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I managed to slap on some paint. The bronze/gold base colour has been applied, and so has the Vallejo Smokey ink.
Next up, I'll drybrush the golds and then move on to the rest of the secondary colours.

Love your metals on the red. Beautiful.

Excellent work! The golds look great!

Like we expected no less!

True. But those are spectacular! They'll be stunning when done!

Hahah I see we both use the term 'Slapped' the same way

Gold are coming in brilliantly mate!

The vets are coming along brilliantly. And if that's your definition of slapping paint on then I must be a terrible painter because they look great.

Gitsplitta wrote:Love your metals on the red. Beautiful.

Zambro wrote:Excellent work! The golds look great!

Solar_lion wrote:Like we expected no less!

Paradigm wrote:True. But those are spectacular! They'll be stunning when done!

Cheers, guys! Since the weekend is near, I hoping to squeeze in a good painting session or two when all the practical crap is done.

Knightley wrote:Hahah I see we both use the term 'Slapped' the same way
Gold are coming in brilliantly mate!

War Kitten wrote:The vets are coming along brilliantly. And if that's your definition of slapping paint on then I must be a terrible painter because they look great.

Aye! It's the kind of slapping that involves either the tongue sticking out of the corner of the mouth, sniper-like controlled breathing, or sporadic but acute panic attacks, all followed regular bouts of cursing so fierce it would turn the cheeks red of a French sailor. Luckily the black is the most time consuming and tedious, the gold went quite a bit faster and the rest of the secondary colours will need even less time, just due to the surface/volume of the to-be-painted parts. It's always a nice breeze downhill after that black. Black... Black...

Nice to see you back in action Meph.

Great stuff as usual.

D

Cheers, Cheese!

As promised, ding! Secondary colours on. They are ready for assembly & oil paints.
If all goes well, I might be able to finish them by this week's end.

Can't wait to see these guys done, they ought to be beautiful! And kudos for keeping such a consistently high quality while working on a whole squad at once, you must have great discipline!

Man I do love that gold you've got going on!

Great looking stuff!

Sorry if it's been answered already, but how do you achieve that gold? I need to know.

Paradigm wrote:Can't wait to see these guys done, they ought to be beautiful! And kudos for keeping such a consistently high quality while working on a whole squad at once, you must have great discipline!

Aye, I must admit my patience is tested at times. I think the reason for being able to persists is that I don't get lost in all the tiny details. The little vials here and there are brass, not every drop is painted like a gem, not every skull like bone, not every wreath is green etc etc. It helps to keep the painting speed slightly above glacial, and it also makes sense from an armour-construction point of view. As in the details are made from armoured plasteel or sumfing or other.

Knightley wrote:Man I do love that gold you've got going on!

Zambro wrote:Great looking stuff!
Sorry if it's been answered already, but how do you achieve that gold? I need to know.

No worries, it has been mentioned a few times in this thread but even on max # posts per page, it's already 25 pages. So here's a copy/paste/edit for ya:
The base coat is a home-brewn 50/50 mix of the Vallejo tin colour and the Vallejo Brass colour (and some thinner). I then applied a thick layer of Smokey Ink (Vallejo) and rubbed it off with my thumb, or whatever finger fits the crevice. This creates a nice feather effect and colour tone, and it really makes up for 80% of the effect. The rubbing effect from the finger simply can not be replicated with any kind of brush. It is important to do part per part though.

After the ink was dry I just gradually drybrushedwith all two shades of the GW golds, ending with a very gentle drybrush with mythril silver to pick out some edges. The key here is a very, very dry brush.

Out of interest where did the little wings that you've put on the Sang Guard style jump pack come from?

I can totally appreciate your comment about if you paint everything the progress can feel glacial, I think you've got a perfect balance.

D

Those little wings are the Dark Angel Helmet Wings, bought off of bits stores on the web and ebay. I buy 'm up whenever I stumble across them.


Yeah, exactly, balance between speed & quality was the key motivator for my painting techniques. Blended highlights done right take dozens of layers, so I drybrush. I do like the tonal depths of many-layered highlights so I blend drybrushed highlights using inks and washes.
I like crisp details & lines but I don't like the time needed for it; so I take care when blacking out details, but use weathering to cover up any blemishes and imperfections.

So basically I invest extra time on things you can't bypass (blacking out details, decals, lenzes), and for the rest I use techniques that give some leeway in accuracy (drybrushing, oil paint washes, sponge-chipping).

It keeps my sanity in check.

Loving the painting, really top notch and coming out with supreme effect.

I too often keep the details to a more "logical" approach, but my painting is far messier than your amazing Blood Angels, then again I smash an army out a tiny bit faster than you......

Cheers, mate!

Yeah, speed is not my forté. i think if i was able to paint fulltime, say 6-8 hours per day, it woudl still take me 4-5 days finnish a squad. Now it's spread out over a couple of weeks.

Looks good. will fit in well with your current BA!

You should do a army shot !

Yeah, good idea actually. When this squad is finished I'll take some.

An army shot would be excellent. I am currently doing BA so these miniatures are a great source of inspiration. I especially like your armour and metallic work.

Cool, cheers mate! Inspirational prais always humbles me to no end. This weekend I'll make some army shots.

I'm thinking I should try and find another black background instead of the black fleece blanket I'm using for these large army shots. it just doesn't look right. Or I'll just take them on the wood of the cupboard with the wall behind them. I'll figure something out.

It'll have to be a background that doesn't wash out your figures. Looking forward to see all together and marvel at your expanded collection.

The back of a poster perhaps? But they tend to be shiny white.. :-/

Sky blue or light grey would work a treat, but do not go out of your way for now, the wall/wood set up sounds fine. We just want to see it altogether.

The amount of different greens it looks like you used in the eyes is staggering.

How did you manage that in such a small space?

I thought your golds were good before but the dry brushing makes it stand out so much more.

Thraxas Of Turai wrote:Sky blue or light grey would work a treat, but do not go out of your way for now, the wall/wood set up sounds fine. We just want to see it altogether.

Well, I'll see what I can scrounge together. With luck i might even have some A0 drawing paper stored away somewhere. And I'll need to dig up the large tripod for the camera from the depths of god knows what box. I'm not taking any photos by hand for the army.

And next month I'm going to buy myself a Lytro camera, the 16Gb models dropped in price from 500$ to 140EUR over the past few years. I'm way to curious to see miniatures with a Lytro image. (A Lytro image allows for dynamic depth of field and focus changes àfter the photo is taken, just with a click of the mouse.)

Lost Soul wrote:The amount of different greens it looks like you used in the eyes is staggering.
How did you manage that in such a small space?
I thought your golds were good before but the dry brushing makes it stand out so much more.

Ah-Hah! Mission accomplished then. The eyes are easier then they look:
-Black undercoat.
-+-80-90% is covered with Ork Flesh using a 00 brush (Ork Flesh is an ancient GW dark green, the pot still being magically half full after more than two decades)
-a thin line of Goblin Green is added at the bottom of the lens using a 000 brush. (Goblin Green, again ancient, but light yellowish green)
-A dot of Ice Yellow is added in the bottom corner. (A brilliant Vallejo colour I use to highlight all manner of colours with.)
-A tiny dot of white is added in an upper corner using a 000 brush.

Whenever the model allows, I try to blend the colour a little bit, but in all honesty this is hardly ever the case. Those eyes are so frickin' tiny. It's mainly because of the right shades of green that it seems to have real depth. The bright green line and the white dot are the most crucial at giving the illusion of a lens. Quite often my first reaction when doing eyes is to think that it should be blended more but once that final white dot is on, it suddenly pops together into a deep lens. When you look at a thick glass object with light on it, the light does tend to pool together in curves with rather harsh edges to it, rather than a soft blend all over.

In my experience, the first, dark, colour is the most important colour to try and blend as that really has to convey the majority of the colour. The lighter colour(s) applied tend to convey more the feeling of the 'pooled' light and they can be a bit less blended, or even not at all. And the white dot, now that hàs to be as crisp and fine as you can possibly get as that conveys the shininess.

My hand is not thàt steady either tbh. The key here is a good brush and controlled breathing. I really try to slow my breathing, just like a sniper, and apply the line or dot when my hand feels most stable and just hope I hit the right spot.

Vanguard Squad finished. They came our rather nice, evenifIdosaysomyself. Whaddayathink?




Next up, I borrowed a large tripod for the camera and I have some old unused A1 drawing paper. Time to take some full army shots!

I think you're too damn good at this! Super work, can't wait to see the whole army together!

Really nice vanguard Vets there Meph,classy looking stuff. Will be great to see the army shots too.