The Blood Angels come to the fore

So last time Games Workshop released the Space Hulk set I was able to snag one and the last couple days or so I've been working my way through painting the Terminators from the set. I have to say that while I'm generally not a fan of mono-pose models, GW's recent efforts with them have been very impressive. The Dark Vengeance box set and the Space Hulk set have some really nice models in them that even though there's only one way the model can be built, the finished result looks incredibly dynamic when placed with its set-mates. The Blood Angel terminators from Space are a great example of this:

The Terminators as they stand today.

You can see how the assembled models still look dynamic and varied while still being unified in appearance. What exactly am I talking about? Lets take a look at them:

 Brother Valencio is the youngest of member of the 1st company, and is eager to prove his worth. The 'dashing forward' appearance of the model carries a strong 'eager to engage' kind of look to it. While it's a fairly basic stance the details are the part that sell it. The swinging chains, the purity seals, the tassels of the cord, they all move in the same direction and with very sharp angles giving the impression that Volencio is charging forward.

Sergeant Gideon. Maybe it's the half-face look, maybe its the way the character was shown in that Flash Gitz Animation, maybe it's how the character is described as bucking advised tactics by using a thunder hammer, but I get the impression that this guy would just be a royal jerk. Very much one of those guys who are basically high on the fact that he's in charge, makes absolutely no effort to help you unless it helps him, and loves to remind you that he is the one who is in charge. The 'charging hammer of thor' pose just seems to emphasis this for me. He's very "I AM AWESOME! FOLLOW ME CAUSE I AM AWESOME!" in appearance.

 Sergeant Lorezeno looks very much like a 'lead from the front' sort of commander, somewhat removed from how Gideon is portrayed he looks more team oriented. While he is certainly fighting, his stance is open enough to suggest he is positioned to help cover his team mates if the need should arise.

Brother Goriel... or rather "Brother Gorey" is just so utterly brutal in his appearence. I mean he's holding the head and spinal column of a gene stealer. Do you know what else does that? The Alien hunter from the Predator movies! And somehow I get the feeling that he removed it from the gene stealer the same way the hunter removed it in the movies. Just straight up tore it out of the body.




Okay so we've had lightning claw equipped terminators for a while. What have we not had? Wolverine in terminator armor! Okay okay, I'm kidding. Still prior to this model most lightning claw equipped terminators just had their arms hanging at their sides or raised up and forward of their body. This was a nice and welcome change of pose, and one that was later used in new terminator sets.

"Okay, so we can't go forward, back, to the right, or to the left. I'll just open the floor and go down." I love the way that the Brother Scipio is modeled, he's just tearing up the floor to make an exit or perhaps to use it as a shield. Maybe he's going to grab a power cable and use it as a make shift weapon. Just so many possibilities and so dynamic a pose for a model that is typically portrayed so stoically. 

An assault cannon is pretty ubiquitous in a Terminator Squad, so even though it's a little dubious in a space hulk, there pretty much has to be one in the Space Hulk terminator squad. Leon is that one in this case. Now a Terminator with an assault cannon is kind of hard to pose dynamically due to the size of the cannon relative to the Terminator itself. Leon is fairly well done given the limitations and it's nice break in design to have him aiming across his axis rather then along it.

There's a character blip in the mission books about Brother Omnio where it talks about him being extremly level headed and how Gideon had once joked that Omnio was actually a servitor that got promote to the first company by accident (What did I say about Gideon being a jerk?). While I can see what they were trying for, I think the pose of this model in comparison to the others gives the look of someone who is more interested in his smart watch then he is in the fight at hand. Still I'll give the designers props for the quality of the design.


So that's the break down of the 8 Terminators I've started painting so far. I'm using a varied approach to painting, rather then going through all 8 of them and doing the same the same step, I'll go through 3 of them with one step then I'll let those three sit for the paint to dry. While those 3 are drying I'll work on another 4 until I reach the end of a given step with those, put 2-3 of those down to dry and then pick up another 1-2 and work on those three. I don't have a particular reason for this approach beyond my ADHD kicking in and being relatively unable to focus on 8 models straight through. 

Today I'm just going to talk about doing the reds and golds on the model.

Painting started with a black spray base. I originally primed the Space Hulk models last fall by affixing the models to a series of lengths of 1" wide wood by way of tape. This gave me a series of paint sticks so I could work in batches and orient the models to get maximum coverage.

I put down a base color layer of Mephiston red. I watered the red quit a bit and it took a series of 3-4 coats to get a smooth solid color.  In order to shade the red I make a mix of Rhinox Hide and water, to a ratio of about 5 parts water to 1 part Rhinox Hide, and then went in with a detail brush to pick out crevices, lower panels, and anything else that would be shaded.

For the gold details I put down a series of 3 layers of Gehenna's Gold. In hind sight I think I should have put down a light brown base color, like Dryad bark or Mournfang brown, before putting down the Gehenna's Gold. The gold was then shaded with the same Rhinox Hide/Water mix as what I used to shade the Mephiston red.

Once the gold and base reds were down I came back in with Fire Dragon orange and picked out the edges of the armor doing a bit of an extreme high lighting effect. 

Continue

Remember these guys?

Do you remember back... hmmm about 8 or 9 months ago when I said I was working on De-Dark Angeling the Terminators from the Dark Vengeance set? Well I've been working on those guys again on and off as the mood hit me. Mainly for a difference in pace, but also because I had wanted to try out the then new GW paint range, I painted the first member of the squad in Ultramarine colors. So following in that first members foot steps I've continued working on the squad in Ultramarine colors.

Ultramrines terminators stand ready, mostly.

The above image shows the models in mostly the base colors, though the blue has been highlighted using the directions from one of the Games Workshop tutorials.

One thing I very consciously did was follow the color directions for the Captain Sicarius painting tutorial from the Digital Codex Collection. While the Terminators are from the first Company of the Ultramarines, I wanted to make it look like they were perhaps attached to the 2nd company and thus be under the command of Sicarius. I really like this deep rich red color which can be seen on the Sergents sash:

The, and most of the reds in the squad are done using a base color of Khorne red with a Baal red wash (The equivalent wash in the current series is Carroburg Crimson) gives the sash a deep crimson coloring that I then highlighted using Khorne red, followed by mephiston red followed by Blood red (wazdakka red).

I tried doing some wear and tear coloring on some of the models, again using the tutorials from the digital collection. The best example of this I can show is on the helmet of the Sergent.

Continue

Some busy work... sort of

Okay, so I got a little bored and started rooting around my bitz boxes. I ran across a pair of Dark Vengeance Terminators and some Forge World Ultramarine terminator shoulder pads. So I thought "Hey why not? I'm a good converter. I bet I can convert these Dark Angeled Termies into Ultramarine Termies.

 

Here is the first one. I had to carve down the shoulder so it would allow the Forge world shoulder pad to fit on it.

 

 The chainfist was adorned with very Dark Angel-ly iconography so it had to go. Only problem was that same iconography was laying across the cable going to the chainfist so I had to re-craft that lost segment. I used a segment of wire with the insulation cut into segments. Surprisingly it worked out really well.

The assault cannon armed terminator was a bit more of a challenge.  The amount of small details on the model made it difficult to effect any change quickly and I found myself having to work very slowly over an extended period of time for little noticeable change to the model. The best example of this approach is the feathers that had previously hung under the body of the assault cannon. I didn't want to have to rebuild the under carraige of the cannon so I went for a minimalist modification and only removed what I had to. In this case the feathers on the cannon. I decided to keep the hanging skull as decoration. 

For the moment I am leaving the hanging sword icons between the legs (that sounds like a dick joke just waiting to happen) simply because I can't easily remove them with out being forced to replace them with something else. Which I may do. I might add some purity scrolls or perhaps a different tabard.

Continue

trying the newer GW paints

Okay, so I decided to take the plunge and give the current GW paint line an honest go. So I grabbed one of their painting tutorials, this one for Ultramarines, and grabbed the paints it listed for the model. Those paints included Macragge Blue, Abaddon Black, Rhinox Hide, IronBreaker, Drakenof Nightshade, Nu;n Oil, Etherium Blue, Altdorf Guard Blue, Calgar Blue, Runefang Steel, and Guilliman Blue. I managed to assemble a terminator from the Dark Vengence set and set to work.

An abaddon Black prime coat went on the model. Then I based the model in Macragge Blue for everything that was going to be blue, Iron breaker on the metallic parts and Rhinox hide for the leather pieces.  I then went over the blue with Drakenof Nightshade, and applied Nuln Oil to the metal area. Dry brushing a layer of Etherium Blue lightened this up very well. I then used Calgar Blue to layer up the blue sections, and RuneFange steel on the metals. The Altdorf Guard blue provided a final blue shade. I then applied the Guiliman Blue glaze to the model. Over all, not bad.

The Nuln oil is basically Badab black while the Abaddon black seems a bit thinner then Chaos black was. The Drakenof Nightshade is a fantastic darkening shade for blue. I'm rather amazed at the Etherium blue dry compound. It makes a huge difference and I will be experimenting with the GW dry compounds.

Continue