MBA++Blood Angels 5th Company - into the Leviathan's maw

[Majkhel]

Thanks for the comments guys! Really appreciating your input :)

I got terribly little time for hobby now due to work, but managed to kitbash this angry fella between online meetings:

HoooooooooooooOOOOORUUUUUUUUUUUUS!!!!!!

An exercise in integrating firstborn parts into the Primaris range to make them more unique. Not entirely happy with the abdomen part. Seems too thick. Power Fist arm magnetised so that I can switch to TH or Chainsword at one point. Not sure yet where to put the shooty option though. I'm contemplating placing it on the base, discarded along with a broken helmet.
The idea behind the pose was to make a feel of menacing, built-up rage about to be unleashed.

[Majkhel]

I've been researching a scheme for my little SoB collections recently, but still managed to complete the above Lost Brother:

(struggling with pictures' quality recently :/ )

I'm still finding painting black a challenge. With this one I tried black undercoat, 2-3 levels of drybrush, a coat of thinned-down Black Templars contrast and then some touch-ups on the edges. Generally I see potential in this method, but need to practice more.

Another thing I tried is some heraldry-markings. I think the old-school flames on the PF came out OK. The Blood drop is intentionally flat, but perhaps I could upgrade it a little. A cartoon/comic style perhaps? I don't want a realistic 3D illusion as that would contradict the flames. Maybe it's not necessary though.
The halved black-yellow knee-pad is supposed to break the uniformity of the black plate and work with the PF. Whatever heraldry marking that initially was and history behind it, it obviously got partly overwritten by the DC saltire.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent work on the Death Company Marine, Majkhel.

[Majkhel]

It's been some time, but I am happy to be able to paint again
Here is my test scheme for a Bladeguard Veteran:

Tried several things with this one. Firstly, the overall scheme - I think I like the black cloth the most. The beige/cream/white one seems a little to much on the waiter side to me and more importantly, I think it would draw attention too much.

Weathering.
I'm getting more and more comfortable with the armour chipping. I try to keep it toned down restricting myself to occasional scratches, but I definitely see that those already add a lot to the mini. And they really complement the shadows I'm creating on the armour plates. It may not be that visible on the pictures, but I also added a thin grey/black glaze over the white parts of the decals (skull on the pauldron and small shield on the hip plate), to blend them more into the shading of the armour. I might enhance that more in the future, but it looks like a good direction.

Heraldry.
Took my time with this one as I wanted a bit too many things at once On one hand, I wanted to keep it simple as 1. I'm still learning, 2. didn't want to over-clutter it as the mini already has lots of detail. On the other hand, I wanted to reflect the veteran status - it seems reasonable that the longer a marine serves, the more his personal heraldry will develop.
In the end, I went for a simple design, but multiple colours to go along a decal emblem. I think the colour palette is good, although I could have used a different hue on the upper part of the field as it makes the small sword hilt of the decal practically invisible. Still a good learning step for me.

The power sword.
Once again I went for the NMM on the blade to practice the technique. As an experiment I tried to add some form of a power field representation, similar to what I did with my latest Captain. Although it came out all right, I'm not entirely convinced with the result. Obviously the sword is different in that it has no fuller. In practice, this forced me to paint over the NMM, which may be a bit too much. I will still try to experiment with this idea on the rest of the squad. Perhaps I should add more defined "lightning" lines?

The Necron arm and skull on the base were painted with a silver metallic tinted with green. Again, not entirely convinced with the result, but it's not that important a feature and the colour itself meshes well with the mini, so I'll leave it at that.
The circuitry on the inside of the shield is similarly blue-tinted, which is totally lost on the figure. But again, it's not really important

Another note for me - I used an Aggressor BA pauldron on the left arm and it's too big. Slightly perhaps, but still that will be my conclusion for the future. Perhaps I could have placed it lower? But it's still noticeably broader. BGVets have big pauldrons, but not that big.

Thanks for watching and reading!
Cheers Edited February 25, 2021 by Majkhel

[Burias-Drak'shal]

Looks great.

[Majkhel]

Looks great.

Thanks for the comment, mate! Appreciated! Glad you like him :)

 

Hobbywise, I'm currently assembling multi-part Eradicators. 

[Shaezus]

Love it! Lots going on with this model and it's all good. What actually intrigues me most is the shading you used on and around the feet

[Xenith]

He's looking great, very knightly and technically awesome. Love that black cloth - real sublte and realistic highlights there. What grey is that?

[Majkhel]

Thanks a lot guys! I'm really happy you like my work!

Love it! Lots going on with this model and it's all good. What actually intrigues me most is the shading you used on and around the feet

The feet are painted normally (in this case: Rhinox hide -> Mephiston red -> Vallejo Dark Vermillion (Evil Sunz Scarlet equivalent), with edge highlights and a little of the NMM effect done with additional Wild Rider Red) and then delicately drybrushed with a very light grey along with the base.
Recently I rarely use actual shades on armour and and only selectively to correct or enhance places where I somehow painted over the Rhinox hide. The base is Astrogranite debris shaded with Nuln Oil and drybrushed with grey - usually it's just a mix of black and white. Proportions vary, but I usually do 2 passes with one shade of grey being slightly lighter than the original shade of Astrogranite, and the second one being almost white. At this stage the mini is already on the base, so it gets some drybrush overspill natuarally so I simply add some more to make it intentional.

 

He's looking great, very knightly and technically awesome. Love that black cloth - real sublte and realistic highlights there. What grey is that?

Tha​nks Xenith, with the cloth I was aiming for exactly that look. 
As with the base, I was mixing greys adding white to the black and applying those really thinned down with water to build up the highlights gradually. After that I washed the whole cloth with thinned Black Templar contrast to blend and tone down the transitions even further.
With this guy I started from pure black and built the highlights up. With next BGVets, I 'mwilling to try starting from a black-grey mid-tone (Vallejo German Grey perhaps?) and then work both up and down. A painter I know recommended this approach with painting black in general - painting black as very dark grey, and the highlight it and enhance the shades/crevices with actual black paint. I might try that on Death Company armour as well. 

Edited March 3, 2021 by Majkhel

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent work on the Bladeguard vet.

[Majkhel]

Thank you Bjorn! Always nice to hear a praise from you

I have completed the final 2 members of the shooty DC Intercessors:

I changed the approach to black armour yet again with those 2 Those were started from a Dark Grey (Vallejo) coat, followed by a drybrush (2 passes with increasing lightness of the colour), followed by a Black Templar contrast wash and then touching up the highlights and some minor reflections suggesting a lacquered finish of the armour.
Still a WIP in terms of finding my recipe for black, but those guys are TT-ready.
A thing to note for myself - with black armour, it's not easy to make a convincing chipping when there are light reflections painted on it.
Also, I think I'm getting more and more comfortable at devising heraldry.

Here is a group shot of the whole squad:


Next up - another Bladeguard veteran as a reward for completing the squad I had real pleasure in painting the previous BGV. Edited March 10, 2021 by Majkhel

[Rhavien]

They are looking good. Menacing and wild like it should be.

[Spyros]

Nice Death Company!

Why did you choose Auto Bolt rifles instead of Chainswords?

[Majkhel]

They are looking good. Menacing and wild like it should be.

Thanks, brother! Cheers! :)

 

Nice Death Company!

Why did you choose Auto Bolt rifles instead of Chainswords?

Thanks Spyros!

Good question, really :D I think when I built the first dude, they were still not able to take all-chainswords. After that I just kept going. There will definitely be a choppy squad too. I enjoy the process of building them, even though (and perhaps also because of that) they take some effort to be something more than just black Assault Intercessors.

[Spyros]

When I get the models, I 'll make them like the originals I grew up with!

Red crosses on both shoulders, and on the greaves, not just the knee. The Mk.X is not embellished (like the later plastic Firstborn DC) so it looks empty on the greaves.

[Majkhel]

Lovely picture!  Thanks for sharing it! 
And a really god point with the overall number of sltires and the greaves' case especially.
Now that I look at it, there is much more red on the old DC and it's more evenly distributed with bolters being smaller and shoulder pads being a bit bigger plus the mentioned EXTENSIVE use of the greaves' surface. 

I think I will revisit my dudes as there is clearly room for improvement in terms of the DC iconography. Especially since Intercessors actually provide more surface to be used. Like those hip-plates on the Assault Intercessors' bodies.

[Majkhel]

Got another BGVet of the 11th squad completed Yesterday:

That one was a real fun to kitbash. Painting also went surprisingly quickly for me.
I'm getting more comfortable with battle damage. I managed to paint them as part of the last highlight step, which for me is like super-fast.

On the other front - struggling with pictures again. I believe I just need a better camera than what my phone can produce.
Cheers!

[Majkhel]

WIP on the Impulsor I've built some time ago and am now painting for the 12 Month Hobby Challenge.
Most of the exterior hull is done - stippled shades of red+edge highlights, blocked blacks and now metallics are on their way.
Most recently I've been working on the battle-damage nicks and scratches:

My first time with the sponge-method :P Painting the nicks by hand like I do on the Infantry recently was getting too tedious and resulted in too sparse deployment of the dots. I'm pretty happy with the results so far

[Rhavien]

Battle damage looks ace. Really good illusion of depth on the dents and scratches. Can't wait to see the final result. What irks me though is that the Forgeworld decorations aren't in line with the eye vision slit.

[Majkhel]

Battle damage looks ace. Really good illusion of depth on the dents and scratches. Can't wait to see the final result. What irks me though is that the Forgeworld decorations aren't in line with the eye vision slit.

Thanks Rhavien!

And yeeeeess I agree. Can't really do anything with it as that's the way the model got designed :/ I tried to position the decorative pieces in relation to the space limits. The slits are positioned the way they are and I think it would look more or less the same, no matter piece or decal you place there. 

[Xenith]

Really nicely done damage, way better than mine - brown sponging and highlights?

[Majkhel]

Really nicely done damage, way better than mine - brown sponging and highlights?

Thanks! Actually this is pure black, slightly diluted with water in case of the bigger marks which were painted with the brush. This makes the spots not homogeneously black and allows them to blend with the red underneath. That's probably why you (and I'm too actually) perceive them as brown.

[Xenith]

I was wondering about that - your spongework seemed too neat! Might have to go and add black to the deepest recesses of mine. The holes on the front plate are maybe a little too regular, but man, the weathering on those panels over the engines at the side are *chef kiss*

[Majkhel]

Yes, that one really came out well :D
I agree with the front plate (and front section in general - compared to the engine blocks they are too neat-looking). I will be revisiting that once I get an opportunity.

[Midnightmare]

Your Death Co is awesome mate! Well, everything is but I love that powerfist guy - so wrathful looking!