Getting Ready for Sanguinary Guard: Painting Gold

As promised, I have made little headway in painting my Honor Guard since assembling them.  I did get them undercoated and basecoated in Blood Red and then washed with Devlan Mud, but that is where they remain for the time being.  I have been busy with some other projects though.  I kitbashed another Sanguinary Priest as well as a Chaplain who I think will remain jump pack-less since I currently have Astorath, Lemartes, and a Chaplain with jump pack to take care of my jumper re-roll needs.  I also purchased a new dreadnought kit and have partially assembled a Furioso with a Frag Cannon.  I planned to paint it but realized that I had lost my Blood Red, so I'm out of commission until I can get another one.

As I sat around wondering what I could do without Blood Red, I remembered that I have 5 Sanguinary  Guard assembled and unpainted.  I am not a huge fan of painting gold, however.  I don't think it covers very well and it never looks quite right to me.  I remembered having seen a few attempts by people to paint gold by using yellow washes over Mithril Silver and thought that sounded like it would be worth a try.  If nothing else, it would be insanely easy since washing creates shadows and highlights all at the same time.  I grabbed a test model and set about the task.

Step 1: Basecoat the entire model with Mithril Silver.  I used a big brush and this step took about 45 seconds.  In fact, throughout the whole process I probably spent 10 times more time waiting for paint and washes to dry than I did actually painting.

Step 2: Apply a heavy wash of Gryphonne Sepia.  Really just slather the stuff on there.  It's really important that you give the basecoat time to dry fully.  If there are small pools of undried paint on the model anywhere it's going to make a mess when you run your brush over it with the wash.

Step 3: Repeat step 2.  Really, just repeat step 2.  That's it.

Step 4: Repeat step 2.  Look, I'm not jerking you around here.  Just repeat step 2 and quit asking questions.  Whose blog is this, anyway?

Step 5: we are looking nice and golden now.  We are done with the washes now.  For our final step, give the whole model a good drybrushing of Shining Gold followed by a lighter drybrush of Mithril Silver for some final highlights.

Well, there you go.  That's it.  I think the mithril highlights show up better off camera, my poor photography skills aren't really capturing the full effect.  But you may decide the last step isn't even worth it anyway.  I though the model looked pretty good just after the washes.  For a tabletop standard mini, I can't imagine an easier process for painting a model of any color.  As I said at the beginning, I spent far more time waiting around for it to dry than I actually did painting the model.  Because of the nature of the painting, basecoating a solid color, washing and drybrushing, you can just grab the biggest brush you've got and go to town.  You could work up a full squad of gold marines in a night easily.  This definitely makes me wish my Blood Angels were gold instead of red.  At the very least it makes me want to trade my army in for a full Sang Guard army instead.

I've got a million squads going on simultaneously, it seems, so I have no idea what I'll be posting up next.  But something will get finished, I know that much!

Brandon

Blood Angels Honor Guard

The painting competition that never happened has really invigorated me and got me excited about 40K again.  So now that I have some non-painting time, I am assembling some of the miniatures I never got around to before, including my Honor Guard.  The Honor Guard is really a great unit.  They are endlessly customizable making them able to take on just about any situation that you can plan for and they come with a free Sanguinary Priest.  They can get pricey at the fancier loadout levels, but they are still almost always a bargain.  I've decided to equip mine with an "all-comers" type loadout that mixes close combat prowess and durability with the ability to also take on any armor that might try to surprise them.  Here is the full squad (jump packs not attached).

Quite the intimidating bunch, are they not?  In the middle there is one I have modeled using the Champion bits from the command squad.  The Honor Guard have an option to turn one member into a "Blood Champion" but he is unable to take gear upgrades and the trade off for that is WS 5, thanks but no thanks.  I do however love the Champion bits, so I had to use them.

You will notice he is wielding two power swords.  While this is technically legal, the only thing it does for you is remove the ability to shoot, as a second power weapon is the exact same as a bolt pistol in close combat.  However, I used the swords mostly for looks and convenience- they will count as a pair of lightning claws in game, but as lightning claws are impossible to obtain I took some artistic license with him.

Next up is the Sanguinary Priest.  In an Honor Guard he is actually called a Sanguinary Novitiate and does not have the ability to take upgrades, so that fancy power sword will count as a regular close combat weapon.  I went ahead an modeled him with the power weapon though so that when I don't take an honor guard I can take him as a regular priest with a power weapon.  I didn't use his Narthecium because I wanted to save that to use to make another priest.  I figure with the apothecary chest with the vials and the apothecary helix shoulder guard he should be easily recognizable as a priest as it is.

This veteran I gave a thunder hammer and storm shield to give the squad some real punch and also to get a model with an invulnerable save into the squad for wound allocation.  I did a small amount of conversion on this one, including chopping off the finger-pointing hand and rotating it 90 degrees, then cutting the hand off an Assault Squad shield to attach to the hand.  I used the 2-handed thunder hammer from the Death Company box and just didn't use the bottom hand.  I had to cut down a small piece of sprue to glue on to end and finish out the pommel, half of which is stuck to the bottom hand I didn't use.

Here is another storm shield-wearing veteran, this time with a lightning claw that looks like a power fist but isn't.  I have already mentioned the lightning claw difficulty, and I tried to create a home-made one by filing down the fingers of the Command Squad power fist to look sharp, like finger claws instead of claws coming out of the back of the hand, wolverine-style.  You can't really see it in the picture, and to be honest it isn't brilliant in person, either.  C'est la vie.  He also has the laurel-ed shield and shoulder guard and a laurel on his helmet.  This is because he will also, should I ever choose the option, bear the Company Standard and the Codex Astartes states that a company or chapter standard may only be borne into battle by a veteran who has been awarded with the Imperial Laurel, a mark of valor.  Loathsome though the Ultramarines might be, the Blood Angels are, as much as they are able, a codex-following Chapter and so the niceties must be observed.

The final veteran of the Honor Guard is a simple melta-gun toting marine.  Nothing fancy here, just 12" of superheated energy coming at your face (thats what she said).  When not running with the honor guard, this guy will surely see time as a standard Assault Marine thanks to that melta.

I don't think I will get these guys completely painted this month, as I am also itching to get another Priest and Chaplain made up and I've got a couple Baals and a Rhino that need putting together, and then there is also that delicious new dreadnought kit being released in a few days... well, you see how it is.

Brandon

Event Terminated by Order of the Inquisition

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There was no painting competition at Games Workshop last weekend.  I never took my lovingly painted Astorath the Grim up to the store to sit him next to plainly inferior models and bask in his glow.  There was no grave miscarriage of justice committed by allowing the judging to be done by popular vote among a group of people most of whom barely know how to drybrush.  I didn't lose to a model which had been basecoated and washed only, and Chris didn't win the competition even though he would have deserved it if it had happened.  Which it didn't. I didn't finish in an anemic third place, and, most importantly, I certainly didn't TIE for third place with a 12 year old and a fat slob of a teenager who appeared to make use of an ancient technique involving upturning a paint pot directly over the miniature.

None of these things happened, which is incredibly fortunate as I can't imagine any way I could have preserved my sanity or faith in humanity had events borne out as I have suggested they might have.

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Finishing the High Chaplain

Astorath is almost finished and last night I finally assembled all of the pieces.  I pinned Astorath to his backpack, but I didn't pin the wings because the angles just seemed kind of difficult I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get them on straight if I put the pin in crooked or something.  I think I am probably going to have to be pretty careful transporting and playing with this guy, those wings are going to worry me.  I finished up his NMM and I am happy with how it turned out in most places.  A few areas I think I definitely could have done better.  I'm not going to tell you where they are because I don't want you looking for them.

I followed the NMM tutorial found in the Blood Angels issue of White Dwarf from April of last year.  It was part of the Sanguinor 'Eavy Metal Masterclass.  It's not my favorite tutorial.  I don't particularly care for the amount of steps it takes and it seems like you could get similar or better results in fewer steps with another recipe.  But it has better instructions than any other I have seen so I use it anyway.

Overall I'm really pleased with how it came out.  This is my favorite Blood Angels model and I feel like I've done it justice with the paint job. There are a few spots here and there that I need to touch up- I mentioned them in my last post, places where paint rubbed off from me holding the model.  Aside from that there are just a couple vials and bags I need to paint and his base and he will be completely finished.  This competition is in the bag!

Brandon

Astorath the Almost Done

While it is technically a bit late, as I promised the end of last week, there wasn't a 4 month layoff in between posts so I feel like that is a victory for me.  I've really put the pedal down on Astorath and have almost wrapped it up.  I painted every piece separately, so I will have to pin and glue them after I finish painting.  Painting the pieces separately has been good because it allowed me to get to areas I would not have been able to see otherwise.  Unfortunately the major problem with this has been trying to hold the pieces while painting.  I didn't pin and mount them or anything, so consequently I am constantly having to retouch areas where I've rubbed off the paint while holding it.  It's very frustrating and I hope once I have it fully assembled that I will be able to go in and find them all to repaint them for good.

Astorath's backpack is nearing completion.  All that is left is the non-metallic metal gold bits, which are currently about 7/8 of the way done (as is the gold on Astorath himself) and writing on the parchment strips.  The parchment was painted with Commando Khaki and layered with Bleached Bone.  I then washed it with Gryphonne Sepia and edge highlighted with Bleached Bone.  Purity Seals were done up with Scab Red, followed by increasingly lighter mixes of Scab Red and Bleached Bone.

This is the first time I have tried a lighting effect on a jump pack.  I like it.  I painted a fairly thin layer of Enchanted Blue all around, then painted smaller circles using mixes of Enchanted Blue and Skull White, getting closer to pure Skull White near the center.

The wings I wanted to have a bit of a hue to them, rather than being just flat black.  Have you ever seen something that was so black that it almost looked blue or purple?  If you've ever seen a Raven they can look like that.  I layered a mix of Chaos Black and Shadow Grey over the undercoat, then highlighted it by increasing the amount of Shadow Grey and finally adding in a bit of Codex Gray.

I'm not 100% satisfied with it, but I still think it came out pretty well.  It was quite difficult to paint the early layers.  Because of the lighting in my painting area, depending on the angle I held the wing at I couldn't tell whether I had painted certain feathers.  Finally I finished the Executioner's Axe.  For the shaft, I based it in Rotting Flesh and then highlighted with Bleached Bone.  Next came a wash of Rotting Flesh mixed with a little bit of Snot Green and a wash of Devlan Mud.  I applied a final highlight of Bleached Bone.

The power blade was painted the way I paint all my power weapons, following the tutorial in the Space Hulk issue of White Dwarf.  It involves layering mixes of blues and Skull White with a wash of Hawk Turquoise.  I think I may need to apply a couple more small highlights of pure Skull White to finish it off.

There you have it.  Astorath is humming along and I estimate I've got maybe a couple more hours to put in before he is done.  This weekend is the deadline and I don't think I will have any trouble making it.  What about those slackers Chris and Justin?  Only Tzeentch knows.

Brandon

Elvish Trickery

Today Chris sent me a couple photos of his WIP Althran model for the GW painting competition.  He is following the instructions from the Althran Masterclass in one of the recent issues of White Dwarf, so check it out and see whether or not Chris has true 'Eavy Metal quality.

 

 

Chris was looking forward to trying his hand at the cloak, as it wasn't something he had done before.  Looks pretty good I would say.  The highlights are a little too subtle in my opinion, but that is completely subjective and it could look much different in person anyway.  The gold is looking good, the colored washes in the recesses really helps to bring out a rich gold color.

I really am not a fan of painting over white primer.  I always manage to have spots in the recesses that don't get covered and become glaringly obvious because of the white undercoat.  You also can't leave a gap between sections of different colors for a kind of poor-man's black lining.  Of course, having two armies whose primary colors are red and yellow means painting over black can be a real beating.  In the end, I usually choose the white undercoat and try to scour the model after basecoating looking for white spots because it's just so much easier get that basecoat on.

I painted some more last night and got most of Astorath's axe painted and all of the scrolls and parchment basecoated.  I'm going to have to re-do the axe blade, as I tried to get a little too ambitious with it and failed quite hard.  I'll have some pictures at the end of this week.

Brandon

More Astorath the Grim

Last night I did some more work on Astorath for the painting competition at my local GW store.  I have finished all of the red areas now, so I feel like it is all downhill from here, even though there remain a lot of things to paint.  It's just a psychological thing.  Once again, I hate looking a pictures of my models because it ruins my misguided belief that they are perfect.

Looking at it here I'm pretty pleased.  I have a hard time line highlighting so I think all in all this was one of my better efforts.  I think i will try to touch up the lines on his right thigh (his right, not yours).  I mentioned taking your time last post, but another real key to painting well is paint consistency.  If you don't have the consistency right it will flow off the brush too fast or too slow or not at all and you end up with messy highlights.  The thigh pad is an example of an area where I think my paint was not thin enough.  I couldn't get a nice crisp line because I had to press too hard to get the paint to come off.  So not only is it not clean, it's also kind of faded.  I have never seen any good tutorials on thinning paint, only ambiguous comparisons (it should be the consistency of skim milk?  I don't drink skim milk, how is that helping?).  If you know of a good explanation on thinning paint and best practices for doing so, leave a comment.

Back later this week with some bits and bobs done hopefully.  I've only got 2 weeks left before the deadline.

Brandon

Back From the Abyss

Well then.  It's been a while.  But, after 2.5 months off I am back, refreshed and motivated.  In my defense, at least one of those months was spent learning how to be a father after my wife gave birth to our first child in December.  Good news- I've learned it all.  Nothing but smooth sailing for the next 18 years now.  Back me up on this, dads.  So now I am back with the itch to paint, but what to paint?  My wandering eye has moved off of fantasy and back onto 40K, so I've picked up my Blood Angels again.  I believe at this point I am contractually obligated to inform you that I started Blood Angels BEFORE the new codex came out.  And I also started them before the rumor of the codex even came out, so I'm a real BA player, whatever that means.

So what got me motivated again?  Well, my buds Chris and Justin informed me that our local GW store is holding a single-model painting contest: purchase any model in the month of January and have it painted by the end of the month.  There are no other rules, which does strike me as somewhat odd in some respects.  Our pal Sean is painting Azhag the Slaughterer, and it seems to me that it would be hard to compare that to Chris's puny, pitiful Prince Althran model if you were having to judge.  Irregardless, this seemed like a good time to pick up my favorite model of all time- Astorath the Grim.  Opinions seem to be kind of mixed on him as a model, either you love him or you hate him.  Well, I love him.  No idea what he is like on the table, but then I don't know what half of my army is like on the table either.  I'm not exactly a dedicated general.  On to painting.

I started by priming the model black and then basecoating all of the red parts with scab red.  I did this in several thin layers.  The basecoat was followed by a layering of a 50/50 mix of scab red and blood red.  Astorath's armor is quite a pain to paint.  Essentially you want to wetbrush or overbrush the ridges (like drybrushing but with more paint on the brush).  The trick I have found is to touch your brush to a paper towel to drain off quite a bit of the paint from the bristles before giving it a go.  If you have too much paint on your brush it will come out too quickly and pool between the ridges.  You can see in this picture a few places where that happened to me.

I hate looking at pictures of my models, all I can ever see is imperfections that I swear did not exist before I took the picture.  When you are doing the ridges just make sure you take it nice and slow.  Approach it like you are doing a line highlight with just the edge of your brush and you can generally sweep across 3-4 ridges at a time that way.  Just avoid the temptation to start moving too quickly, thats how you can end up with too much paint.  Anyway that is all for now, I've got to do a further highlight of blood red, blazing orange, and vomit brown on the red parts and then move on to all the other bits.  I'll have more pictures as I progress, and possibly some of Chris's and Justin's models if they send them to me.  Here are a couple more Astorath pictures as I leave.

Brandon