Devastator Squad - Part III

 

I'm blue da ba dee

Not having had much time recently for a multitude of reasons, I've not managed to get a whole lot of painting done. I'm hoping that spell is over for now and am trying to do just a little each day again - and in this case it was the helmets for the devastator squad. Being Blood Angels, famous for their red armour, the helmets are are naturally blue.

The first comment to make here is that I spend so much time with red that I can forget how nice other colours can be to work with. It must be something with the pigments, but blue seems to blend and glaze much more easily than red. The photo doesn't show the brightness variation very well, but also it's not my most perfectionist work ever: I was trying for good enough rather than ultra smooth transitions in some kind of attempt to progress these models. I was also finding the flow improver and a good brush combined making short work of it all.

These helmets are not varnished yet. The recess shading was never going to be overly complicated so I didn't feel the need. They'll get a coat later on when the models are fully assembled. This also means that when I looked at the post-airbrushed helmets and decided they were too dark, it was far easier to highlight. Traditionally I would use Kantor Blue followed by Macragge Blue, with Drakenhof Nighshade in the recesses and a final highlight with Caledor Sky. After the first two steps though, it was far too dark - the highlight was too subtle. This is likely because I'm improving in some aspects with an airbrush and thinning the paints properly: the airbrushed coats were far more translucent than before and it impacts the value jump of the highlight. I suspect I'm encountering this with the reds as well. The solution here was to simply add more volume highlights with glazes of Caledor Sky before finishing with Teclis Blue for edge highlights. I may increase the brightness of each when I assemble the models fully, but equally I might just forget by then too.

That's really all for this post. Time to get the next paint out and progress that little bit on whatever takes my fancy.

-- silly painter