Devastator Squad - Part VII

 

Oh....yeah.

Slow and steady as the saying goes, and finally the Devastator squad is fully assembled. That doesn't mean they're complete - just that I can finally finish painting everything without needing to access otherwise difficult to reach areas.

There's simultaneously not a whole lot left, and yet it feels like an overwhelming amount. The armour needs edge highlighting and probably some of the volumetric highlights given another pass. While I was considering that last point I realised that perhaps the airbrushing could be simplified if I knew I was going to highlight again later anyway: rough sketch with the airbrush, fine tune with the brush later, edge highlight at the end. Worth thinking about. 

The right knee pad for Blood Angels shows which squad they belong to, and I picked blue with white cross this time around. I knew it would clash with the rest of the model and so I never used white (it's actually Grey Seer) but I think it's still too bright. Going still darker with the blue (near black then volumetric highlights with Night Lords Blue maybe) and a darker grey as "white" is probably the way to go. I'll bear that in mind next time.

Most of the rest is just filling out colours. I am painting them now one at a time, moving on when I get a bit bored, switching around for the last details. This is part of what I do like about the finished models - they're all a little unique - but it's also a nightmare for batch painting. I knew that going in, and now I just need to push through and get them done.

There is one final piece that's new though, and on all of them. The base. My usual drybrush paints are Underhive Ash followed by Terminatus Stone. Both of those are basically congealed pigment now and unusable (unless I get a mortar and pestle) so I needed a replacement. To that end:

• Nurgling Green / Ionrach Skin (1:1) which gives the desaturated yellow-green of Underhive Ash.
• Wraithbone, which is a close enough approximation for Terminatus Stone as it is.

They don't need to be calibrated and colour matched exactly, just close enough for the drybrushing to look the same, and I think the end result is most acceptable. Now I just need time to get through everything else so I can call these models done - time that should be on the way soon.

-- silly painter.