Thursday, April 23, 2015

Banner & Jump Pack

So it's been a while since the last post. The Sanguinary Guard are not actually entirely finished yet - I went to put them together and discovered that one of the wings for the marine holding the banner was not compatible with the shoulder pad I had intended for him. I'm in the middle of sorting out a replacement shoulder pad, but I've also finalised how I'll be painting the actual banner too.
Sanguinary Guard Banner
At this point, I should also mention that my good camera appears to no longer recognise any SD cards, so I'm forced to use a smartphone camera. They're just not as good, especially at showing colour transitions. I'll hopefully setup a miniature photo area this year, but there are more important matters to attend to first.
Anyway, the central banner background is:
  • Mournfang Brown (base)
  • Tuskgor Fur (layer) - thin layers, built up to highlight the raised areas of "cloth". Takes a while to do, but as always it's worth the effort.
  • Bloodletter (glaze) - tones down the Tuskgor Fur, and gives everything a more red earth appearance.
  • Carroburg Crimson (shade) - just to fix some areas, darken others slightly. Only used sparingly, and only to fix mistakes.
The white border was the basic "can't remember what colours, but built up through browns to white". The key to it really just pick a decent brown to start with, then layer up through progressively lighter tones - this one in particular went through Ushabti Bone, Pallid Wych Flesh, and finally a very (very) thin layer of White Scar at least. There was a shade of Agrax Earthshade in there somewhere too - I find it useful if areas are starting to get too light to just add some diluted Agrax into the mix. Patience and thin layers of paint are the key!
The rest of the banner I'll get to shortly, but it will be a challenge to highlight folds of cloth around the wings. I suspect some Agrax will be used there too.

Firey reds, or hot blues.
 On another topic, jump pack exhaust. Up to now, I've been going with a kind of "hot blue" effect. I've improved upon previous attempts with a more blended approach, which looks quite good in my opinion. There's just one problem: I can't seem to think of anything different to use for power weapons, and I don't want the power weapon "glow" to be the same as the jump pack exhaust. So I've experimented with a red/yellow/white approach instead (with Guillman Blue glazed across the outlying areas - simple, but gives an extra impression of heat). I now can't decide if I should go with the red or blue exhaust appearance. Much thought required.

-- silly painter.