Librarian Colours

[Kane Sideram]

Hello, first let me preface this by saying I'm one of those collectors primarily concerned with painting and the general look of an army as a display piece. However, despite my chances of ever actually participating in a real battle being slim, I still like the idea of having a functional and legitimate army. One that could win battles, in the unlikely event I find someone near to play with, and should I ever really learn the intracies of the game itself.

 

My occupation is digital art, and so colour is very important to me. I return to the hobby after a 10 year hiatus, and love Blood Angels. Which causes me some issue. I hate, and I sincerely mean the word hate, that space marine librarians are blue, no matter the faction. Especially with chapters like Blood Angels, where the majority of your army is red.

 

I want a librarian. I also want a librarian dread.. Because the models are beautiful, But I simply cannot stand to have some blue :cuss stood in a sea of red. But I want to have an authentic Blood Angels army. Not a successor chapter, or a DIY chapter. But the librarian issue has caused me some grief.

 

Is there anything I can do? I've considered a far more muted blue, almost a space wolves grey, or a desaturated navy, which might compliment the red far more than the awkward ultramarines blue that librarians seem to require. My fear being if I wouldn't have an authentic Blood Angel army if I opted for this.. And if I ever hypothetically took my army to the field, some pedantic :cuss would call me out on it.

 

This may sound trivial and nit-picky, but I genuinely love displaying my army, and the librarian issue is a real one for me. This forum is filled with far more knowledgeable people, and I wondered if anyone would even consider a grey librarian an issue, or am I just over reacting about a non-matter? Could an authentic Blood Angels army use a different colour for its librarian?

 

TLDR; I hate blue librarians. What are my options?

[NovemberIX]

I shall preface this by saying I play a DIY army, but the sentiment should cross over. It is YOUR hobby, do what you like! Seriously though, if you change the shade of blue no one should really be giving you any kind of grief from a gameplay perspective, librarian models are fairly distinct, so generally call attention to themselves regardless weather or not they are the one blue guy in a field of red. I personally have painted all my Libby's yellow and given them dark navy tabards as their distinct signifier (to fit with my DIY color scheme). I believe more important than matching how the studio paints their models is consistency across your force.

 

PS, I just realized when I post this, my banner of librarians will pop up below for an example of what I reffered to.

[Grotsmasha]

The easiest solution is a compromise, paint the Psychic Hood and Chapter Badge Shoulder pad in the blue and leave the Librarian predominantly red. The thing about the "Official" colour schemes is that they are a snap-shot in time, SM Chapters use all sorts of identifiers and markings and regularly mix them up from campaign to campaign so that their enemies do not become familiar with them.

 

Cheers,

Jono 

[Closet Skeleton]

Mephiston isn't blue. Well, his cloak is black with blue highlights. You can have a mostly robed librarian if yellow looks better among red to you.

 

But I like my blue Librarians so don't see the problem. Not when there are so many other not red models like Sanguinary Guard, death company, Sanguinary Priests and Chaplains. You can't even avoid blue by having no librarians because devastators have blue helmets. Librarian blue is not ultramarines blue, its supposed to be a darker blue with extreme highlights. Ultramarines blue has shifted over the years but in the current codex one of the Ultramarine librarian isn't painted the same blue as his pals (or his own shoulder pad), he's got a turquoise highlight the rest of the army doesn't have. Actually all four Ultramarine Liberians in that book have different highlights to their armour.

 

Alternate Librarian colour schemes have turned up over the years for other chapters but apart from the Space Wolves they all have some blue on them.

[Jolemai]

My regular Librarians are red, with just the horned skull shoulder pad being blue. On my Librarian Dreadnought, only the sarcophagus is blue.

 

For what it's worth, I consider myself to play the Blood Angels chapter and no one has pulles me up on it. If they do, well it's the Character's choice to have his armour that way :)

[Kane Sideram]

Thanks for the speedy input and advise guys. I didn't want to mention devestator marine helmets, because I thought that would be overly pedantic of me. Thankfully, I've been basing my "legitimate" army off most of the posts you guys make, since this forum has been my primary source material since I got back into the hobby. And very few people have been taking devestators, so neither have I.

 

I might try the idea of a blue shoulder pad with a red scheme, or try something more outlandish that compliments red. Although as November mentioned, I might just try a muted blue/grey or dark muted navy, and balls to anyone who calls me out on it.

 

One of the reasons I love Blood Angels so much is their primarily red theme with units that offer complimentary colours without being jarring. The burnished gold of sanguinary guards, or the jet black of death company. When viewed as a whole army, a deep blood red with black as your neutral and flecks of gold as your compliments really drew me towards Blood Angels, even before I understood colour, as a child. Even our priests and apocatharies, with their dashes of white, still act as a neutral that works well with red, gold and black together. It's just that darn blue that I find visually jarring when added to the other three colours that make up the bulk of a Blood Angels army.

 

I've put off painting my librarian dread for this specific reason.

 

Thanks again for the tips and advise.

[Ovidius Incertus]

I'm with several others here: I've kept the "Librarius blue" to a spot color, mostly.  Terminator Librarian just got a blue psychic hood (his cloak is dark gray) and Librarian Dread only gets the central sarcophagus painted blue.  I have a 3rd Librarian that I am going to paint in the traditional blue livery because I'm trying to show dissonance within my 31k army and a lack of traditions.

[evildrcheese]

As mentioned Mephiston doesn't wear blue and he's the chief librarian! (funnily enough itused to bug me that Mephy wasn't in blue!) So I wouldn't take umbrage if you didn't have blue armour.

 

D

[Jolemai]

My Mephiston wears gold armour under those robes, etc, because all Artificier Armour is gold in my universe...

[Fahlnor]

Just to briefly play Devil's Advocate, you could put blue onto other models as well.

 

I'm thinking spot colours, plasma highlights, eye lenses, power weapons.

 

That way your Librarian could be blue and not look out of place.

 

Just an alternative viewpoint.

 

So far as non-blue Librarians go, remember that Blood Angels are inherently two things amongst many: artistic and unorthodox.

 

If you think blue armour makes a Librarian look artistically silly, chances are the thought's already occurred to him, too....

[The Red Thirst]

The beautiful thing about this IP, especially for those of us more interested in fluff and collecting, is that you can essentially ignore any piece of fluff that you dont agree with. For me personally, I paint my librarians red with black pauldrons and cloaks. I also paint my sergents with black helms instead of black pauldrons (all other classes are depicted via helm colour so why not ;) ).

This is your playground, play as you like 

[Kane Sideram]

That's a really neat idea with the sergeants.

 

Really awesome suggestions from everyone too, but I feel like I can't use them without feeling like a copycat, hehe.

 

Looking over my army, and since they're all core blood angel models, they have quite a lot of parchment and cloth. I wonder if a bone armour, with dark red robes would be a unique but fitting addition for a blood angel librarian. Perhaps with scripture covering every inch of the armour, so it doesn't just look like a deathwing dark angel. It would take an age to paint, but might turn the librarian from my most hated character, into a centrepiece.