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hello dakka,

at long last, I've finished up my space marine captain. I haven't sealed him yet, so don't mind the odd shiny bits. C&C welcome

Quite sexy. It looks like you've pretty much mastered the "standard" painting techniques.

Try more advanced stuff next time! (shadows, OSL lighting, NMM, shading, etc).

Very nice. The only thing I might suggest is a border on the cape. Compared to the rest of the model, it looks a little plain.

Nice clean paint job. I like the contrasting hair color to the skin....stands out. My only suggestion would be to give something....anything....a wash

interesting that two different people mentioned a greater need for washes/shading. everything has been washed, one way or another. the back of the cloak (the red) as done entirely with washes and highlights. the tabard and inside of the cloak was done with layering and glazes. armor's been washed, metals have all been washed... does it really look that flat in the photos? it's hard for me to see it since I have the model sitting right in front of me, I guess.

varl wrote:interesting that two different people mentioned a greater need for washes/shading. everything has been washed, one way or another. the back of the cloak (the red) as done entirely with washes and highlights. the tabard and inside of the cloak was done with layering and glazes. armor's been washed, metals have all been washed... does it really look that flat in the photos? it's hard for me to see it since I have the model sitting right in front of me, I guess.

Pictures have a way of hiding subtle shadings.

Washing isn't really the same as shading, though. Washing gives dark lines around everything, while shading shows light source.

Take your second picture of his outstretched sword arm, for example. The bottom of the arm is the same color green as the top of the arm. If light is naturally falling on the model, it would mean the top of the arm should be a brighter green than the bottom of the arm, which would be in shadows. The level of contrast between the shadow color and highlight color can make for some interesting effects. I've started doing the final highlight on the top of the surface in like a flourescent green, while doing the shadows in near black... and it makes everything look cool.

edit - the challenge with doing this is making the colors naturally transition into each other on the sides... I use an airbrush for this, makes it easy. You can achieve a similar effect with layers of very light drybrushing.

@Horst: ah, ok. now I follow you. I actually did make an attempt to do that here, but the color I used for highlighting the upper surfaces wasn't bright enough relative to the base color of the armor. I've got some new colors on order that I think will make that contrast more apparent for future models, though. cheers

Good work varl. Love the black skin with whtie hair look. Its very striking.

May I ask how you did the skin tones? I'm going to be painting up a couple of Catachans for my IG soon, and they will be a bunch of big burly black men who have been hanging around the Salamanders for a while. I'd love to have the right skin tones for them.

Good work all around though! I like the power sword a lot!

@joshh: I'm not honestly sure I remember all the steps, since it's not the usual way I do salamander's skin, but here's what I recall:
- base coat with 2:1 chaos black to scorched brown
- highlight raised areas with a lighter grey; I think I used either codex grey or astronomican grey
- wash with devlan mud
- do eyes and teeth
- touch up highlights with the same gray as needed (brow, cheekbones and maybe the tip of the nose)

I should have written it down, but it was a spur of the moment thing

Needs more detail on the shoulder pads. He's a captain of a proud chapter that traces itself back to one of the original legions. Yet no chapter icons, nothing to say what company he's from, no battle honours or anything.else to show his history in the chapter as a warrior and leader.
At the very least give him a Salamanders icon poking out from under the cape. Use the same colour as the pad contrast colour in the groove and it will look like it's etched on.

Very nice! More than adequate for any table top.

The one thing that throws me is the SUPER BRIGHT WHITE scroll on his bolter. Shade that thing or something, like the purity seals.

@cadbren: I'd considered adding bits of white scripture all over the armor but I thought that would make it too busy. the lack of a chapter icon's a fair point. I'd thought about slicing up one of the chapter decals and applying that to the shoulder pad, but the white wouldn't contrast enough with the gold. I might give it a go with freehand anyway, though...

@mattlov: it's a bit bright, true. I didn't wash it like the purity seals because I was imagining that it was metal and not parchment. I don't know if I'm sold on the white, though. I thought about doing it in silver instead, but I wasn't sure how to get scripture lines to appear over that color. doesn't seem like white or black would stand out much. any suggestions?

White on gold would be wrong as you say, something dark like a dark gold or even black would be better and I'd go for an outline rather than a block of colour. You only have to do the bit that's peeking out so that cuts the job in half.

Should have said earlier that the the mini is painted very well.

Put a gold on there and give it a light brown wash. Highlight to taste. Black "writing" will still show up on it.