Blood Angels Champion - Part IV

 

Champion and Dedork.

Progress. Very slow, but progress.

The base has been done and now has an Ork skull with grass growing next to it. A special character model such as this probably deserves a more blinged-out base, but fitting him in with the rest of the models means I'm going for something a bit simpler. The skull rather than freshly hewn head means it wasn't this champion's work, but it seemed appropriate given the swords.

I'm trying something new with the swords here, and have actually already changed it up a bit, but the basic idea is: dark metal sword to make a blue metal "glow" appear brighter by contrast. I still don't like the look of generic everything-blue power swords, and so I keep experimenting. The tips being blue help define shape, but that's the part already adjusted in other models: using silvers instead. Steel swords in good condition should be very well polished and reflective, which works nicely with NMM techniques, but I figure power swords need different materials to help them work and so the darker metal colour of Doom Metal (TTC) shouldn't be too out of place but really makes the Omega Blue (TTC) seem that much more vibrant.

In this case the blue tips of the swords unbalanced everything too much and I need to draw attention back towards the torso and helmet. The small accents of green in the eye lenses isn't large enough to do that on its own, so I needed something close enough to blue to balance out the swords and lead the viewer on a path there. It's subtle, but the purple gems on the pauldrons is what I ended up going with. Just that little bit of colour variety that doesn't make the swords stand out quite so much, and draws a line towards the helmet. This also means the details on the shins shouldn't stand out too much, which is what lead me to using Grey Knight's Steel on the central blood drop symbol. It's not quite blue (actually more purple I think), but happened to be on my palette at the time. The symbol to the sides I'll paint up as red - it will add visual interest, but shouldn't draw attention away from the rest of the model.

I might try mixing Castellax Bronze with Sycorax Bronze to highlight the chest detailing. I haven't tried it yet but I'm hoping it'll be enough to highlight without going too bright - and I might need to leave it until after the matt varnish anyway.

I'll definitely try to get the smaller details filled in soon so that I might get to the final stages of this model. It's about time I finished it really. I have plenty of other models that have been painted in the background too, however keeping momentum up is difficult and actually finishing a project always helps.

-- silly painter.