Imperial Thunderbolt - Part III

 

Now with wings on the wings.

 

Painting these fighters is proving to be painfully slow. No real reason other than lack of time, but perhaps there is an element of them being something so different that I'm having trouble getting into the feel of it. I am still painting all four simultaneously, which will naturally take longer, but even so they should really be much further along.

I used some busy time to think which transfers to apply. Obviously the leader has wings on the wings, and with a black tail there will need to be a white transfer. I've glazed a little Russ Grey over the white transfer as well, but it needs some more. The other planes have a number on each wing, and the black variant on the tail. On the note of transfers, I used airbrush cleaner to help soften and match the transfers to the surface, but it appears to have reacted slightly with the prior varnish step and smudged some paint. It's visible on the left wing, so I might have to add some scratches there to cover it up slightly. A good point to remember however: only varnish after transfers, never before.

I've outlined all the panels and shaded all the rivets on the blue-grey areas. That took some time. I ended up batch painting areas, e.g all tops of the wings, then all tops of tails, then all sides, then stages along the undercarriage. This helped quite a lot - batch painting doesn't mean only one colour at a time, but it can equally apply to one area instead.

There is still some of the time shading to be done, then trim highlighting, metallics, the canopy, weapons, and weathering. Still a lot to go. Somehow it feels like I've turned a corner though, as if the hard part is now over, and so I'm hoping the rest will go much more quickly. Still, with the little time each week I have right now, it will probably take another couple of weeks to get these models done.

I've been using the new STC paintbrushes from Games Workshop on these models too. I haven't used enough to get a full feel of them, but they are so far handling better than the last ones. They still form a hook on the end, which just seems to be a part of using synthetic brushes - but at least harming animals isn't required. Definitely superior to before, but don't come close to sable brushes. I may write more about them after finishing the Thunderbolts.

-- silly painter.

Imperial Thunderbolt - Part II

 

Colours of war.

A little late with this post thanks to being constantly busy with work and other tasks, and for the same reason not really that much done for the past week and a bit. I did try to come up with the basic colours for the Thunderbolts however, and have managed to block in some base paints to give an idea on one of them.

Stegadon Scale Green for the trim, Corvus Black on the tail and cockpit, and in this case some Gal Vorbak Red for the canopy. No silver applied yet to the engines or other areas, only some black because it was on the palette and I figured it would give a visual clue to the final result. The red cockpit is intended to be as hints from red cockpit lights; traditionally red was used to not ruin the night vision of pilots when looking out the window, so I'm going with that. Plus it fits the paint scheme: the Knights have red "eyes" (visual sensors or some such) and so it's fitting that the planes have a red tinted cockpit canopy. A little visual difference on the lascannons to line up targets, and to add some interest. There's not much else that fits brass colouring, but sometimes less is more.

I also used GIMP and an outline of the Thunderbolt to plan the colours, which helped decide where and what to make black. Games Workshop should release outlines for more models to allow people to more easily come up with colour schemes.

This particular model will have a black tail, though I may not do that for the others. This is the lead plane and so will have some distinguishing features.

Overall I'm happy enough with the colours and so will continue this with the other three models and then get started on some highlighting.

-- silly painter.

Imperial Thunderbolt - Part I

 

To the skies!

 

A very quick post today because not much time the past week. The next models up are a set of Imperial Thunderbolts from Aeronautica Imperialis. One, show here, is a Thunderbolt Fury and is the designated squadron leader. They have an assortment of loadouts, but are predominantly anti-air; I have a couple of Marauders as well which I intend to be bombers or anti-ground loadouts.

The colour scheme follows that of the Knights for Titanicus. Pretty simple airbrushing (over a black primer) only so far:

• The Fang over the entire plane.
• Russ Grey to highlight the centre of various panels.
• Fenrisian Grey / Air Caste Thinner (1:1) lightly sprayed underneath. This isn't seen in the photo, but is a nod to many aircraft doing this to help camouflage against the sky.
  
• Deathshroud around exhaust areas, gun barrels, engine areas, to give an impression of soot and oil.

The Imperium likely wouldn't care much for camouflage paint schemes for their aircraft. The fighting environments are too varied, and the resources applied to engagements by the Imperial Navy aren't expected to be subtle. Likewise, their fighter planes aren't going to be in pristine condition - especially the Thunderbolts. They're used for combat, not parades. The highlighting and blackening approaches help give a less uniform appearance, more of a rough and ready look without even applying scratches or battle damage. I will probably do a little more such things later as well, just to really separate the look of these models out from my usual style.

Not sure the attempt to lighten the underside worked. I tried to thin the paint somewhat and make it more glaze-like, hoping to keep some of the prior highlighting showing through. It's still good to experiment sometimes however, so I'm glad I gave it a go.

-- silly painter.

Horus Lupercal - Part XI (Showcase)

 

Warmaster Horus

I'm calling him done. I could do more. I could always do more. I could put more marbling on the eagle. I could put more colour into the rubble. There has to be a point though where I say the model is done, and I think I'm there.

This model has been quite a journey. I started it in January 2017. Four and a half years of painting a single model. Not constant of course, many breaks between steps, but it's still quite a long time. Most of it was only done in the last year or so, quite possibly thanks to a year off work, but also finally knowing just how everything was going to be done. I also had to wait until I deemed myself good enough give the amazing sculpt justice.

There are a couple of notes on painting items on the base. The pauldrons littering the base are black with brass trimming. I figured this was fairly Legion agnostic, and so could represent any force that Horus was facing, or even the troops belonging to his own. The trim itself is:

• Balthasar Gold as a base.
• Castellax Bronze painted directly into recessed areas.
• Brass Scorpion added as highlight points.
• Agrax Earthshade added to selected recessed areas, mostly to outline rivets, but also to dull the shine.
• Stormshield to varnish and reduce shine a little more. Being in rubble, I didn't want any metallics to be overly bright.

Another piece of the base puzzle that I'm fond of is the iron girders. I mostly certainly didn't want them as a bright silver. Such building materials are generally worn, covered in concrete, slightly oxidised, and dull. I thought about it somewhat, did a test piece, and ended up with:

• Dryad Bark over all the metal.
• Iron Hands Steel thinned with water, and slightly dabbed and drybrushed over most of the metal. Recessed areas were mostly left alone.
• Fuegan Orange painted into selected recessed areas, a glazed onto flat areas randomly. Don't overdo this step, less is definitely more, but a hint of orange rust is the idea.
• Ironbreaker highlighted onto very select areas, typically where the metal has broken away. These pieces wouldn't be oxidised so much, not covered in building material, and so are given a cleaner look.
• Stormshield varnish applied over all the metal area to dull it down.

I also played with various colours around the base in a mostly random manner.  Rubble was highlighted around any metal, skulls (contrast method, a little Druchii Violet for shadow colour, Screaming Skull for highlights), armour pieces, just to blend it all together. I stuck to the colours used on the balustrade, steps, and eagle statue. These were the likely source of most of the rubble anyway, so it makes sense to keep to that palette.

Somewhere along the way, I looked and thought "done". I need to play with the lighting more, do a little photo adjustments for the fun of it, and also magnetise the base. With a lot of magnets. In the meantime, enjoy Horus Lupercal, Archtraitor Primarch of the Sons of Horus.

Horus Lupercal. Warmaster. Traitor. Heretic.

 -- silly painter.

Blood Angels Assault Intercessors - Part II (Showcase)

 

How many xenos has he kneed in the happy sacks?

Finally managed to finish off the Assault Intercessors, after getting a gradual little amount done most nights. As far as batch painting goes, it has been a success. I wasn't bored of painting five at a time, and instead it helped to paint really - I wasn't swapping out paints frequently in a single session, but making progress across many models. So I'd very much like to keep this approach going.

Momentum alone would make this charge crush the enemy.

Looking at the models, I had a thought of something to try soon. The airbrushing was also batched of course, but each colour was done on a different day. Doing the same in future means I could quite easily painting something in between each layer, for example bright edge highlights. These would be toned down on the next airbrush layer, meaning I wouldn't have to worry about glazing over them later. Something to explore and experiment with.

I just liked something different, but why the chainsword isn't drawn, no idea.

The skulls on the bases here are from a gift of skulls. As in the pack of skulls that GW sells. I thought some Tyranid skulls would be suitable, as though these Astartes were hunting down remaining 'Nids on Baal. Wraithbone spray on the sprue gives them all a basic coat to work with, and a little more of the base paint when glued into place, followed by Skeleton Horde Contrast. A little purple on some as a hint for Hive Fleet Leviathan.

Suppressing fire! Sensible one, keeping enemy pinned until he can close the range.

The squad itself turned out well, and though it took a while to get them done, that's more a reflection of the limited painting time I now have. The weapon highlighting took long enough that I really do think I'll try masking off areas and using an airbrush next time.

"Ok, who's next?"

There are few models I have left that require transfers for the chapter symbol. While it is faster to use a transfer than paint a sculpted symbol, the little details do make models more interesting.

-- silly painter.

Painting Blood Angels - Part II

 Welcome to part 2 of this list of how I paint Blood Angels. This is the details section, and there are quite a few, it's a bit of a wall of text again. I'm also not really listing things in any particular order.

Let's dive in, starting with purity seals.

I didn't want a contrasting colour for purity seals, otherwise it might detract from the eye lenses of the helmets and unbalance the model. Instead I went for a darker pink for the wax, and faded white for the parchment. 

Wax:

• Screamer Pink.
• Drakenhof Nightshade, around the inner circle and outer edge where the wax meets armour (or weapon).
• Pink Horror on prominent areas.
• Fulgrim Pink for spot highlights.

Parchment:

• Steel Legion Drab.
• Ushabti Bone, thinned down, and on about 80% of the parchment, focusing on raised areas.
• Agrax Earthshade, but don't allow it pool heavily.
• Pallid Wych Flesh, thinned as well, and applied slowly to blend everything together.
• Black, either paint or a better yet a fineliner pen. Those pens are really great for this sort of thing.

That's for paper, but sometimes there's carvings on armour to look like paper or parchment:

• Zandri Dust.
• Seraphim Sepia
• Karak Stone, leaving some of the recesses alone.
• Ushabti Bone, leave even more areas untouched.
• Screaming Skull for edges, but thinly built up so as not to be too strong of brightness contrast.

For bone carvings I use something subtly different just to make it stand out from parchment appearance:

• Zandri Dust.
• Seraphim Sepia.
• Ushabti Bone on raised areas.
• Screaming Skull as a secondary highlight, covering fewer raised areas.
• Pallid Wych Flesh as an edge highlight.

Chestpiece Aquila:

• Corvus Black
• Dark Reaper, slightly thinned, and across roughly half of each "feather".
• Russ Grey, slightly thinned as well, and across about one quarter of each "feather", but pulling the paint to the tips.
• Nuln Oil, or watered down Abaddon Black applied directly in recessed areas.

Although only the "feathers" are mentioned, I generally apply the above to all of the symbol (usually a skull centrepiece). The trick is really using Corvus Black at the start because it allows further darkening later to hide mistakes and give a really good depth to an important focal area.

For Death Company it's a little different:

• Morghast Bone.
• Skeleton Horde Contrast.
• Agrax Earthshade applied directly into recessed areas to give more depth.
• Ushabti Bone along edges, and about half of each "feather".
• Screaming Skull as final edge highlighting, and the tips of each "feather".
  

Crux Terminatus, although being done before Contrast paints were a thing, this might change in future:

• Mechanicus Standard Grey
• Dawnstone over raised areas.
• Nuln Oil over the whole area, but not allowed to pool heavily. Just want it to settle in deeper areas to give a good outline of the details.
• Russ Grey as an initial highlight.
• Fenrisian Grey as a secondary highlight, but on the skull icon in the middle.

Actually the above is also quite good for general stone, which is often seen on shields.

Wreathes:

• Caliban Green.
• Moot Green along leaf edges.
• Drakenhof Nightshade (yes, a blue shade, not a green one, because blue is a good shading colour against green).
• Sybarite Green edge and trim highlights. It's this last step that really brings it to life.
  

Helmet Lenses:

• Caliban Green.
• Warpstone Glow, maybe 2/3 of lens, pulled toward the centre of the helmet.
• Moot Green, about 1/3 of the lens and pulled toward the centre of the helmet.
• Coelia Greenshade around the edges. This needs a pretty fine brush, but if too much gets in the way just wash the brush and use capillary action to draw it out.
• Nuln Oil in the corner of the lens opposite the highlighted section.
• White Scar, applied as a dot just on the edge of where the Nuln Oil has dried (the wash should be completely dry of course). A really, really fine brush tip helps here, and a little Lahmian Medium mixed in can help prevent the paint from drying too quickly on the brush before it gets to the model.

Utility Pouches:

• Corvus Black.
• Skavenblight Dinge, either drybrushed or painted to look like scratches and worn edges.
• Stormvermin Fur, applied over the previous step buy as smaller scratches.
• Nuln Oil or watered down Abaddon Black (I often have that on the palette) to tie it all together, normally leaving edges alone. Black Templar Contrast is also good for this.
  
• Leadbelcher on clasps.

Sidearm Holster:

• Rhinox Hide.
• Sylvaneth Bark drybrushed over edges and raised areas. Using an old, small, brush for this is useful.
• Lamenters Yellow over the whole area. This paint is no longer available, but maybe Iyanden Yellow thinned down a lot would also be suitable.
  
• Bloodletter over the whole area once the previous step is dry. This paint is no longer available, and at the time of writing I haven't looked into the red and orange Contrast range enough to make a judgement. Maybe thinned (a lot!) Blood Angels Red Contrast could be used.
• Agrax Earthshade kind of glazed over the middle areas, applied more heavily around recessed areas or to outline specific points of interest.
• Leadbelcher on the clasp.

An alternative for Death Company offers more a red tone. It doesn't quite work on normal troops, for which the more brown of above is more suitable.

• Zandri Dust.
• Screaming Skull to add scratches and patches of wear. This should be quite a strong brightness contrast to make sure it's visible in the next step.
• Gore Grunta Fur Contrast over the whole area, but applied sort of like a heavy glaze. Don't want it to pool too heavily.
• Agrax Earthshade in recessed areas, or anywhere that should be darker.
• If there's a cap on the end, treat it the same as a utility pouch.
• Leadbelcher on the clasp.
  

Chainsword Handles, usually not very visible:

• Doombull Brown
• Tuskgor Fur on raised sections.
• Carroburg Crimson over all of it.

Golden Rope:

• Steel Legion Drab
• Balor Brown highlight on all raised areas.
• Agrax Earthshade across all areas.
• Tau Ochre Light across raised areas.

Psyker Weapon Metallics (ok, not usually seen on troops, but I wanted to note it down anyway):

• Balthasar Gold
• Reikland Fleshshade Gloss in the more recessed areas.
• Runelord Brass as a first stage highlight (normally after any varnish spray).
• Sycorax Bronze as an edge highlight.

And finally, to wrap it up, Blood Angels have many gemstones on their armour. If it's directly on red armour, I'll typically use purples, but I appear to have lost that particular combination. It might have been:

• Naggaroth Night
• Xereus Purple highlight.
• Genestealer Purple second highlight.
• Abaddon Black shading.
• White Scar reflection dot.

Red gemstones however are often found on the Blood Angels heraldry, the chapter symbol on their pauldrons:

• Mephiston Red. Keep this around on the palette.
  
• Abaddon Black across about one third of the gemstone from the direction of the light source.
• Wazdakka Red across about half of the gemstone away from the direction of the light source.
• Evil Sunz Scarlett across about one quarter of the gemstone to highlight the previous step.
• Wild Rider Red as a sort of edge highlight of the previous step.
• Mephiston Red thinned to glaze consistency is often used here to blend everything together and give it more of a red tone if it's otherwise too orange.
• White Scar reflection dot, normally about half way into the black area.
• After any varnishing, a layer of 'Ardcoat is applied to give the gemstone a glossy finish.

And there we have enough to cover most of the Blood Angels models I've painted, and pretty much all of the troops. There might be little details on specific models for which I'll make up something on the spot. This should provide a good basis for army painting at least, and will continue to serve as a personal reference.

-- silly painter.

Painting Blood Angels - Part I

 Instead of the usual post of a work in progress of a model, this time I thought I'd start a summary of the steps I take to paint Blood Angels. These are for line troops, not special characters, but the formulae can be applied to most models anyway.

I intend to make this a two part post, after which I hope to have finished these Assault Intercessors and then move onto something new.

Armour

To begin with then, perhaps rather obviously, is the armour. Red. This is something mostly unchanged in the paints used since I began painting again, but has been tweaked and adjusted in how I do it, and probably will be modified more in time. I also almost always use an airbrush for this now, but the same can be done with a normal brush for more exacting highlight control.

• Black Primer. I use Chaos Black from Citadel (actually all the paints listed here are from Citadel because they're easiest for me to obtain). A dark grey might also work, but really anything dark so as to make shading a bit easier.
  
• Mephiston Red / Dryad Bark (1:1) (Air). I spray this over the entire model in an even coat. It might take two coats in places, but I normally find one sufficient. I have a pre-mixed bottle of this ready to avoid needing to mix it every time.
• Mephiston Red (Air). This is sprayed over most of the model. Some deeper recesses or heavily shaded areas (or areas I just want some gradient to show) are left alone.
• Evil Sunz Scarlett (Air). Highlight step mostly from above, but not really following the laws of physics when it comes to light. Models are painted for show, so a little artistic expression helps to do this. Mostly on the should pads, chestpiece, base of the feet, tops of the arms, tops of the backpack, that kind of thing. For helmets I do this step on the front face area. This may not always fit light sources, but it really draws attention to the helmet and makes it stand out.

That's really all for the airbrush. It's taken a bit of practice to get it how I want, but the results are much quicker than with a normal brush, and some very nice highlights can be done.

On with the normal brush, I keep the non-Air versions of all the above on my palette for the next steps. Sometimes the airbrush goes places I don't want and need to pull back highlights, or increase them in others, mostly by just glazing as appropriate.

• Crimson Carroburg used for recess shading. Directly applied to recessed areas to help outline them. If mistakes are made, they can be corrected later.
• Wild Rider Red for edge highlighting. Not every edge needs to be done, and this is a case of just getting a feel for it.
• Evil Sunz Scarlett very thinly glazed over the previous step. I find strong edge highlights make everything a little too neon in appearance, like it belongs in Tron, so I prefer to tone down edges that are too bright. Glaze consistency is key.

And that's about all for red armour. Red isn't the only colour for Blood Angels armour however: helmets can be red, blue, yellow, or gold, there's all gold armour, and there's black for the Death Company. All of this follows the same techniques as above, but with different colours.

For blue armour:

• Kantor Blue (Air)
• Macragge Blue (Air)
• Drakenhof Nightshade (recess shade)
• Caledor Sky (edge highlight)

For yellow armour:

• Averland Sunset (Air).
• Flash Gitz Yellow (Air).
• Phalanx Yellow (Air).
• Casandora Yellow (outline areas).
• Fuegan Orange (deeper recessed areas).
• Dorn Yellow for extreme edge highlights.
  

For gold armour I'm still getting that sorted with the airbrush, but likely it will follow the steps used recently on the Sanguinor. For now though:

• Balthasar Gold
• Seraphim Sepia as general shader, mostly in recesses. Removes metallic shine, but that's fixed up later.
• Gehenna's Gold for an initial highlight. It's best to do this after any varnish has been applied.
• Auric Armour Gold as trim highlight.
  

For black armour I'm again still experimenting with the airbrush but it should mostly follow the same steps as with a normal brush:

• Corvus Black over all the the armour. This colour is hinted more towards grey anyway, so highlighting is much easier to perform from here.
• Eshin Grey as initial highlight.
• Dawnstone as edge highlighting.
• Abaddon Black, thinned down to glaze consistency, over the previous steps to tie it all together. This can be done with an airbrush too, but more selectively applied.
  

Black trim on armour is done exactly the same as described above, but with a normal brush. 

Weapons

For the most part, weapons for Blood Angels have black casings. This is painted exactly the same as the steps above for black armour. The difference comes in with the metallic components:

• Iron Hands Steel over the metal areas. This is a darker metallic, and great to build up from.
• Nuln Oil over the previous step. This will remove any shine, but that's ok.
• Leadbelcher thinned a little and used as a highlight. This will restore shine, but be careful to leave the recessed areas alone.
• Ironbreaker for edge highlighting. This can also be thinned substantially and applied after any varnish step to restore the metallic shine of those areas, which is something I normally do.
  

I rarely do any further highlighting beyond this point, but on the odd occasion I might use Stormhost Silver or Runefang Steel if I really want a bright edge.

The handles of special weapons, and maybe chainswords in future, is very simple:

• Doombull Brown over the handle.
• Tuskgor Fur to highlight some areas.
• Carroburg Crimson over the entire area.

Chainswords have an engine cover that I'm going to start doing differently, following usage on the Death Company Assault Intercessors:

• Screaming Bell base.
  
• Reikland Fleshshade Gloss. The gloss doesn't apply as strongly, which I find useful on occasion.
  
• Hashut Copper as highlight after any varnish has been applied.
  
• Fulgurite Copper as a final edge highlight.

Varnish

I do varnish my models, using the old Purity Seal from Citadel. Metallic steps I complete after this, to restore their appearance, as noted in places above. Sadly Purity Seal is no longer available, and I think a more satin finish is used on the replacement, but I'll find that out when the spray can runs out.

Next Time...

Next time I'll give a rundown of various details: purity seals, gemstones, eye lenses, etc. Steps given here will cover most of the model, but details end up taking just as long - and are equally as important.

-- silly painter.