Cold-Blooded and Bad Tempered...

Finishing up my Temple Guard Test figure. It's been a slower process than I would of liked, but I have a lot of stuff going on in the real world and haven't really had a lot of time to paint, or update this blog, which annoys me. Hopefully that will change soon. There's been a few updates which I haven't posted here... Sorry about that...

I've had a few comments that the gold and bone get lost together, so in an effort to separate the two I have made the gold darker by adding a thin black wash around joins and cracks & given the bone another highlight of pure menoth base. The colors look a little more distinct now.

I've attached and started work on the shield. Still need to do the brighter shades of orange on the shield. I'm unsure if I want to do the rim scales in orange, leave them green, or go for another color. I'm leaning towards another color right now. Maybe bone. My reasoning is that the shield doesn't look very distinct otherwise. Almost as if it's part of the body; if you have any opinions shout out. I like help... ^_^

Only things left to do is a little bit of shield work, the eyes and the gemstones. I think that when I'm "batch painting" I'm going to go for a figure a day rather than paint by stage. I've done it both ways and I prefer the figure a day method...

No new recipes today. Everything is pretty much the same colors as I've been using...

As always I appreciate any and all comments and feedback, otherwise I feel like I'm talking to myself... And I always get into an argument when that happens...

Blood Raven Captain Complete

*phew* Done... That backpack nearly did me in... I was so unsure what to do color-wise that getting my head around it to actually paint it was something of an accomplishment unto itself... I'm sure everyone has days like that... And I'm sure the two coffee's and a red bull didn't help my painting out today... But at least I painted it mwahahaha…

I have taken ten photos from all angles, but only five are posted (Really? duh...). If you want to see all ten my flicker photostream is located here. Wow! I also just realized that I have now been doing this hobby for two whole years!! WooHoo! Go me! ^_^

Done today:
Backpack: The backpack comes from the Death Company box. I filed away some of the markings, but felt the tear-drop gem was ok left, especially since I was going to paint it green... (And with the amount of caffeine in my system painting it was a feat...) The colors are all found on other parts of him. Nothing knew used here. “Faith” seemed to be a Blood Raven word. I was tempted to try “Knowledge”, but that space was pretty small… The ‘H’ looks a little funny… I might redo it… But I doubt it…
Base: Base was quite simple when I found what colors Roleplayer uses. Basecoated, then layers of drybrushing. The cork gives lots of good little ridges to for the brush to catch, so it has that good stone effect.
Colors:

Stone:Battle Grey Foundation as base
Black wash
Battle Grey for first drybrush
Codex grey for second drybrush
fortress gray for third drybrush
White for final.

Earth:Calthan brown for base
Devlan mud wash
Calthan Brown for first Drybrush
Snakebite Leather for Second Drybrush
Bleached bone for Third Drybrush

Each drybrush should be lighter, building on the colors that come before it.

Freehand? What’s that you ask? Where’s the freehand? Truth be told, my freehand skills are abysmal, and I’m rather happy with this guy. If I can think of a pattern which might be easily done I may attempt it… Especially on the cream part of his cloak on his bottom right, that space looks little flat… I was thinking maybe some small purple swirl thing… But that’s something to ponder in the next few days…

As always I would love to hear some feedback and constructive criticism. What you do like, what you think I need to work on… It all helps me when I start something new, so please help me improve.

Oh, and if you like / don’t like the constant updates where I go into detail of how I do things please tell me. I’m trying to decide if I should keep doing them ^_^

Trade Marine - Day Ten: Shield me from harm! *Groan!*

I was late finishing today and the sun had gone down, so I pulled out my light rig, but alas all but one bulb was gone... The color is a touch washed out. Especially the red. So I just took a single photo of the shield work I've done today.
I know I said I was going to look for different options instead of the shield, but he was designed for a shield and everything else I tried there just looked funny... I was a little unsure about the color make up, and whether the cream was to much, but at the end of the day I am quite happy with the turnout. The red rim of the shields cream and gold is the opposite of the cream cloak framing the red armor.
There's no new colors on it. Gold is the gold, red is the red and cream is the cream...
Just the base to go... and maybe some freehand... OMG and the backpack... Gah... I hate Space Marine Backpacks... They're so boring...

Trade Marine - Day Nine and a half: The night off...

No update tonight. Took some time to go see Scott Pilgrim Vs the World. Excellent film filled with nerdy gaming references which greatly appealed... Go see it...

Painting will resume tomorrow ^_^

Trade Marine - Day Nine. DISASTER STRIKES!

I've been waiting for it to happen. With every miniature I do there is a moment of disaster. Sometimes it is a minor thing easily correctable, other times it is catastrophic and deserving of a Simple Green Bath and stiff toothbrush. Today was a middle of the road affair with the cloak encountering the side of a paint pot which had spilled leaving a massive coat of green all over the purple. Acting quickly (And modestly... HA!) I used needle nose Q-Tips to soak up as much of the excess as I could with blotting (never wipe a paint spill, always blot). Then I used an eye-dropper to dilute what was left and blot it again. I did that a couple more times. Then I left it to dry. The result wasn't that bad. most of the green was gone, but there were flecks running throughout so I decided to recoat and start again... I went super thin with the paint and did three coats. The turnout is OK, slightly darker than the original, and slightly raised surface in places... Despite the setback I continued with doing detail work over the entire figure (I would normally go and destroy things...). Anyway, here is today's breakdown...

Gems: I use to have massive trouble with gems, I'm talking shockingly bad; and while I'm not perfect at them, I've gotten better... I've never painted a green Blackstone gem before. But figured using the same basic principles as my red ones with mostly the same colors as doing the eyes would work, thankfully it did. ^_^ The trick with doing Blackstone gems of any color is to let the black do the job for you. Small lines of paint, with ever lighter and smaller lines over the same bit. Finally you need to do two dots, one the highpoint of the color (in this case pure yellow) and then a tiny dot of off-white on the other side of the gem in the black. The result is something that fools the eye into thinking you've got a full gem, when in reality you've done this tiny work... Requires a little but of practice, but I like them. OH! And after 72-hours a touch of hi-gloss sealer over the entire gem. Really makes it sparkle. These ones done have the gloss yet, but you get the idea...

Weapon: Finished it off. I wanted an off-focal point which wouldn't detract from the face, so the light grey with blue trim works well enough for that. It's the only thing which has that color on the figure, but it isn't a striking color... I'm not that good at power weapon effects so this was a cowards way out... Tee hee hee... ^_^

Cloak: As you can see I've also added some rather rough highlighting. Alot of people use white for raising a color, but I've found that all it does it sap color. I've used the same cream as the helmet to lighten and it seems to have worked quite well... I am unsure whether I wish to now risk a pattern over the purple. It already has so many coats of paint... Plus there's still a pack to go on there... I might wait and see how it looks with a pack before deciding...

Detailing / Writing: In case you can't tell it says Valor on his leg... I like the word Valor as it has go sharp points... I get a lot of people asking me how I do my writing. Short answer? I cheat! Mwahaha! I use a Steadtler Professional Pen 0.5 size... Is that cheap? Maybe. Does it get the job done? You bet!

Oh! I also attached the head! Just in case you didn't see that ^_^[

Trade Marine - Day Eight: Cloak and Daggers! Well Axe's really... ^_^

It continues! Small steps seem to be the way for right now... Silly work getting in the way... What do I need money for... Silly rent, food and lifestyle... Bah ^_^

Today:
Cloak started. Took some advice and made the inside cream. I think it frames the front of him quite well. The back has the basecoat and some washes on it. Still need to highlight it and probably add some gold trim in there somewhere. Cream might of looked nice, but I am partial to purple...

Buckle thing done. Gold and Green. Still can't believe I didn't think of green for the Laurels!? Looks good too. It's a shame the shield will cover 95% of it ^_^

Weapon started. I wanted the weapon to look like a relic and went with this very light grey. Going to rim it with a watered down blue wash and probably feather some white onto the sharp points. I don't know if I like the silver of the mechanical part with the white blade parts. They're very similar, maybe redo them in gold?

I've been playing around with maybe leaving the shield off as well... Going through my bitz box I found a nice storm bolter that might work... and there's a few other things I could try... I might have to model some choices...

Trade Marine - Day Seven: Leather & Buckles & Bling! OH MY!

Omg day Seven... Kill me now! Hehehe, nah it's not to bad really... Rainy Sunday afternoons were designed for painting me thinks; especially in winter... Anyway, he's finally starting to come together; adding more color always seems to help.

Worked on today:

Armor: Did a few touch ups on the red armor; hopefully lifting the brightness in places and correcting a few blends in others. I don't think I can risk adding anymore paint to the red, it's already pretty thick so this might be the final red, except for touch ups... ^_^

Seals and Parchment: Green for the seals was a no-brainer. Connects with the eyes, and gives a change from the browns and creams. I'm not totally sold on the color of the parchment yet. Looks a little to similar to the cream. Maybe another layer of sepia to tone it down a little. Maybe even a slightly watered Flesh wash over it...

Leather: I'm really bad at leather. Like Catastrophic bad. I have a lot of trouble with it. I've tried blending it, I've tried drybrushing it. Hated them all... Hence I usually cop out with the wash heavy method you can see.

Sweet Zombie Jesus... I'm a slow painter :D

RECIPES:

Green Recipe:

Dark Angels Green Base

Goblin Green touch ups

3:1 water / Scorpion Green touches

Green wash

1:1 Water / Sepia wash to darken the recesses.

Parchment Recipe:

Bleached Bone. Many layers.

x2 Sepia washes (Maybe another)

Leather Recipe:

P3 Knacksack brown

Devlan Mud x2

Highlight with thinned Knacksack brown (You'll be able to see wear it goes as the wash will be lighter)

Sepia wash to tie the highlight down.

Now I'm at a real loss of what color to do the cloak and the waist buckle thing. The Buckle needs to a light color. Either Gold or Cream. The cape I'm thinking purple... So help me pick! Tell me what you think it should be! Chances are I'll just do what you tell me... I'm weak like that... ^_^

Trade Marine - Day Five: Still working that body...

I'm at the point where I'm not totally sure how this miniature is going to come together. I have questions about the shield colors, the weapon colors, how the red is working, the cape, etc... Experience says these problems will go away when I keep working on the miniature but it's still annoying... The lack of good light for taking photos has exacerbated this too... *grumble grumble*

Done today:

More red work; had an issue with the weapon arm front and needed to fix it, but has left the blend a little stagnant. The breastplate is looking a little weird as well, might have to have a closer look at that...

The first coat of metallics are on. Nearly everything that is silver will soon be gold, or bronze. Only thing that won't get another pigment color is the key, but that will be weathered with washes. I've also made the flexi-armour joints silver with heavy black in the recesses. I know Roleplayer leaves them black, but they'd be voids in this guy...

Yes, I know the right knees pad icon still has a touch of black in it... But it's all going to be gold... And there's gonna be a big ass shield in front of it ^_^

Trade Marine - Day Four: Work the body! *thud thud thud*

I have started to highlight the red. It's a little hard to see but I'm using a technique that is meant to be like blending... I haven't quite perfected it yet, but it's getting there. I think it needs a lighter color to help it out. So far all I've used is pure Scab Red and a Scab Red with a touch of Dwarf Flesh to lighten it up... Maybe tomorrow a touch more Dwarf Flesh... ^_^

Started on the cream for the body as well. P3 paint is bloody good. Even watered down to a good thin consistency it only took three coats to cover the black. Much better than the Scab Red did yesterday... I'm slowly going to be replacing a lot of my GW version paints... I recently purchased some metallics from "Andrea Color" if they perform then I won't be buying any more paint from GW...

I'm going to start the lining for the cream later this afternoon. Tomorrow is more red work and possibly the first layer for metallics. Still not sure what I want to do for the weapon... Green might look nice; like Thomas from Minivault uses for his Blood Ravens...

Trade Marine: Day Three - You call this an update?! This ain't no stinking update!

It's red! This must quite simply be the laziest painting blog post known to man. Ah well, you can't win them all... I did the base coat of red using multiple thin layers of scab red. I then washed the all the red with Baal Red, then started doing the recesses with Sepia, Flesh and Devlan.

For the red to work properly I think I might have to do one more with Black, just very thinly. Maybe with a touch of paint added to give it a little bit of sticking...

Trade Marine - Day three: Floating head syndrome continued...

More work on the helmet.
There's darker brown washes in the lines. I'm undecided whether I want to add a touch of black and have another line... I think I'll do another thinner line with Devlan mud rather than black. I'm not totally sure what I want to do with the head rivets yet. I thought maybe a very dark grey... But maybe they'll stay cream... Not sure, not sure, not sure...

The eyes came out quite nicely on this guy, which is a hoot, because I've had a couple of coffees and I thought my hands would be shaking like a banshee. My eye recipe for green eyes:
Black Undercoat
Dark Angels Green. Over 75%
Goblin Green. Over 50% moving towards the front
Scorpion Green. Thin line along the bottom
1:1 mix of Scorpion Green and Sunburst Yellow. Over the thin line of Pure Scorpion Green.

Working on the red of the armor as I took these shots. It's raining and cold which doesn't make for good drying... ^_^

Trade Marine - Day two: Or Floating head syndrome...

Day Two: before undercoating I needed to fill in some of the gaps in the back cape of the Miniature. I did an Ultramarine Master of the Chapter for Ricky Chang from 40k Forums awhile ago which had terrible pock marks in some of the recesses in the cape and above the left knee. As this guy is from the same set I thought he might and indeed he did have similiar problems. I didn't take any photos of it, but it was just really watered down green stuff smoothed over with a rubber-headed sculpting tool... I dunno if I got everything, but it'll start showing when I add some color... I then Undercoated in Black.

All parts have been undercoated separately. As with all characters I start with the head.
The head is basecoated with P3 Menoth base. Roleplayer uses quite extensive black lining in his miniatures, but I prefer using darker colors of the one used as base. Hence I've started to line using washes. I'm going to go ahead with all three GW washes, this is just the Sepia, I might use a touch of black if the Devlan Mud wash doesn't cut it...

Next for the head: More lining and then the eyes...
Next for the Body: Red stuff!