Armies on Parade. Blood Angels of the Andromache Sector

[gideon stargreave]

 

and a couple fo others

Edited October 29, 2023 by gideon stargreave

[gideon stargreave]

So the work in progress is finally over 

[Xenith]

So gritty!

[Firedrake Cordova]

That definitely has the look of Mr Blanche about it  

[gideon stargreave]

Thanks! This army was really an ode to all the artwork of space marines I’ve ever liked. There are nods to Blanche, Miller, Godwin, and a whole heap of artists without names from way back. 

[gideon stargreave]

And entirely by accident it looks like I’m making another Army this year. I got myself some imperium back issues and the sisters who came with them. 
here are some testers 

[Firedrake Cordova]

Nice work - I like the posing of the penultimate one

[gideon stargreave]

On 2/14/2024 at 9:59 PM, Firedrake Cordova said:

Nice work - I like the posing of the penultimate one

Thanks. I have a load of victrix dark ages stuff and there are some cool two handed axes so there’s gonna be a few like this 

[gideon stargreave]

[gideon stargreave]

I’ve started playing with test schemes and methodologies. I think the first is selling the effect I want best. This is quite labour intensive, layers of different metallics and oils to add visual interest to the miniatures. There’s another couple of steps once the oils have dried too. I want to try using artist pastels on the robes to add some texture and more depth. The two minis have different base coats, the first a bone colour and the second a standard zentihal black and white.

[Firedrake Cordova]

The metallics on the first one are nice, especially on the right-hand thigh  

[ZeroWolf]

I quite like the scheme you're going for with these. There's something about the sisters that lend themselves to conversions such as these. Looking forward to them being complete going by the work you put into the Blood Angels.

[gideon stargreave]

Thanks everyone! 
 

16 hours ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

The metallics on the first one are nice, especially on the right-hand thigh  

I think I’m going to go with this method. It’s my preferred one too so far. I’ve one other I want to try out. 
 

10 hours ago, Trysanna said:

The way you've painted the second sisters blue cloth looks so good. Very painterly, reminds me of canvas work.

thanks. I’m using oils to get that effect. I make religious art in my life outside of 40k and the idea came from some Virgin Mary icons I painted last year. I want these minis to look like they’ve stepped from a painting. It’s hard to discipline myself not to paint these as typical minis though.

 

15 hours ago, ZeroWolf said:

I quite like the scheme you're going for with these. There's something about the sisters that lend themselves to conversions such as these. Looking forward to them being complete going by the work you put into the Blood Angels.

I hope so! This is a much more difficult project for me, to be honest, I don’t have a huge amount of female pieces in my bits box, and I want to avoid the grotesque imagery of my blood angels. Sisters are normally associated with mega grimdark, but for these, at least in painting style, I want something more noblebright and almost high fantasy.

[ZeroWolf]

I think I can picture the effect you're wanting, sort of like the imagery that would be present in a 40k era church, especially with the likes of the 'saints'. I would love to see what you could do with the triumph of St Katherine using that method  Good luck!

[gideon stargreave]

I paint religious art in my outside the hobby life and this painting was what inspired the new project. I won’t be giving them blue skin, but the army will be based on this palette 

[gideon stargreave]

Further development of the blue. As you can see it’s a messy process. I use a whole bunch of oil paints, and then once it’s dry I go in with some blue chalk pastels to reduce shine. The silver is AK pearl and Vallejo dark metal, washed with brown oil. Now I’ll go in and add some details and some Vallejo real metallics 

[gideon stargreave]

I got the bulk done of the first minis. They just need gold details and then their heads and backpacks finishing. The blue and silver scheme looks amazing, and has loads of visual interest and depth. I’m going to go in with some washes and powders especially on the war machines to make the silver more interesting.

An unanticipated aspect of these being a sort of tester squad is that the different undercoats add quite a lot of variation to the armour, so I think I’m going to keep with this idea across the whole army. Now I’ve a lot of building to do 

Edited March 27 by gideon stargreave

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Like what you are doing with your sisters - that blue is very vibrant.  I do think the kite shields look much better than the round ones - the shape is much more evocative and I don't think the wood backing on the round ones is the best fit for the sister's aesthetic.

 

Don't know if this is helpful, but my old sisters army was in blue - maybe there is something in my thread that might inspire.

[gideon stargreave]

I finally had some real time to do some hobbying, so I put together 20 sisters.

 

I also decided to make a squad a grey knights as Alies for the blood angels 

[gideon stargreave]

More work on the grey knights. I have this idea that because of their constant war with daemons, their armour is more likely, not less, to become corrupted, but the power of their faith keeps them safe from chaos. And so their armour cracks and corrodes. I’ve taken to opportunity also to add candles and wax to their backpacks 

[Firedrake Cordova]

It's definitely an interesting concept

[gideon stargreave]

the scheme is looking good for the grey knights. I painted them with Vallejo liquid silver, gave them a brown and blue wash randomly, then more liquid silver. This gives a really bright effect but also loads of variation and contrast over the corrupted texture of the armour 

 

next is wax 

[gideon stargreave]

I painted the wax and started laying down base coats for the robes and seals. 

I also added loads of differentiation to the metallics. Vallejo gold, silver and white gold 

they still need an eye colour though 

[Firedrake Cordova]

The variation in tones on the armour is quite interesting  

Edited May 8 by Firedrake Cordova
typos!

[Rusted Boltgun]

Really starting to come alive with the different armour tones.