Blood Angel Hellblaster - Part II

Lean, mean, plasma shooting machine.

The first of the Hellblaster squad from the Dark Imperium boxed set is finally finished. No changes in painting from the last post, it's mostly that this time the decals have been added, or an icon hand painted (right knee), and Purity Seal varnish has been applied. Some metallic highlights afterwards as well, of course.

The first model always serves as an excellent reference point, and I think the rest of the squad will turn out well enough based on the Sergeant. My approach to painting Blood Angels (and I do keep a document describing how I do each component, in addition to occasionally looking back over this blog) is slowly being refined, but not much now needs changing. I'm hopeful that I can start to progress a bit more quickly through squads now, though I'm not yet convinced that I can do it in any sort of batch painting process.

The problem with batch painting and myself, particularly where it concerns Blood Angels, is that my desired level for individual troops requires individual attention - and that's not good for bulk model painting.

I'm far more motivated once a model is fully assembled, and it's unfortunate that this rarely happens before a model is nearly completed anyway. That's another point that slows down batch painting - it takes much longer to get all models to the point where final assembly has been done.

All that said, I did try partial batched painting here, so the rest of the squad isn't far off from being done. Painting all the backpacks in one go was a resounding success, and the same for the bases. Painting all the guns at once was a moderate success - but that might not be such a problem if I could paint hands and gun separately. The gun would be far easier to give a basic airbrush initial highlight, and is something that might be feasible for models that aren't push-fit. Painting all the helmets at once however, was definitely another resounding success.

Dance off!

Overall, preparing five models at a time is probably worth it, but I need to be careful about how many models to try paint at the same time.

Just in case I need to reference it again later, the helmets were painted the same as with the Aggressors. Starting with the airbrush:

• Kantor Blue
• Macragge Blue first stage highlight.
• Caledor Sky second stage highlight.

Then fill in the details with a normal paintbrush (this includes Nuln Oil for the breather grill), followed by:

• Drakenhof Nightshade in various recessed areas, to help pick out the shape of the helmet.
• Macragge Blue highlight, particularly over edges on the top, rear and sides of the helmet.
• Caledor Sky for detailed highlight around the top of the breather grill and "brow" of the helmet.

At this point is might be worth mentioning that by painting helmets separately, it does become more difficult to match up against the lighting direction of the final assembled model. In this case I didn't even try: the face of the helmet is highlighted more than the rest, regardless of where the model will be looking.

There is a reason I do this: the helmet is a focal point, and the highlighting keeps the focus there. Lighting isn't just about being physically accurate with painting, it's also about defining the shape and impression of the subject, and by bringing focus around the eye lenses, it gives much more character and life to the model.

-- silly painter.