Painting Blood Angels - Part II

 Welcome to part 2 of this list of how I paint Blood Angels. This is the details section, and there are quite a few, it's a bit of a wall of text again. I'm also not really listing things in any particular order.

Let's dive in, starting with purity seals.

I didn't want a contrasting colour for purity seals, otherwise it might detract from the eye lenses of the helmets and unbalance the model. Instead I went for a darker pink for the wax, and faded white for the parchment. 

Wax:

• Screamer Pink.
• Drakenhof Nightshade, around the inner circle and outer edge where the wax meets armour (or weapon).
• Pink Horror on prominent areas.
• Fulgrim Pink for spot highlights.

Parchment:

• Steel Legion Drab.
• Ushabti Bone, thinned down, and on about 80% of the parchment, focusing on raised areas.
• Agrax Earthshade, but don't allow it pool heavily.
• Pallid Wych Flesh, thinned as well, and applied slowly to blend everything together.
• Black, either paint or a better yet a fineliner pen. Those pens are really great for this sort of thing.

That's for paper, but sometimes there's carvings on armour to look like paper or parchment:

• Zandri Dust.
• Seraphim Sepia
• Karak Stone, leaving some of the recesses alone.
• Ushabti Bone, leave even more areas untouched.
• Screaming Skull for edges, but thinly built up so as not to be too strong of brightness contrast.

For bone carvings I use something subtly different just to make it stand out from parchment appearance:

• Zandri Dust.
• Seraphim Sepia.
• Ushabti Bone on raised areas.
• Screaming Skull as a secondary highlight, covering fewer raised areas.
• Pallid Wych Flesh as an edge highlight.

Chestpiece Aquila:

• Corvus Black
• Dark Reaper, slightly thinned, and across roughly half of each "feather".
• Russ Grey, slightly thinned as well, and across about one quarter of each "feather", but pulling the paint to the tips.
• Nuln Oil, or watered down Abaddon Black applied directly in recessed areas.

Although only the "feathers" are mentioned, I generally apply the above to all of the symbol (usually a skull centrepiece). The trick is really using Corvus Black at the start because it allows further darkening later to hide mistakes and give a really good depth to an important focal area.

For Death Company it's a little different:

• Morghast Bone.
• Skeleton Horde Contrast.
• Agrax Earthshade applied directly into recessed areas to give more depth.
• Ushabti Bone along edges, and about half of each "feather".
• Screaming Skull as final edge highlighting, and the tips of each "feather".
  

Crux Terminatus, although being done before Contrast paints were a thing, this might change in future:

• Mechanicus Standard Grey
• Dawnstone over raised areas.
• Nuln Oil over the whole area, but not allowed to pool heavily. Just want it to settle in deeper areas to give a good outline of the details.
• Russ Grey as an initial highlight.
• Fenrisian Grey as a secondary highlight, but on the skull icon in the middle.

Actually the above is also quite good for general stone, which is often seen on shields.

Wreathes:

• Caliban Green.
• Moot Green along leaf edges.
• Drakenhof Nightshade (yes, a blue shade, not a green one, because blue is a good shading colour against green).
• Sybarite Green edge and trim highlights. It's this last step that really brings it to life.
  

Helmet Lenses:

• Caliban Green.
• Warpstone Glow, maybe 2/3 of lens, pulled toward the centre of the helmet.
• Moot Green, about 1/3 of the lens and pulled toward the centre of the helmet.
• Coelia Greenshade around the edges. This needs a pretty fine brush, but if too much gets in the way just wash the brush and use capillary action to draw it out.
• Nuln Oil in the corner of the lens opposite the highlighted section.
• White Scar, applied as a dot just on the edge of where the Nuln Oil has dried (the wash should be completely dry of course). A really, really fine brush tip helps here, and a little Lahmian Medium mixed in can help prevent the paint from drying too quickly on the brush before it gets to the model.

Utility Pouches:

• Corvus Black.
• Skavenblight Dinge, either drybrushed or painted to look like scratches and worn edges.
• Stormvermin Fur, applied over the previous step buy as smaller scratches.
• Nuln Oil or watered down Abaddon Black (I often have that on the palette) to tie it all together, normally leaving edges alone. Black Templar Contrast is also good for this.
  
• Leadbelcher on clasps.

Sidearm Holster:

• Rhinox Hide.
• Sylvaneth Bark drybrushed over edges and raised areas. Using an old, small, brush for this is useful.
• Lamenters Yellow over the whole area. This paint is no longer available, but maybe Iyanden Yellow thinned down a lot would also be suitable.
  
• Bloodletter over the whole area once the previous step is dry. This paint is no longer available, and at the time of writing I haven't looked into the red and orange Contrast range enough to make a judgement. Maybe thinned (a lot!) Blood Angels Red Contrast could be used.
• Agrax Earthshade kind of glazed over the middle areas, applied more heavily around recessed areas or to outline specific points of interest.
• Leadbelcher on the clasp.

An alternative for Death Company offers more a red tone. It doesn't quite work on normal troops, for which the more brown of above is more suitable.

• Zandri Dust.
• Screaming Skull to add scratches and patches of wear. This should be quite a strong brightness contrast to make sure it's visible in the next step.
• Gore Grunta Fur Contrast over the whole area, but applied sort of like a heavy glaze. Don't want it to pool too heavily.
• Agrax Earthshade in recessed areas, or anywhere that should be darker.
• If there's a cap on the end, treat it the same as a utility pouch.
• Leadbelcher on the clasp.
  

Chainsword Handles, usually not very visible:

• Doombull Brown
• Tuskgor Fur on raised sections.
• Carroburg Crimson over all of it.

Golden Rope:

• Steel Legion Drab
• Balor Brown highlight on all raised areas.
• Agrax Earthshade across all areas.
• Tau Ochre Light across raised areas.

Psyker Weapon Metallics (ok, not usually seen on troops, but I wanted to note it down anyway):

• Balthasar Gold
• Reikland Fleshshade Gloss in the more recessed areas.
• Runelord Brass as a first stage highlight (normally after any varnish spray).
• Sycorax Bronze as an edge highlight.

And finally, to wrap it up, Blood Angels have many gemstones on their armour. If it's directly on red armour, I'll typically use purples, but I appear to have lost that particular combination. It might have been:

• Naggaroth Night
• Xereus Purple highlight.
• Genestealer Purple second highlight.
• Abaddon Black shading.
• White Scar reflection dot.

Red gemstones however are often found on the Blood Angels heraldry, the chapter symbol on their pauldrons:

• Mephiston Red. Keep this around on the palette.
  
• Abaddon Black across about one third of the gemstone from the direction of the light source.
• Wazdakka Red across about half of the gemstone away from the direction of the light source.
• Evil Sunz Scarlett across about one quarter of the gemstone to highlight the previous step.
• Wild Rider Red as a sort of edge highlight of the previous step.
• Mephiston Red thinned to glaze consistency is often used here to blend everything together and give it more of a red tone if it's otherwise too orange.
• White Scar reflection dot, normally about half way into the black area.
• After any varnishing, a layer of 'Ardcoat is applied to give the gemstone a glossy finish.

And there we have enough to cover most of the Blood Angels models I've painted, and pretty much all of the troops. There might be little details on specific models for which I'll make up something on the spot. This should provide a good basis for army painting at least, and will continue to serve as a personal reference.

-- silly painter.