Blood Angels MkII Assault I - Part I

 

Doesn't need a pistol. He is the long range weapon.

As with the previous box of MkVI, half of the MkII squad will be Blood Angels (and half Sons of Horus) because I enjoy a bit of painting variation and it's not like I play the games. As the squad lead of the SoH bore a volkite pistol, I figured the Blood Angels sergeant should carry a shield: Blood Angels prefer up close and personal and the shield will help him get there. Also this particular post looks really cool.

I'm likely to paint one model at a time with the MkII Marines. I just don't have the free time for much else. I might well paint parts of the others in batches, but certainly the first will be standalone to serve as a reference for the rest.

Along with a Crimson Paladin, I had actually airbrushed this model a while ago with the usual reds, followed by a gloss varnish, and then a 1:1 (or thereabouts) mix of Carroburg Crimson and acrylic flow improver. On this model it worked extremely well: flowed into all of the recesses, barely anything on the main surface. It's difficult to capture with the camera properly, but the difference before and after is quite noticeable. What I haven't done yet however, is the extra highlighting afterwards. No building up volumes more, and no edge highlights of any kind. This will be taken care of after the matt varnish stage anyway, so I'm going to try hold off until then to work on it - and being slightly satin, that should make the highlights stand out even more. I hope it won't take too long before I can try that out: I'd like to varnish at least two models at once, which is what the SoH squad leader is waiting for now.

The shield I debated for a while and ended going with quite a simple scheme. Nothing too fancy, no extravagant detailing or hand painted filigree. This is MkII armour, earlier in the Great Crusade, and I wanted to depict a reflection of the Blood Angels still finding the balance of their souls. Working their armour into personalised art would take time. A simple red shield with the legion insignia is sufficient here, with Castellax Bronze edging as a neutral frame that breaks up the outline without overpowering it.

As a combat leader, and after a little digging through options of what I might like, I settled on black should pads with golden trim. This hearkens to the 40k colour scheme, but still offers something more ornate than simple yellow. The gold is actually Imperial Gold from Vallejo's TMM range, now that I've figured out how to use it more properly. I really like the warmth of that gold and think it fits the overall aesthetic quite nicely.

Obviously the left pauldron isn't the one with the kit. I might have preferred to keep the trim the same on both, but the sizes were a good enough match and I wondered if perhaps the armour was slowly being re-kitted from old Revenant Legion stock. At any rate I wasn't going to use decals were I could avoid them.

I need to block in metallics further next and sort out any smaller details. There is a feeling of fast progression, but I know I'll pay for that with the armour highlights at the end. If it works then I'll know I can trust the end result and maybe paint that little bit faster in future. When I have free time of any kind.

-- silly painter