Assault Intercessor Death Company - Part II

Death Company Primaris are all the Rage now.

 Just a small update on Assault Intercessor Death Company progress, now that there has been a little progress. The photo doesn't really show the effort put into the black - my own fault for the lighting and wanting a deeper black to the armour.

The problem with black is that it doesn't highlight well. Greys can be used, but then it's mixing two of the most troublesome colours: white and black. This is why there's often a little blue or purple added, just to help those transitions. I didn't want that, so I'm stuck with trying to be difficult.

Something that is helping is sharper edge highlights with Dawnstone. I've been moving away from such things, but it's really needed in this case to outline and give definition to the model. So if nothing else, I've learned that for black, sharp edge highlights matter.

In the past I've done all the blood drop symbols as red, and that will be the case on the model shown, but there are times when it's too much with the red crosses. For another of the Death Company I will likely try a deep purple instead - this worked well for Karlaen, and helps keep each member of the Death Company unique.

Green eye lenses are really working on this model too. I was concerned that it wouldn't give the right effect, but it contrasts nicely with the red and really draws attention to the face (at least for now - still much to be painted on the model yet). Death Company come with a lot of detail normally - red crosses, ropes, honour rolls, skull icons, and the usual winged blood drop of the Blood Angels. It can be easy to get carried away, so the trick will be adding just enough to make it interesting without unbalancing or overwhelming the model. It's going to be fun.

-- silly painter.

Tyranid Carnifex

 

Carnie the Carnifex.

 

And this is the last of my Tyranid models, hopefully now in a position to sell and then free up storage for something else. Obviously named Carnie, the carnage loving Carnifex.

There's not a whole lot different again from the methods I've been using to paint Tyranids so far, and that's making everything fit together really well as a fully painted army. There are some small additions: Nighthaunt Gloom with Contrast Medium around the sack attached to the left hand, and again as a spot colour on the weapon. Hexwraith Flame is also applied in some areas as hints of venom sacks (not visible in the photo) which ties that into the Tyranid Warriors as well. Otherwise only differences in that it's such a large model.

The model itself I didn't really enjoy too much. It's nice now that it's finished, but the assembly was very problematic. The legs aren't quite flush with the base, and I had to use green-stuff to give additional purchase under the left hoof. It's not noticeable once the texture paint is applied, but I have a concern about how well it's going to hold a fairly heft model. Perhaps I should have pinned it - and I may well do so if it breaks off. Owing to this, I think the torso is angled down more than it should be as well, which in turn affects the positioning of the head.

The arms don't sit quite as I would have liked. The right talon in particular is at a strange angle because the other right arm gets in the way. The weapon arms were a pain to try and partially assemble before painting - and in the end I had to break them apart when gluing to the torso, and then fill in gaps with green-stuff and paint over it again.

The carapace didn't fit together nicely at all, and a lot of gaps were plugged with green-stuff, or misalignment (e.g with the "chimneys") filed back to make them more flush.

Finally: mould lines everywhere! I kept finding them after Volpus Pink coverage, and would either have to carve them back, or try use Wraithbone to make them a little less obvious. That was very frustrating.

I may have to do another post showcasing the entire army (for some small definition of army), but Carnie was definitely a good way to finish the Tyranids. The contrast paints made it much quicker to get the models to an acceptable finish, and a little bit of effort on the carapace makes them really stand out. If nothing else, it was just good to get models done.

-- silly painter.

Genestealer Broodlord

 

Freddy the Hunchback

 

The Spawn of Cryptus painted, for no other reason than it was relatively simple and I felt the sudden motivation to try and get the Tyranid models finished.

In terms of paints used, there's no difference to how the Genestealers, or any other Tyranid in general, was done before. Same paints used, although a little more care in places because this is such a centrepiece model:

• The "skin" was given a Wraithbone glaze after the contrast stage just to give some areas more definition, or because they were too pink previously.
• Additional blending was done on bones to remove any clear line between them and the "skin". Mostly I wanted it to look like the carapace was slowly hardening more as the creature grew. In some places I started to put a slight purple tint, just to show it turning slowly into the hardened carapace seen on the back. The blending on the "horn" for example shows this in progress.
• Much finer lines on carapace edges, and some blending back of the purples if the colours were sticking out too much.

-- silly painter.

Assault Intercessor Death Company - Part I

I see a Blood Angel...

...and I want it painted black.

The recently released "start painting" kit of the Assault Intercessors provided an excellent opportunity to do a bit of kit bashing on limited numbers of models, and to practice some more on Death Company. The limited number is important if I'm to keep plastic mountain from growing much further.

The models came with Ultramarine insignias that needed to be chopped off, fortunately only the shoulder pads and therefore easily hidden behind the replacement spare Blood Angels variants. So converting to Blood Angels, and readying for Death Company, wasn't actually all that difficult.

Although I'm only showing the one at the moment, priming the models was done using black, naturally, for "battle ready" there's not a whole lot more that needs doing. I wanted to do more of course, so the airbrush came next:

• Corvus Black over the entire model. This isn't quite as pure a black as Abaddon Black, so it leaves some room to maneuver when it comes to highlighting and shading.
• Dawnstone for highlighting. I normally would choose Eshin Grey, but that's not available in the Air range from Citadel, so I used Dawnstone. It is much more saturated than I liked, but this can be fixed later. In future I might mix normal Eshin Grey with some thinner and use that directly in the airbrush.
  
• Abaddon Black for shading, but owing to it being slightly thin (at least with my usage) it also served to tone down the highlights as well.

The models still come out a little lighter than I like at this point, so some brush work was still required; I prefer Death Company to have a deep black armour, to represent their descent into madness.

Normally I would use thinned Abaddon Black as a glaze to darken areas, however I also tried Black Templar from the Contrast range. This was a bit hit & miss, and ultimately I might stick to Lahmian Medium with the former black. If I can tweak the airbrush stage, then this wouldn't require as much effort either.

Thinned Dawnstone to edge highlight in places, and Nuln Oil to really make the recesses black, and that's about it.  I don't edge highlight as much these days, but it's needed to define armour plating when everything is painted black.

I'll paint the head and helmets next, just to assemble that stage before starting on filling in some red crosses and getting started on blocking in other colours.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angel Inceptors - Part III

 

Oily Marine #1

Oily Marine #2

Sergeant Oil

 The three Inceptors from the Dark Imperium set are now finished...sort of. The spray varnish step was a miscalculation; the were was far too much moisture in the air, and it was far too cold to be doing this step. The models were completely frosted up, and so I turned to the one thing to try and fix that: olive oil. As a result, the models are a little more shiny than I wanted, but it's still better than they were.

So while I'm a little disappointed in not waiting for better weather, at least I've learned something in the process, and I was never too invested into the Inceptors anyway. They just don't feel Blood Angels to me. If I was going to mess up on any models, it's probably better to be these ones.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angel Inceptors - Part II

The "mike drop" stance.

There's really nothing new being done painting wise to these models, so this post is pretty much just a work in progress showing the armour being completed. The only real item of note is covering as much of the metal areas with black first - this makes applying the metallics much easier, even if it takes a bit of time. Othewise the red will show through the metallics, which isn't really wanted in this case.

 

Chest bump!

Corvus Black is still the choice at this point, although I may experiment with Abaddon Black as the metallic undercoat in future owing to how thin Corvus Black naturally is.

 

Platform clogs, now available for battle.

Losing a little motivation with these guys on account of how much they still don't feel like Blood Angels to me. Despite the Blood Angels love of mobility, they are an assault based force, and Inceptors look far too bulky to fulfill that role comfortably. So I don't see myself buying any more of them in a hurry.

 -- silly painter.

Blood Angel Inceptors - Part I

 

I believe I can fly....

Next up on the Dark Imperium Primaris models are the Inceptors. Close support unit. That drops from orbit. And effectively has heavy bolters. For close support. Ok.

It can be guessed that I'm not particularly a fan of the Inceptors as a concept, and even less so for Blood Angels. They simply don't fit the feel of a Blood Angel. A little less bulky, remove the shovel shoes, give them close quarter combat weapons, and then they might be ok.

The helmet is the most visibly striking point of interest, being yellow. Method for this is similar to what was done for the Imperial Fist of long ago:

• Averland Sunset, with the airbrush.
• Flash Gitz Yellow, initial highlight with the airbrush.
• Phallanx Yellow as finial airbrush highlight.
• Casandora Yellow in recessed areas, just to help outline the shape of the helmet.
• Fuegan Orange in the deeper recessed areas.
• Dorn Yellow as edge highlight, typically about the bridge of the "nose" area, and the brow.

Eye lenses are the usual method for Blood Angels. I decided to keep them as a green appearance because it ties all the models together, regardless of general helmet colour.

I've put black rings on the jump pack (or whatever it is) just to add a bit more interest. Gun casings will be black as usual, which should help balance it out a bit more, but I won't know if it works until the model is complete. At least I'm able to reach the fully assembled stage quickly, which might make the next steps a bit faster (still need to apply finishing shades and highlights to the red armour).

-- silly painter.