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I've seen Libbies that are all blue except the left shoulder which was chapter colored,
but I have also seen Liibbies that only have a blue right shoulder pad with the rest of their armour in their chapter color.
I've also seen only the entire right arm blue, or vice versa, only the left arm in their chapter color.

The only consistent thing I have seen is the right shoulder is blue, the left is the chapter.
I am thinking of painting a Blood Raven Librarian on a bike, using the Dark Vengeance bike Sgt as the model (with modifications of course)
Since the bike will be red, I'll probably paint most of the armour blue with the entire left arm red and the robe in a cream/off-white color.

Would that look good, or too "British/American" flag? Should I have more of the armour red?

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The answer depends on what you feel like painting and what fluff you like.

Some 3rd ed librarian schemes:

Yeah, how strictly the various Chapter specialists stick to their prescribed colours has varied in the fluff over the editions, with the end result being that most players take it as a 'personal preference' sort of deal for most Chapters. Even strict codex-adherent Chapters have been shown with varying schemes, so do what you want, essentially.


Your biker scheme sounds pretty cool.

My own preference is to use as little blue as possible, as it makes them look like ultrasmurfs when they are all blue, and I think it detracts from the uniformity of the army.

Since you are showcasing the chapter, it seems a bit odd to shy away from the chapter colours. I would go at least 50:50 red on him, so it doesn't look like he stole the bike.

As for the idea itself, I don't think it fits very well with the rest of your project. You seem to have focused on regular grunts so far, rather than elites (such as Sanguinary Guard, and TWC). I think if you are going to do a librarian, he should be the most junior, unadorned, Lexicanum that you can manage, so that he fits with the other rank and file. Even giving him robes is going to set apart from the rest of your set, and make him look too "elite" IMO.

If you look at some of the Lexicanum from 2nd ed, they were really basic. I think that kind of thing would suit your project better, and it would be an interesting break from all the OTT fancy characters that we're accustomed to seeing today.

Something like this would be perfect:

 Smacks wrote:

As for the idea itself, I don't think it fits very well with the rest of your project. You seem to have focused on regular grunts so far, rather than elites (such as Sanguinary Guard, and TWC). I think if you are going to do a librarian, he should be the most junior, unadorned, Lexicanum that you can manage, so that he fits with the other rank and file. Even giving him robes is going to set apart from the rest of your set, and make him look too "elite" IMO.

Thanks for this. I am only expanding the project because I got a set of bikes for Kill Team. The cheapest to get, of course, were the bikes from Dark Vengeance. So the plasma guy will be painted as a Ravenwing and I swapped the pistol on the other guy for a short sword; He'll be a White Scar.
That left the Sgt, who has robes. I green-stuffed the top of his hood (seriously why is he modeled with it off?) and swapped the chain sword with a bland force sword (blade from a GK sword)
So since the model already had robes and I wanted to make it a Blood Raven (famous for having tons of Libbies), it seemed a logical step to make him a librarian
The funny thing about the Blood Raven is that I want to set it apart from a Blood Angel, and a Librarian needs to be set apart from an Ultramarine. I am hoping the right mix of both will do the trick.

But I intend on leaving him less ornate, especially since I'll probably be using him as a Bike Sgt for KT. Do you think I should remove the Ravenwing...wings?
I left them in the Ravenwing bike (duh) and the White Scar bike (but I did cut off all other RW symbols), but I could see taking them off the Blood Raven bike to "tone him down"

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Ahhh, sorry, I didn't realise you had already started work on the model. I thought you were still just bouncing ideas around for it. He doesn't need to be toned down, it was just a suggestion to keep the theme a bit narrower, but it's not important really.

With regards to the wings... The Blood Raven do have wings in their iconography, so it would definitely work. On the other hand it's a bit more different and converted if you remove them and put something else there. I guess he could have a big librarian book chained to the back. Probably wouldn't be too hard to make out of GS, given how books are fairly flat and square, and you could add details with varnished cotton thread and jewellery chains. I guess it depends how much effort you want to put in to converting him.

For my Salamanders Librarian, I painted everything blue except the left shoulder pad and arm. It was a nice change of pace after painting so much green. I'd at least keep the right shoulder pad/iconography/arm blue.

Its as much as the chapter wants.

usually the helm and shoulder pads should be enough. or you can go full smuff. just keep it consistent.

Here's a Work-in-Progress for the bikes I am working on. The Blood Ravens Librarian is at the left:

Index Astartes has examples that are completely blue except for a shoulder pad and completely chapter colours except for a shoulder pad and in between.

So, whatever you prefer really.