Blood Angels Blog

[darkwrath]

Nice work mate, good to see you getting your painting mojo back :D

[Blindhamster]

Hey folks, been a while since last update, and as the image was so poor (or maybe the painting/content I don't know...) I got no real feedback. So figured I'd wait till I had something a teeny bit more substantial.

The first half of 3rd Company 1st Squad Kano is approaching 'completion' I use the term loosely as I still need to do purity seals/scrolls, paint bone areas, finish the gold on all but the sergeant and left handed bolter marine, highlight black, paint the silver areas etc etc. BUT! the red is done on them, I need to add trompe l'oeil to the left handed marine and kneeling marine, but I'm pretty happy with first ever attempts at trompe l'oeil on the sergeant, mk3 three marine and the 'heroic posed marine' as I've been referring to him. I plan to also do some sponge weathering with a grey-black-brown mixture just lightly on lower legs, and then use light earth and dark sand weathering powders on the legs of these guys.

Group Shot - this is the latest image of them I have, it's more recent than the pictures that follow:

couple of pics from yesterday, these are prior to adding a little extra chipping in spots suggested by darkwrath/lorenzen

Mk3:

Sergeant - now has the chipping added, he's actually had a tiny bit more done on his toes since this pic.

Heroicly posed squad member, gold has moved on a step in the Space hulk tutorial since this pic, black was done on his neck, some extra chipping added to toes:

Lefty - He has had the final highlights since this picture, no chipping added yet, I removed his arm to paint the winged blood drop, and I think the gold is probably the best gold I've painted to date... added the gun again and it is quite literally completely obscured :(

only angle I can get of it:

Deadline for the entire squad is sadly looming and I'm nowhere near that lofty goal (I've got one member of second half at a similar stage to these guys, the rest are a long way behind). I'm going to paint the priest before finishing the squad though, as of all the chaps doing this (darkwrath, lorenzen and daemonprincedargor) I pledged the most in my initial 250 points, and as I've not completed an entire squad since my blood angels 4th company (which took months to do that single squad) I probably bit off more than I could really chew!

other than this stuff, I've now got 6 Vanguard Veterans built, and I also touched up Tychos face (eye in particular) as I found my fine detail brush which significantly makes up for my sometimes poor brush control.

I will be ordering some stuff from Forgeworld soon, most importantly for these guys, I'll be ordering BA transfers and then Lorenzen is showing me how to use them!

Comments and Suggestions would be most welcome :)

[Hiroitchi]

Those are awesome pieces man, I especially dig the Sergeant. Are you going to go more into detail with the banners and skulls like you have with the rest of your minatures. BTW crisp flesh and what was your Red color mix?

[marine7312000]

The squad is looking really good. Don't feel bad, I tend to take excesive time painting myself.

[Adeptus-Alaska]

this army is GORGEOUS! I am in awe man! well done

[Tyrannicide]

The red really does it for me. The silky smooth finish is everything it should be for an army of Blood Angels. Thank you for the recipe.

 

I hate to nag, but I would be grateful if you were to explain how you repose and sculpt PA legs. It's something I'm trying to incorporate more myself though I'm not nearly as good as you at it. I've tried looking at the few WIP photos you have, but if you have the time and you're willing it would be extremely beneficial.  

 

Either way, I hope to see more from you man. :)

[Blindhamster]

@Hiroitchi: Thanks man, the sergeant is actually one of the older minis I have in the army (especially as I've been going back and 'disposing' of a number of the older ones anyway). Not sure what you mean by banners or skulls however? 

 

@marine7312000: Yeah, I'm a slow painter, and apparently a terribly slow transfer applier.... I am pretty quick at sculpting these days at least :)

 

@furioso-prime: Thanks man!

 

@Darth Potato: Thanks man, red is oddly enough a colour I've never been happy painting, despite having done pretty much exclusively blood angels armies in my 15 or so years in the hobby, I think a lot of people underestimate just how difficult it is to get a colour and finish that is acceptable. In the end the route I went with painting these is a mixture of sixestohits, daemonprincedargors and ancientgods recipies, the net result is that I finally have a recipe I am happy painting :)

As far as the PA legs and things go, honestly it's mostly just practice, you look at older ones (some of the remaining members of this squad, or even the sergeant and left handed marine) and it's pretty sloppy looking, then look at Mr 'Heroic Pose' and he's pretty neat, ribbed areas are not excessively large etc. As far as your own skills are concerned, I beg to differ, your marines are always awesome and you've inspired me a number of times in terms of conversion ideas, in fact your latest project reminded me that there was a reason I reposed marines, I'd kid of slipped into a slap them together attitude despite the extra effort of cutting them up. 

I'll have a look at doing a fairly basic tutorial on reposing legs if it'd be something people want, I guess I could also do hair sculpting at the same time... I've got a sternguard squad to start anyway!

 

Onto updates...

 

So I valiantly failed the challenge of getting the squad done in a month, in my defense, too much RL work, and too much house moving stuff and family stuff on weekends, not to mention weekly D&D sessions that I run... But either way, I DO have 5 marines pretty much finished, I'm currently adding finishing touches to them and then I'll post some pics, I've also gone back and fixed up the feet on the sergeant and lefty so they don't have horrible holes in them from dodgy sculpting work anymore. Pics will show up tomorrow hopefully.

 

I also had a forgeworld and GW order arrive, ravenwing command squad, which will be getting some other bits through from bitsandkits to have em be less dark angel looking, and to make them a bit more unique to my own army :) I also got some more mk2 and mk3 marines which will be getting interspersed into a few of the squads I've got as well as some phobos bolters that will likewise get mixed in and the legion champion and vox dude, champion will probably get used for... something (not a clue what off hand) vox dude will likely get demoted to a regular tactical marine as I want comms guys in every squad. :)

[batu]

Sergeant Kano is awesome !!!!! Real cool BA you have there brother.

I hope you will finish the whole bunch soon

[Blindhamster]

Thanks batu

So here's that update. They are not finished, as I still suck... but they're pretty close. Only Kano and the Mk3 have the black highlighted (though mk3s gun hasn't been) the silver areas need to be finished on them as do the purity seals/scrolls. I then just need to apply weathering powders. But they are close enough that I wanted to provide an update that might possibly be worth looking at...

Group shot:

Shot showing off the right pads:

Note that with these they all get the 3rd companies white blood drop somewhere on the pad, thanks to Lorenzen for the idea of white drop in the chapter symbol, I was a bit stumped with that guy.

Shot of the Left pads:

Chapter symbols on most, a few of them have other details as well/instead.

A couple of Close ups (none of the left handed marine or the sergeant though):

Detailing on the heroic posed squad member:

It's pretty blurry sadly, but the scroll case has a bit of verdigris going on with it, then just regular gems

Mk3 member (as noted, gun is basically not started, I just base coloured it before taking the pics:

Mk6 member, probably my favourite for how the tromp trompe l'oeil has come out:

Other than the black/silver/scrolls, anything glaringly obvious that I've not done on these guys?

I'll look at doing a tutorial for legs this week as I've decided to replace the plasma gunner and plasma canon marines due to them both being pretty poor.

<edit>

fixed links to pictures.

Also, big thanks to Lorenzen for explaining how to do transfers (in all these years... I've never once used one)

[Gorthag]

Gorgeous work!

[KJB]

Nicely done, love the red, love the battle damage...

 

More I say!

[batu]

I really like them. Terrific job !

[Blindhamster]

Hey folks, I've not completely vanished this time, just had house moving stuff and finishing up dissertation to keep me occupied.

however I made a decision to revisit Tycho after the success I had painting sergeant Kanos face.

See, when I made Tycho, I was never quite happy with how his mask came out, but didn't feel I'd be able to do a better job so stuck with it. The painting also wasn't as good as it could have been I've since come to realize.

So Tycho has been getting a bit of a face lift, and basic plans for how I'll do DC Tycho have also been forming.

I've made a replacement head for him, I feel it's miles better but would be interested to get other opinions.

I've also removed the kneepad with sculpted face, it's currently just a smooth one, and I'm pondering if I should sculpt an updated face on it, or perhaps have some kind of freehand, also thinking I might have it be black rather than gold if I go for freehand.

The Final change is I've got the Forgeworld Minotaur Chaplains backpack (with cape) coming, there is a reason for this, I wanted to have it so that there will be features between normal and DC Tycho that tie them together. DC Tycho will be getting Lokens Cloak for that reason.

I've also been making some progress on the tactical squad, I eventually opted to destroy the plasma gunner and plasma cannon marine, they were both suffering from poor sculpting and bad spray paint, plasma gunner was replaced with a mk2 armoured marine with a modern plasma gun, Plasma Cannoner was replaced with a Mk7 marine with a HH Rocket Launcher. I'll post some picks up later on maybe. The painting came to a hault whilst I focused on other things sadly, but the first 5 are completed (I weathered them with some light and dark earth (sparingly) and highlighted the black).

[kdruthless]

Don't take this the wrong way (its meant as a complement), but he looks a bit like Locutus of Borg :)

 

Superb army dude, wish I had stuff half this good

[Blindhamster]

haha, it's the targeter thing on the side that does that isn't it :P

 

I added the little targeter because of this image, but I wonder if it'd be better without now lol... 

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100910210019/warhammer40k/images/e/e3/Ia-bloodangels-7.jpg

 

Main things I needed to change one way or another, was the amount of his face the mask covers, the original it covers fully half but the position of the eye was completely off and there wasn't enough detail. 

 

Thanks for the kind words though!

[kdruthless]

I wouldn't change it: Locutus is cool and so is your model :D it looks brilliant

[Blindhamster]

small update for Tychos face... getting the camera to focus was a *****

hair, gold and silver have only been base coloured and given a wash each, the skin needs a couple more glazes I think, the eye has been retouched slightly so the pupil is more rounded.

[Blindhamster]

questions:

• Do I paint the eye on the mask green?
• What to do with the black knee pad? Paint it gold? Sculpt a new face onto it? leave it black and freehand something? If so, what?
• Once it arrives he'll have Ivanus Enkomis Backpack with cloak, I may also look to sculpt something to have the cloack actually go onto the shoulders. Question is, what colour should the cloak be? What colour should the lining be? Should there be freehand? If so, what?

Cheers :)

[batu]

A big improvment ! His face mask looks much better now. Fantastic green stuff work mate.

[Ardonachie88]

This is a fantastic looking army, really like the way your sergeants and characters have very dynamic poses.

[kdruthless]

I'd leave Tycho just as he is. looks incredible. makes my guy look crap...

[Robert2004]

Fantastic work, where do you get the heads from mate? The space marines are usually baldy ha ha! Would love a few of them for my own army. Also if you don't mind how do you paint the faces, skin tones etc?

[Blindhamster]

Cheers Guys :)

 

I think I'll leave the head alone, it's a huge improvement over the last one, but if I keep playing about with it, it'll probably get ruined (exception is that he'll probably get another purple glaze around where the mask meets face + around the eyes.

 

The knee pad is killing me, I really don't have the first clue on what to do with it :/ resculpting the face onto it would be the obvious choice, but I foolishly undercoated it, and getting at the detail to do the face might be tricky... I'm tempted to remove the tabard and make a new one though, as the paint on it is pretty thick.

 

Robert2004, the faces are just stock GW ones with hair sculpted, the only miniature I didn't sculpt hair on in my entire army is the kneeling mk6 guy in the tactical squad above. I've been asked to do a tutorial and keep forgetting, so I'll do one next week once dissertation is submitted. 

 

as for how I paint faces, I use the tutorial for faces from the Space Hulk issue of White Dwarf (back when the painting tutorials were more than 3 steps and provided reasonable detail).

 

• basecoat with black (I tend to hand basecoat bare heads and give it just a very watered down layer)
• give a coat of either tallarn flesh or a mix of Tallarn + brown (the tutorial uses 50:50 calthan brown and tallarn), I have experimented with different browns/no browns to get slight variation in tone.
• wash the skin with scorched brown
• highlight with a mix of the base colour and dwarf flesh/cadian fleshtone
• give a glaze of scorched brown to try and keep the transitions fairly smooth
• highlight with pure tallarn regardless of base colour - you'll find even if your base skintone was pure tallarn, this will still be lighter due to the glazes and washes.
• highlight with a mix of tallarn and elf flesh
• highlight with elf flesh 
• highlight a few key spots with elf flesh + screaming skull
• glaze with scorched brown and glaze with scab red/regal blue as appropriate.

sounds like a lot, but most of the highlights are fairly 'rough' as the glazes/washes are there to smooth transitions, the only ones to be more delicate with are the elf flesh/elf flesh+screaming skull to be honest.

 

Tychos head took about 10-15 mins I guess, maybe half hour with the hair and gold as well (hair was an experiment, it's just bleached bone with a bunch of washes/glazes and then screaming skull with another wash)

 

Cheers again

[Blindhamster]

Hey folks, just swinging by with a quick update. I've started painting Dantes face :) This is actually the fourth attempt at doing the head, i ruined 3 prior to this one... the hair has been different every time as well...

What do you think?

As for the lack of updates, well, My wife and I bought our house and moved in, got a kitten and I finished up my degree and we've both been working, so a lot going on! I have done a fair bit on my blood angels in terms of building, including making a new honour guard squad to replace the old one, and replacing a lot of my tactical marines with better ones, I'll sort out pics asap :)

[Tyrannicide]

I think it looks fantastic! Nice colors. 

 

Good to hear you're doing well, can't wait to see more from you man. :)