Blood Angels Contemptor - Part II

 

Un-armed but still dangerous.

Back again and returning to incredibly slow painting because reasons. It's picking up, and I really want these dreadnoughts finished, so maybe in the next week I'll get a lot more progress done. Much of the most difficult decisions have been made on them however, so it will hopefully feel like going downhill from here on - but I guess I'll see!

Strangely one of the more difficult choices that really delayed everything was trying to figure out just what would be painted in metallics. There's no easy separation in some areas, and even now I've just kind of decided to leave some parts dark and hopefully not draw the eye to them. Also need to do something about that left leg.

I ended up varnishing this model before painting on any metallics, just to see how well it would go. My Leadbelcher is definitely the main issue, it's become like a gel and won't cover properly. Iron Warriors works more effectively, so I'll use that for now - I still don't see that much difference compared to Leadbelcher anyway, and after a wash they'll probably be even closer. This bodes well for me, because I still like how I have that moment to correct mistakes with a gloss varnish.

Here I've added recess shading, Carroburg Crimson of course, and again the gloss varnish helps with that. I've also done some edge highlighting, although the reflective nature of the varnish kind of overwhelms that in the photo. I put a lot more effort into keeping highlights matching the general volume highlights: Mephiston Red on the darker areas, Evil Sunz Scarlet on the lighter areas, mixing in Wild Rider Red for brighter edges. I also like to paint Wild Rider Red, then glaze over with Evil Sunz Scarlet at this stage - it keeps the edge highlighting more red than orange, and leaves pure Wild Rider Red for later when the matt varnish has been applied and I can see which areas need to "pop" a little more.

From here the plan is to finish doing the above for the arms, then move onto the head and metallics again. Just enough that I can then properly glue the torso plate in place and paint enough of that to then be able to glue the arms into position. Somewhere along the way I'll also play with battle damage - that will be Rhinox Hide mixed with black for deeper scoring probably, and use the reds listed above to add chipping as necessary.

While painting this particular dreadnought, I've also been moving forwards with the Blood Angels MkIV Assault Squad. Nothing with too much focus, more of a "while I have these paints out" kind of thing.

The current count is now down to 12, as I've ordered another dreadnought while they're still in stock (Blood Angels Librarian), and will possibly get more Blood Angels Assault Terminators when they're back in stock too. I'll have to hold off on 10th Edition for a little while, but that might not be a bad thing - I'll get the more flexible kits later on instead.

-- silly painter.