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Hi all, I'm quite new to Dakka Dakka and have just discovered the blog area.

I've recently returned to mini painting after a 10 or so year break and thought I'd jump in with both feet and tackle a Blood Ravens battle company after playing the modded version of Dawn of War Dark Crusade. If anyone has any painting, positioning, basing advice etc any and all comments are most welcome.

Will post some WIP pics soon.

Had a bash at Ravens a while ago, paint wise, (i can never remember which one of the two) Red Gore for the red, possibly with some brown in it, or a brownish wash. Ravens seem to be more a terracotta colour, GW don't really have that in the range. I found it in a random corner shop that had cheap acrylics. Shoulders can be done with Kommando Khaki and Dheneb Stone or Bleached Bone Highlight.

From Dawn of War 2, a couple of their recruiting worlds are shown, one of them is desert theme, the other jungle, so they could cover your bases, pick your preference.

Positioning is up to yourself, whatever looks bitchin' to you

Marushi wrote:Had a bash at Ravens a while ago, paint wise, (i can never remember which one of the two) Red Gore for the red, possibly with some brown in it, or a brownish wash. Ravens seem to be more a terracotta colour, GW don't really have that in the range. I found it in a random corner shop that had cheap acrylics. Shoulders can be done with Kommando Khaki and Dheneb Stone or Bleached Bone Highlight.

From Dawn of War 2, a couple of their recruiting worlds are shown, one of them is desert theme, the other jungle, so they could cover your bases, pick your preference.

Positioning is up to yourself, whatever looks bitchin' to you

Cheers for the advice, I'd never have thought of the jungle/desert idea for basing so great post!

As I tend to paint more for show and collection I always liked positioning figures with a feel of movement and an upfront charge feel to them, although after reading the dawn of war books there's a couple of moments that would make great dioramas.

No worries mate, I think theres a pic or two of a couple I painted before in my gallery if you want a look, they're not great, but I was fairly happy with em.

If you're wanting more animated poses, then I'd probably recommend getting yourself a decent jeweller's saw. Dremels are terribly accurate and can make a mess of surrounding areas, and craft knives can slip and potentially wound you (with no armour save )

I had a few moments in the games myself that'd make great dioramas, if your computer is up to it, i'd recommend having a blast at it, first off, its a great fun game, second it'll give you a break from modelling through long stints when it can sometimes get a bit dull, and third it'll help inspire you, or at least, it did for me

Lookin forward to pics!

If your going to do a desert them you could always use one of the army painter rank sprays or you base coat (they have a brown one). I tend to paint my Ravens with red gore for the base color, black wash in the all recesses , red gore to tidy up the wash, red gore + blood red (I would say about 2/1 raito in the mix) as the first stage of highlighting and then i continue to highlight by adding sunburst yellow ( I do about 3/4 hight lights like this).

Finally I put a watered down red wash over the top, for the should pads I just base coat them snakebite leather, paint all raise areas bleached bone.

I actually paint my chest eagles a bone color (not strictly codex but oh well), bleached bone, devlun mud wash, tidy up with beach bone, highlight with skull white.

Anyways I hope that helps a bit.

Marushi -
Love the pics in the gallery, nice and clean flat colours on the armour and skin tones and i know what you mean about the craft knife slips...i've lost count of the number of slips and scratches



itsonlyme -

Thanks for the advice, I'll give your technique a go on a test model, like the idea of doing the chest eagle a bone colour rather than another metalic area, I think SM have enough metalic areas on weapons etc.
P.S...Is there anything in particular that you like to work on commission wise or do you do a bit of everything...so to speak :p

Np, I think for me painting bone eagles has become a habit lol, also if you want to do metal like on ammo clips, gun barrels I found chain mail and devlun mud rather effective.


As for commission I will pretty much take anything on

Don't you just love it when you find more than you were hoping for in a bits box?

Had a good look through an ancient bits box last night and discovered enough parts to throw together another 2 dreadnaughts...only question now is do I add them to the collection and attempt a 4th company project or just keep them in reserve?

You should have a look at roleplayer's blood ravens, there paint scheme looks alot like the game.

Inquisitive Inquisitor wrote:You should have a look at roleplayer's blood ravens, there paint scheme looks alot like the game.

Cheers for the tip, I'll have a search

Finally managed to get some pics of the mini's from build time round 1 taken. Took this round as an experiment in getting some realistic damage 'scratched' into the pastic rather than just creating the effect at the painting stage. Any and all comments most welcome

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-25322-11366_Wip.html

Nice base for the paint job, cannot wait for the finished product.

Metsuri wrote:Nice base for the paint job, cannot wait for the finished product.

Thanks very much, it was a mix of 3:3:1 blood red, dark flesh and chaos black. Might be a while before any painted pics arrive

WooHoo!..Finally mad it to the half way point of the build earier today. (I could get used to a day off during the week )

Decided to 100% change to building the 4th company after finding another dreadnaught in the bits box. Will post some pics in WIP album soon


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Woo more pictures...mostly boring grey plastic with a few test models thrown in for a bit of colour

Any and all comments most welcome

http://www.dakkadakka.com/core/gallery-search.jsp?u=25322


Company Captain




Venerable Dread getting squishy with the Tyranids




Group shot so far





Standard Tactical Squad





Ironclad Dread Having A Stomp

Oops, had a small setback with starting a Blood Ravens Company. After reading through as much background info I could find and after re-reading the Dawn Of War books I've costed up the idea of adding in enough librarian models to represent a true Blood Ravens company and found its rather stupidly beyond reach. As I wanted this company to be an ideal codex build I've decided to return to my first love and switch tracks to a Salamanders company. Good job I decided to build all the models needed first then paint rather than paint on the go just in case this kind of problem came around.

Thanks to everyone that posted advice, hope you'll continue to look in on the new blog I'll be setting up over the next few days.

FYI the dreadnaught is un-useable in table top games unless on the correct size base, however for a display piece i think it loose marvelously dramatic!

May i suggest as you have such a beautiful untouched army, go the route of glazing your reds don't be scared to spend a day on one marine (sometimes two days for me )

That is a lot of plastics to paint! Good choice of marine company, I have always liked the salamanders and there are some very cool paint jobs out there. (I believe that chapterhouse studios has a lot of salamander extras if you are interested in making them a little more fancy.) Good luck on the blog.