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If you want to see my work on blood angels then jump to page 2. Also I am doing a test blog for some blood angels that I will be selling here http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/288245.page#1470637 so go on over and check them out because this wont be updated until those guys are done, well apart from me responding to anyone chatting me up here.


Hey all prolly now one here Knows me because I am not really a big forum poster bust I hope to change that with this blog. First off I want to give a Big shout out to Role Player because he gave me alot of inspiration for my blood ravens and I think he is doing a great job for just starting into the hobby not too long ago.

Well my original plan was to have 500 points of my blood ravens painted for this tourney that my local group was going to host but I wasn't sure if I was going to make it or not so I didn't sign up for the tournament. I didn't really want to release any early pics of my guys because I get in the bad habit of painting one guy, showing him off and then moving on to diff projects.

Well Since the tournament has filled up, horrible car troubles, and a REALLY bad last week have thrown off my painting time I am a ways behind where I wanted to be. Couple that with me being a slow painter and my main computer being on the fritz it looks like I might not have been done for the tourney anyway.

What I am hoping this blog will do will keep me on track and I can get some good input from our group of guys. I also have another blog that will be running with this one that is being hosted on the forums that just got started by my local group so I will be keeping tabs on both and posting updates at the same time.

Well anyway took some basic pics of whats in progress and whats sudo done. the somewhat fully painted guy was my first attempt at them and when I get 500 points painted up to his quality then I am going to go back through them and start adding weathering details and whatnot to them so my 500 point army that I am painting initial is something like 2 10 man tac squads a Captain/Librarian and a base predator. On a side note the decals are a work in progress so they will be showing up when I go back to do the sprucing up.

So here are the pics hope you enjoy and please post comments/tips/asshatery.

Oh and sorry if pics are not the greatest, I am working with a new camera that I haven't sat down to fully figure out.


Unpainted Librarian/captain


Where he is now


working on cloth right now


More pics of him


More


now pics of the first mostly done guy and the squad 5 man I am working on.








well hope you all enjoy and I will have more posted as time goes on.

Great highlighting skills! Can't wait to see a completed squad

Nice stuff man - Good luck with these guys! However, myself being stuck on the ol' Space Marines, I have a question for you to answer:

Basically, I have (almost) got myself allot of Tactical Marines ready for painting. I've been advised to paint 5 at a time by someone, as a suppose to doing the whole lot on one huge assembly line of death. What works best for yourself? Please reply when/if you can. Cheers!

Nice. Another blood ravens player. Now I dont feel so lonely.

Im liking the libby/captain HQ unit. Looks pretty sweet.

Cosmic, its really up to you how you want to paint. Some people do small sets of a few models and paints from start to finish.

I prefer the aforementioned "assembly line of death". Currently, I have 30 or so models to finish painting. But I do one thing at a time.
Such as first they were all base coated. Then I started with the mechrite undercoat. Then the blood red on them all. Then shoulders or another detail, doing each detail on all of them until they were done, them move onto the next detail.

Thats just the way I do it.

How do you get such good results Lightdrow?

Cheers

yea what I find best is assembly if you have allot to do. What I suggest is trying 5 at a time out and what really matters is how detailed you plan to get. if you want to do allot of detail then you may want to try it out one at a time but assembly line works pretty well. I will tell you it can get a nit mind numbing and you will want to take breaks or what not.

What I find best is maybe work on 5 guys at a time doing one color at a time and if that starts getting to you take a break and work on either a tank or a character like a captain or whatever. That way you get a break from the assembly line.

if however you have say another army like a fantasy army or whatnot that has a diff color scheme I think that would be Ideal because I find painting the same colors over and over quite boring which is why I am working on both the squad and the Librarian at the same time so I have breaks between the sea of red that I have to look forward to.

Hope that helps

Thanks! I think I'll go for the five man technique, seeing as I'm going for the insanity level detail wise. My apologies for interupting your Blog, Lightdrow. Maybe, just maybe, you can do the same in the future with one of my Blogs. Once again, cheers, and keep on painting, man!

Cosmic.

Ok so just in case anyone wants to know how I do my blood raves here it goes.

Armor:
I start with a mix of oh say 50/50 chaos black and mechrite red to get kind of a burgundy color. I paint that over all the area that is going to be red.

Then I paint over that with pure mechrite red but leaving the crevices the dark burgundy color.

The mechrite is mainly there so the nest step can go on easier which is pure red gore. so go over and leave no mechrite.

the last thing before highlights is a 50/50ish wash of red ink and ball red. Make sure you get it on all of the red both light and dark.

Now for the high lighting.

first stage highlight is done with a 50/50 blood red red gore combo. That one will be a nice think highlight.

The 2nd highlight is done with pure blood red just around the edging.

lastly I do a VERY light highlight of 50/50 bleached bone blood red. Know this may look a little odd right now but the nest step will make it all good.

so after highlights are done we are going to go over them with the 50/50 red ink ball red wash but we are going to water it down ALOT and we are going to do 2-3 coats on just the highlights to blend the shading together and make that pink not so pink.

ok next is the shoulder pads:

these are pretty easy just start with a base of Khemri Brown and then painter over that with bleached bone leaving the recesses khemri.

All of my blacks are done the same way

Chaos black base
50/50 chaos black Codex Grey
codex grey
then very light Fortress Grey highlight

The purity seals on the troops are kind of basic and they may change but right now here is how I did it.

Dheneb stone
wash of ogryn Flesh
Bleached bone leaving some ogryn

The seal its self I am changing to green because the red didn't really stand out and I don't know what I was thinking on the first guy. so ah that color setup will come a little later.

The eyes

Dark Angels green with just a dab of white to make it a bit lighter.

Snot green in the bottom of eye
Small line of scorpion green
and then a dot of might in the corner of the lens for reflection.

Golds

Shining Gold base in several layers so it covers completely

Bedab Black Wash over it all
30/70 mithril silver Shining gold for the highlight.

Silvers

Boltgun metal
Devlan Mud wash
Chainmail Highlight

And lastly is the base

Scorched Brown
Dark Flesh leaving just a tiny bit of Scorched
Bestial brown leaving just a bit of the last two and paint the sides bestial
drybrush Orc Brown(old color I think)
Very light dry brush of Bleached bone.
Flock whatever color flock you want.

Of course the librarian is getting more attention and colors are WAY diff for some things like the paper on him and whatnot.

if there is anything I missed let me know and I will be changing this/adding to this later as well as adding a picture step by step with the colors.

Hope that was helpful to anyone who wants to know my secrets.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
its no problem that people interrupt this I mean I am using to get advice and to give advice and to start some good lines of conversation. I mean I would love people asking all they questions they want. I am willing to talk about lots of stuff I mean I am fairly new to the blood angels.

pretty much the blood angels experience that I have is all from the video games and looking at other peoples armies. I just started getting into the rest of their lore that's on the internet and I am liking it allot so if people want to talk about that, tactics, what ever just let me know.

I found it very helpful. Thanks a lot.

I am switching from doing a blood red as the final red (for the armor and such) to a scab red/ red gore which will make it look a little more rich and dark and a lot less blood angels like.

Cheers

Lightdrow wrote:
its no problem that people interrupt this I mean I am using to get advice and to give advice and to start some good lines of conversation. I mean I would love people asking all they questions they want. I am willing to talk about lots of stuff I mean I am fairly new to the blood angels.

pretty much the blood angels experience that I have is all from the video games and looking at other peoples armies. I just started getting into the rest of their lore that's on the internet and I am liking it allot so if people want to talk about that, tactics, what ever just let me know.

Fair do's...

I like your style. I find the way you have done the red is most interesting. Personally, I like to cross over a little into the orange spectrum, but this is still cool. Why, may I ask, did you mix up a 50/50 Baal Red and Red Ink combination? Is it because the ink's charecteristics are desired to be used too? Oh, and by your very watered down wash I think you might be better off by saying a glaze instead. Hardly a criticism, I must say.

Lastly, how do you go about applying your watered down wash/glaze? I'm always afraid of dis-colouring the recesses, or do you avoid brushing into them?

Keep it up, man! I look forward to seeing some pics if you get round to doing some.

ok so I actually paint it into the recesses and yea I guess its more of a glaze you are right.

So as far as the red ink goes it actually makes the baal red a little brighter red because baal red by itself will make the armor a bit too dark. That said the ink also has allot of other useful purposes like making the wash run a little bit more and giving the whole thing a little bit of a shield kind of like a watered down purity seal. now don't get me wrong when they are all good and done I am going to be putting a seal on them so they can be transported with less fear of damage.

and I thought about orange but I think I want to keep theses guys with a darker look and I think this way when I get to the weathering the dark colored mud's and scrapings with pop a little bit more which will already pull your eyes to the highlight colors because with details like mud it makes you take a second look at the figure.

Don't get me wrong I think a brighter color scheme like maybe with a bit of orange highlighting would also do them justice. I think highlights should reflect the feel of the figure and the type of world they are fighting on. With this darker scheme it will also make my librarian pop a bit more when stationed next to them.

Sweet, more Blood Ravens
I look forward to see a completed full Tac squad

Nice, blood ravens, I have an army myself(its quite small atm) with the cheast eagles I would do them bone colour rsather than gold as I feel gold makes them too shing and metalic, it also ties in with the shoulder colour. our choice though!

Oh yea sorry the egls and stuff are going to be the bone color its just that skill I did as gold

Solid painting skills. I look foward to seeing more wonderfully awesome models in the future from this blog.

The librarian conversion's good and as mentioned you've got nice neat highlighting. I look forward to seeing more.

The blending on the Librarians scroll-y bits is amazing, and your marine looks amazing, keep up the great work!

Edit: Durp Hurr, Speellung Mustooks

Ok.. so first of all its been WAY too long since I have updated and I hope I can get this ball rolling again. I am way behind where I wanted to be and its a really long story that involves me racking up towing fees over three tows in 2 weeks. I also have not had my car for two weeks which means I have had to catch the bus every where so that means that what should be a 20-30 min trip takes me almost 2 hours.. So needless to say I have not gotten NEARLY as much done as I wanted to.

Well that said I have pretty much gotten my Librarian done. He is missing a few small details, for instance I am waiting for my printable decal sheets to get here so I can get started on everyones shoulder pads and of course any weathering I am going to be doing them them all is not going to get done till I have some more of them completed. Oh and the name tag on the top of the guy has no shading and no name because I am still thinking of what to name him and I will do some washes over the name to give it a weathered look. So people will have to tell me what they think of him.

Right now I am working on my predator and will be switching between him and my troops randomly so they may not get done for a little while, I hope to have the predator done by the end of the week at least.

Just so people know the first things I am getting painted are 20 tac marines including 1 regular sergeant and 1 with a power fist, 1 Librarian, 1 predator.

When that is done I will work on some terrmies most likely.

well here is the librarian so far, pretty much done.





the insignia on the back of the book was a really bad forsight when I was working on assembling the moddel and it will most likely get green stuffed over at a latter date to make it actually a blood ravens insignia








So if people want to give me some good examples of names to use for that guy it would be pretty cool.

Oh and what I was originally aiming for was a 1500 point army painted because thats what we were doing our big tourneys as but now its looking like its going to be 1750 so any one want to help me come up with what else I should add, here is the list.

Librarian

5 assault terrmies, 2 T hammers

Multi-Melta Dreadnought

10 tac marines, Plasma gun, missile launcher

10 Tac marines, Flamer, Missile Launcher, Powerfist sergeant
Rhino

10 tac marines, Flamer, HVY Bolter, Powerfist sergeant
HVY bolter Razorback

Land Raider
Vindicator
Predator, HVY bolter sponsons

this is exactly 1500 so I need to figure out what to add to make it 1750, any suggestions would be great.

Your librarian looks amazing. Good job on that.

How did you make his Force Weapon?

Maybe some iconography on his shoulder pad would finish him off nicely.

yea like I said I am waiting for my decal sheets to show up so I can make some on the comp and print them. how I usually do my decals is a black decal and then paint over it so his shoulders wont get done till then.

As far as the force weapon goes the staff part is from an old Tigiruis that I took apart and the blade top is two space marine daggers cut and glued and the bottom is like the top of something that had a little eagle head... cant remember what right now came with tac squad I think.

so as far as the extra 250 for the army I was thinking either a Land raider redeemer; 5 sterguard and 5 assault marines with a power fist; something like 3 Land speeders 2 with Typhoon missile launchers and one with a multi-melta; Or I could always go with like another termie squad with either an assault cannon or a cyclone missile launcher and have 20 points to do something with.

Nice work!
I collect Blood Ravens too, and Role Player also inspired me!
I never liked Librarians myself, but seeing that makes me want to get one now!

You can't do the redeemer as you have reached your heavy support limit.
Do an ten man assault squad for the same points as a termie squad, then give both the razorback and rhino extra armour as they are better at carrying troops then. worth the points. the assault squad are also great counter attack units and can be used to destroy/harry the enemy flank or protect your own!

ok so I got my decal sheets, made some decals and now I am running into the problem of me not really knowing how to do decals very well. When I put them on they like to make I guess what you could call little tunnels and fold weird. Does any one know a good way to apply them. Do I need to cut out more of the decal paper? is there a solvent I should get from a local hobby store? any advice would be great.

Oh and as far as the second land raider goes I can always take the redeemer as a dedicated transport for the assault termmies.

You really should check out Bell of Lost Souls' Tutorial: Custom Decal Sheets on this matter.

There’s this stuff called Mirco-set and Micro-sol. The first acts as extra glue as well as softening the decal slightly (it also smells of vinegar); the second is the true magic maker. It dissolves the decal to create the painted on look. For SM shoulder pads, it is truly fantastic.

I hope that helps.

I'm very fond of the idea to create the Psychic Hood. I'll definitely be using that when I convert my Librarian.

I'm also very impressed with the book/banner. Amazing job on that!

There's been a couple of Blood Ravens blogs popping up and I'm getting impatient (stupid mail is slow). I'd love to see more of your stuff, keep posting!

that librarian is epic! great job!

Very clean paint job, very nice!

OMG UPDATE

So again its been a long time since I updated. I am starting to get pretty bad about this again. Well All I have really had time for is getting my predator mostly done and getting the shoulder pads on one of the tac guys done. I don't think I am going to do any more transfers until I can get my hands of some of that transfer solvent. Any way I hope people are content with even a small update. Oh and like I said before I have the Tank done and some rust on it but I wont be doing the weathering and battle damage until I get more stuff done, but I think it looks pretty good so far so hope you guys like it too. I will be trying out my new airgun and getting my full 1500 sprayed down with a good coat of mechrite red. I think it will make things go ALOT faster. So Will be posting at least a small update next weekend.





















Heh Still haven't sat down to figure out all of the ins and outs of my new camera, and I really need to build a light box or something.

apparently with tank I get no posts... Anyone have a good suggestion on how I can get more people talking? is it because I don't have fluff/background for my units yet? do I need to solicit my blog? is it considered bad for to pop over to another blog where people with a similar subject that people are talking about wanting to see more stuff like that and posting a link to mine? I don't really know forum etiquette yet.

It's not anything you can control, there are only a few blogs that get any responses.