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My Blood Angels Painting Blog!


Fahlnor

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Looking good.

What red did you use for the base and what colour are you useing to highlight?

It's literally just Mephiston Red over a black primer.  I'll highlight up with Evil Sunz Scarlet and Wild Rider Red.  Possibly use Troll Slayer Orange depending on how it's looking.

 

I built myself a lightbox today.  Total cost was about €1.50, give or take.  Used a cardboard box I picked up in town for free from a store, added in some greasproof paper and sellotape.  Taped a couple sheets of A3 white paper to the back.  Bazinga!:

 

http://i.imgur.com/A1rwcgXl.jpg

 

I still want to get a third lamp and I'm not happy with the bulbs I'm using in my lamps, so I've ordered some daylight bulbs to replace them.  Here are the first couple of pictures I took in the lightbox, though - this was literally just using the standard camera on my iPhone and holding it steady:

 

http://i.imgur.com/JvQai2tl.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/qgi1et4l.jpg

 

For the effort and cost involved, I can't recommend this highly enough to people looking to improve the quality of their photos!

  • 1 month later...

It's been a while since I posted, but I thought I should share a look at what I've been working on.

 

I took a few weeks away from painting due to some personal problems I was struggling to cope with but in the last fortnight I've managed to get back into things.  It's been slow going but I feel like I'm building some momentum again.

 

Regardless, this is a shot of where I am at the moment:

 

http://i.imgur.com/e7Ki7FZ.jpg

 

Still got to highlight the metals and paint the purity seals.  The bolters are mostly done, just needing edge highlights on the black and metals. I suspect they'll be done tomorrow evening.  Then I'll be doing bases.

 

Hope you like them!

Only a tiny update this morning: got the remaining five backpacks magnetised.  They're slightly trickier to do than the Death Company ones.  The DC backpacks actually have a hole near enough exactly where I wanted to drill - it was just a question of widening it for the magnets.  These guys have a similar hole, but higher up than I want it to be.  That's left them looking a little more scrappy than the DC ones:

 

http://i.imgur.com/eD4wovol.jpg

 

Still, progress is progress!

Ive been working on doing this myself. Those packs are kinda a pain in the butt to drill because of that hole.

 

Ive been working on doing this myself. Those packs are kinda a pain in the butt to drill because of that hole.

 

Yeah, I found the backpacks slightly trickier than I expected.  Still, definitely worth it.

Progress on the ten Tactical Marines:

11146238_10152715612181933_5430158405411

 

Still need to highlight the red, but then they're done.  Feel like I've learned a bunch that will help me make the next squad a bit better.  I guess that's always the goal, huh?

 

:)

  • 1 month later...

Has been a long time since I updated - apologies!

 

Various real life issues have kinda kept my focus away from painting my beloved toy soldiers. Health and financial issues took priority for the last couple of months but things are starting to look a good bit brighter recently.

 

Last few weeks I've been focusing my efforts on building some scenery for gaming at home. I spent a long time humming and hahhing about whether to use my Imperial Sector or scratch build and in the end I decided I just don't like the GW buildings enough to keep the kit. Instead, I splashed out a little less than €15 on materials and set out on a mini-mission. Here are the results so far:

 

http://i.imgur.com/42E4yyfl.jpg

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/CO95cxol.jpg

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/j7ViQFXl.jpg

 

 

There's also a series of step-by-steps if anyone has any interest in the process I went through.

 

I'd love any feedback you might have!

Those are some good looking ruins, and I would deffinately be interested in the process, I'm hoping to get started on a similar project soon

Thanks, bud!

 

First stop would be to check out

.  I got a lot of my inspiration from him.

 

I'll get some photos up later on this afternoon.

Those are some awesome ruins

Thanks!

Looking cool dude. What's your recipe for the red?

 

D

There's literally no recipe at that stage of the painting: it's Mephiston Red on top of a grey undercoat.

 

I'll be highlighting the red later on for sure, but at this point it's just the base red, thinned down and applied in a bunch of thin layers.

 

:)

Looking good Fahlor!

 

BTW, have you time to join our ETL crusade?http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/306913-e-tenebrae-lux-iv-blood-angels-strategium/

This looks interesting. Can you give any more information about the times involved?

 

Do I literally choose the models/units/timescale myself?

 

Edit: found the rules. Looks good fun. I could probably do something to take part in this!

Those are some good looking ruins, and I would deffinately be interested in the process, I'm hoping to get started on a similar project soon

 

So, based on the YouTube channel I linked above, here are a few WiP photos for the ruins:

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/DJ2Gvbol.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/9KIHjOsl.jpg

 

Started off with a basic shape. The windows and doors are based on 1" squares and the floors are place at 3" height. Using pins in the joins makes sure everything stays in place while the glue is drying - it also lets you continue working on different areas while stuff you've just glued is still fragile.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/8QPemchl.jpg

 

I glued the buildings onto some mdf tiles and used extra foamboard to represent the ground floor of the building.

 

Lollipop sticks made window sills and door lintels and I added foamboard strips as supports/buttresses on both the inside and outside. For reference, the main walls and floors are made using 5mm foamboard and the supports use 3mm foamboard. From experience of making the larger model, when you're doing the inside supports and floors, it's a good idea to put the supports in place first and then glue the floor on top of them! You may notice I didn't do this on the photos above - that was my first effort and I learned as I went with it.

 

When everything was dry, I carved into the edges of the walls to create a more realistic ruined look. I also used a ballpoint pen to push bullet holes into the walls and cut chunks out of the walls themselves to represent explosions.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/yjFDowal.jpg

 

Using very thinned-down filler, I basically sealed the entire model.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/omtH5TIl.jpg

 

I then used less-thinned-down filler (I think that's the technical term!) and a large brush and stippled absolutely everything. This model used slightly thicker filler than it should have - you'll maybe notice that the little bullet holes got a bit filled in. If the filler had been slightly thinner, the bullet holes would have come out fine.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/DWUiXLfl.jpg

 

Used PVA to add sand. You'll also see a couple of "mounds" which I've built with a simple layer of foamboard. They're intended to be built up as piles of rubble. By adding the foamboard to the base first, you can create a really nice heap effect. There are also tiles added around this point: they're just half-inch squares cut out of an old cereal box.

 

At some point prior to this I've use cocktail sticks to represent metal floor supports. They were literally just pushed into the foamboard. They stick fine without any glue, to be honest. Especially by the time they get a bit of filler coating them.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/rEsMVZll.jpg

 

Quick shot with the rubble. Basically, as I cut sections out of foamboard or snapped cocktail sticks for floor struts or beveled the MDF base or anything, I kept the offcuts of whatever it was. They all got chucked together into a spice mill and blitzed up into really gorgeous and supremely easy rubble which I keep in a jar (you can actually see the jar in the background in the previous photo). Then just coat where you're adding the rubble with PVA and pour the rubble on top. I add a good pile (significantly more than is going to stick) and actively press the rubble down against the model pretty hard before I tip the excess off. That makes sure it's sticking down to the base good.

 

I then soaked the whole pile of rubble in a ton of severely watered-down PVA and left it for a good 48 hours to thoroughly soak in and dry.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/ecpPURol.jpg

 

Black spray paint. This is why sealing the building with the watered-down filler is so important. Spray-painting bare polystyrene will cause it to melt.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/pSPze9xl.jpg

 

Dark grey basecoat. I bought dark, medium and light grey tester pots from a DIY store. Just regular paint you'd want to use painting a room at home. Way cheaper than using GW stuff and good to have a consistent paint colour when you're working on a reasonably large project.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/wG6Dk4Zl.jpg

 

Drybrushed with the medium and light greys. I left the rubble piles because I wanted to change up the colour on them a bit.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/lD6CfW6l.jpg

 

Bases are painted to match my Blood Angels: the earth is Dryad Bark (very watered down in this case)...

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/bIrRnFzl.jpg

 

... drybrushed with a hit of Zandri Dust and Screaming Skull. As I go with the drybrushing, I also do a fairly regular line around the base of the building to represent dust building up on the bottom of the walls; there's also a whole bunch of randomised drybrushing around the buildings themselves to create a natural dirty look.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/j7ViQFXl.jpg

 

Final shot of the rubble here on the finished models. Basically I built up colours based on both the walls/concrete and the ground - something like dark grey, Dryad Bark, medium grey, Zandri Dust, light grey, Screaming Skull. I worked gradually from a solid basecoat through heavy overbrushing to heavy and then finally light drybrushing. Then I covered the whole rubble piles in dark brown wash to bring it all together.

 

I used a few washes around the concrete - dark brown and GW's Seraphim Sepia randomly splodged to give more dirt around the models. The explosions and bullet holes were very simply painted with black and I used a drybrush to pull black paint outwards from the explosions to make it look a bit more realistic.

 

The metal spurs in the floors were just painted silver and washed brown.

 

I... think... that's everything. Maybe.

 

Hope that helps! Any questions, please ask!

I picked up a couple of cheapish job lots on eBay recently and I'm having a happy time refurbishing the stuff I picked up. Thought I'd share some photos, again step-by-step. Starting off: a selection of photos of the models as they were listed on eBay.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/4wFLK0dl.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/ETOeVoZl.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/9DlvH8Xl.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/1nr1JXyl.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/Ul3fDChl.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/GbFciDRl.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/9EmUO0Rl.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/qnEBgdOl.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/Z1v1buMl.jpg

 

 

So. That maybe gives you an idea of the amount of work ahead of me!

 

So far I've stripped down about half of the models, broken down loose components, removed the bases so I can rebase them, stripped the mold lines down and organised them into complete models. Tomorrow they'll be glued back together and hopefully sprayed with an undercoat.

 

This is how far I've got:

 

http://i.imgur.com/MHEwbGtl.jpg

 

Updates to follow!

The goal with the models I picked up on eBay is to refurbish, paint and sell them on. I don't expect to make loads of money, but if I sell them for even a little more than I picked them up for, I'll be delighted. I had to explain to my wife that it's not about making money - I'm not a good enough painter or (more importantly!) a fast enough painter to make money doing that - it's about the joy of refurbishing models and getting them back into circulation for someone else to enjoy. And I feel that if I can do that without losing any money overall, I'm happy enough!

 

The two lots I picked up contained the following:

  • Commander Dante (metal)
  • 2 Assault on Black Reach Captains
  • Captain (plastic multi-part kit)
  • Techmarine with four Servitors (metal)
  • 14 Terminators
  • 6 Veterans (metal)
  • 5 Assault Marines
  • 3 Bikers
  • 65 Tactical Marines (with a scattering of special and heavy weapons)
  • Land Raider
  • 2 Rhinos
  • 3 Dreadnoughts

So far, I've managed to cleaned up:

  • Commander Dante
  • 4 Tactical Squads
  • Assault Squad
  • 3 Captains
  • 2nd Ed. Tactical Squad missing the bolt pistol on the sergeant
  • 6 metal Veterans missing one weapon

Photos of some of the models (apologies in advance for lots of Tactical Squads!):

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/rXiEiwel.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/9FJWSBXl.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/4nNKEvxl.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/jNDr88el.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/vp6Cqbfl.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/oXXyF3Pl.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/cCrFaeHl.jpg

 

First Tactical Squad has a couple of guys missing - I've had to do some chopping and building to get two complete and paintable models from parts of the remaining Tactical models.

 

My plan with these guys is to do some zenithal highlighting: I'll undercoat everything in grey, shade from below with black spray primer, highlight from above with white spray primer and then airbrush Mephiston Red all over. That should hopefully give me a really easy and quick way to create a decent-looking red across the models and I can focus on the details.

 

Considering doing everything in the photos as a pledge for ETL.  Any thoughts?

 

Feedback always appreciated!

I need to get myself some cork!

I picked up four sheets of the stuff, each something like 18" by 14", for around €8, I think.

 

Having based 58 32mm models so far (all with a double layer of cork as seen in the photo!), I've used about 1/3 of a single sheet.

 

It's definitely worth picking up!

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