12. The Blood Angel

For the last couple of months, I've been burning through my pile of unpainted miniatures, painting them in much the same manner as my Librarian and Infiltrators were done prior.

However, as I've worked my way down this list, either because of the quantity or maybe a lack of improvement in the quality, I've found myself feeling a little burned out on it all.

Therefore, in the hopes of turning things around before I loose my enthusiasm to paint (something which I felt like I was getting very close to), I decided to take a break from the abundance of Ultramarines and Sisters of Battle I have left and do something a little bit different.


Of course, when I say a little bit different, I do emphasise on the 'little bit' because, amongst all of my unpainted miniatures, I have a single spare Assault Intercessor who doesn't really have a home. So, I decided to put him to good use and so set about priming him with Chaos Black.

Now, my initial plan with this chap was to treat him as a test model of sorts for when I got around to the Star Trek Away Missions miniatures. This allows him to be useful and not a waste of time, while also helping me move away from the standard Ultramarine paint job I do.

Therefore, I applied a couple of coats of Mephiston Red followed by a shade of Argax Earthshade to his chest plate, all in the hope of seeing if those colours would work for TNG-era uniform colours.


To be honest, even after the application, I couldn't tell if this colour would work for Starfleet's further down the road. However, with the work already done, I decided to keep going here and produce one of Sanguinius' finest.
Therefore, I went about Blood Angel Armour: applying two coats of Mephiston Red to the power armour before shading with Agrax Earthshade, drybrushing Mephiston Red to bring the colour back up and then drybrushing Evil Sunz Scarlet to layer.


From there, it was my standard practice to apply two coats of the remaining base colours;
Gold Trim: Retributor Armour
Carapace/joints: Abaddon Black
Metal: Leadbelcher
Purity Seal: Khorne Red
Parchment: Rakarth Flesh
Aquila Skull: Balthasar Gold
Sword Handle: Dryad Bark

The only difference I made on this miniature compared to the previous ones was that A. I tried to limit the number of base colours I used (in an attempt to give the guy a less complex look) and B. slow down and take my time with the paint, attempting to reduce the mistakes and need to repaint parts.


Then it came time for test No. 2, a pale face and some blonde hair (for yet another Star Trek model). First up I applied Corax White to the face as an undercoat before applying a base of Rakarth Flesh. Then, for the hair, I based his mohawk with Zandri Dust.

Once this was dry, I shaded every part of the miniature which wasn't Armour as follows:
Flesh, Gold - Reikland Fleshshade
Hair - Seraphim Sepia
Metal - Nuln Oil
Purity Seal, Parchment, Sword handle - Agrax Earthshade

After this came the highlights.

Starting with an edge highlight of Wild Rider Red on the armour to make it pop a little, I continued with the rest of the model with the following:
Retributor Armour: Auric Armour Gold, Liberator Gold
Balthasar Gold: Liberator Gold, Runefang Steel
Metal: Ironbreaker, Runefang Steel
Black: Eshin Grey, Dawnstone
Purity Seal: Wazdakka Red, Cadian Fleshtone
Parchment: Pallid Wych Flesh

To finish, I layered the top of the hair with Ushabti Bone (along with an edge highlight on the sides) and applied a layer of Flayed One Flesh to all the raised parts of the face, before edge highlighting Pallid Wych Flesh on the most pronounced parts.


Finishing up with Steel Legion Drab on the base (although that was done closer to the beginning) and that's this Blood Angel done.

I have to admit, doing this something different did bring back the relaxation of painting (which is why I do it) and I feel this is a better paint job than I've done in a while.

However, the face did not come out in the shade I was hoping for (which means I'll need to find another technique to Commander Shelby), although the white certainly gives this guy a very vampiric look (suitable for a blood crazed Space Marine, right?), so it worked out ok.

If there's one thing which bugged me by the end of this though, it was how (according to some), the basecoats were too thick and needed thinning down. This was quite a nuisance as I thought that was a process I had gotten to grips with by now.

Something to practice going forward. 

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