarder to each. The base colour is then applied all over the detail in question. Without cleaning the brush add some mid colour from your palette and paint on the top half of an imaginary 45 degree line across the detail. Finally, still without washing the brush, add the highlight colour on the top edge of that top half.

If you work quickly over these small areas the paint will essentially wet blend itself and give you nice simple details, here's a close up of the blue on the leg, you can also see the metal highlights well:

This photo also shows that I need to straighten that panel highlight a bit too. I find photos to be pretty useful for spotting this kind of thing I have to admit, it's easy when you're painting a model to simply not see issues like this but when on-screen they really stand out. Flash lines and areas of missed base coat also stand out in digital photography for some reason, perhaps because the images are so much larger than real life.

The recipes I used for these spot details were:

Blue

• Mordian Blue
  
• Ultramarine Blue
  
• VGC Magic Blue (Enchanted Blue works just as well)
  

Red

• VMC Cadmium Maroon Red
  
• Red Gore
  
• Macharius Solar Orange
  

[SCC]

OK, so the eyes are a little closer to completion and I've tidied up the detail highlights to the point where I'm happy with them for a tabletop Marine:

I've also hit the base with Charadon Granite as the basecoat. So far we're at about 2 hours of actual painting over an 8 or 9 hour period.

[SCC]

Basing

The base is at the mid-stage now, after the Charadon Granite basecoat I painted the beam and building rubble ABG, the sand/rocks/earth were painted with Khemri Brown then given a light drybrush of Dheneb Stone. The whole base wash then washed with thinned Badab Black and straight Devlan Mud to take the whitish edge of the Dheneb and make it look worn and dirty:

The last step for the base is the weathering powder and highlighting the building rubble and beam.

Arms

The arms are a microcosm of the black armour:

Same steps, same result (hopefully), thus giving a uniform finish to the armour of the Marine. Cabling is red to match that on the legs and the metallics are facsimiles of the leg joints.

Next up will be the backpack and bolter, followed by shoulder pads and markings. The arms were done in 25 minutes including 5 minutes for the stage by stage snapshots so all up we're just passing 2.5 hours now.

[SCC]

Arms & Bolter

OK, the arms have dried nicely overnight and they're now ready to be added to the Marine. The joins for the arms were lightly scored with some sandpaper before being glued in place and left to dry. Once they were set I added the bolter with some superglue as it's resin.

With the arms done I treat the bolter in the same way - first step is to tack it to a bottle lid so I can paint it without touching it with my fingers and then to touch up any missing areas of primer. I'm aiming to keep my RG deliberately dark so I've opted for a black case for the bolter, painted the same way as the armour, with muted metallics. The bolter is spiced up a little with a white RG symbol and some bright cartridges in the magazine:

From side on you can also see the very basic lens I've done for the sight, as I've said before lenses aren't a strong point of mine despite years of trying to follow GW's recipe and any other I can lay my hands on. For this lens I've kept things simple and followed the same method as for painting the blue spot details listed earlier.

[SCC]

Backpack

OK, we're at the last stages of painting now, just the pads and pack to go. The backpack receives the same highlighting as the rest of the armour:

Again, I've added just a touch of colour by painting the panel inset on the pack, it's nothing overwhelming but helps make sure the mini isn't too dark and drab. Painting the inset took just a few minutes and it's one of those things that fellow modellers will notice you've taken the time to do, even for a tabletop force, and will appreciate.

Shoulder Pads

I paint the basic details onto the pads before I add them to the arms simply so that I don't end up splattering paint everywhere trying to reach those hard to reach places that crop up once you put the pack and pads on a mini:

One pad is black so gets the standard treatment - my RG Black mix is the first highlight. Again to save my hands I'm fairly liberal with this first highlight, we'll come back and tidy it up later. The right shoulder pad gets a green rim to mark the Marine as belonging to a Tactical Squad. This is achieved with two thin coats of Foundation Orkhide Shade, this gives a nice dark green base to work from as you can see above.

2nd Highlight

The second highlights were applied to the pads before they were attached to the mini along with the backpack. I add the pack at the same time as the pads so I can see where it would obscure the pads from our imaginary lightsource and make sure I don't highlight those areas beyond the basic highlights.

You can also see I've used thinned Snot Green over the entire green rim not hidden by the backpack to brighten the colour up and help it stand out more from the black pad without getting too bright and taking away from our subdued look. The black pad has been hit with the 50/50 RBG/ABG highlight at this stage.

Final Highlight, Shading & Basing

Here the pads have received their final, very fine highlight. Straight ABG for the black pad and a 50/50 mix of Snot and Scorpion Green for the green trim. Note that these are applied only to the upper edges and those that would catch the light the most.

After that I've shaded the black by using a Micron pen to ink in any panel lines and to give some definition to the area where the pad meets the trim. I've then used some Black Ink to tidy up the black trim on the left shoulder and some Badab Black wash to tone down that first highlight on the main areas of the pad. The green has been shaded by carefully painting two thinned coats of Baal Red wash down the centre of the trim, the red darkens the green without making it muddy or dirty like a black wash would.

Finally I've added a very light dusting of MiG weathering powders to the base to give it some depth. A touch of Light Rust has been used on the beam, focusing on the bolts and Industrial Earth has been used more liberally on the rest of the base, including over the beam itself, to represent dust, detritus and debris swirling across the broken planet and settling on the little that remains of the city.

We've now basically finished painting the miniature except for the decals and final Dull Cote varnishing and all up we're at just over 3 hours across 2 days.

[Barn]

Thats a fantastic guide mate, thanks!

 

Do these guys get out much? I'd be keen to see them in the flesh ;)

[Race Bannon]

I don't mean to break the tutorial flow but did you find the front FW Eagle plate smaller than the space it'll fit in? The only fix I can think of is gren stuff.

[SCC]

Yeah Race, it was about 2.5mm short in height and about 1mm shy in width. The width wasn't a huge issue as the plastic piece is a tight fit sideways so the FW piece just needed glue, it was more obvious height wise though. I used some plasticard strips to build out from the chassis to meet the FW piece and then sealed the gap, I just didn't do much of a job sealing the gap really. I've cleaned it up a little since those shots were taken so it shouldn't be too bad on the finished product.

[SCC]

And the tutorial is now complete and has been turned into a PDF for your convenience:

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?automodule=downloads&req=display&code=ss&id=520

I added a little info on how I add decals to my minis and a shot of the completed mini:

[Yogi]

Really nice stuff. Very cool. Not sure about the colour of the libbys staff though.