Even though most of the pics in this WIP post are of Squad Adamo, my Death Company gang, Squad Zahariel, gets most of the words.
Closing in a fully base-coated Squad AdamoReady to finish their black elementsChainswords all taped up for hazard stripingHazard stripes complete (but still needing touch-ups)Adamo is down to just their red touch-ups before I can wash them, and Zahariel is fully based
Death Company color guide
For the figures, I liked the tweaks the GW studio guide puts on the usual red and gold used on most of my Marines. I’ve stuck with that scheme for the most part, and the end result is that many colors are handled differently than usual:
Black: Abaddon Black > Dark Reaper > Fenrisian Grey
Red: Khorne Red > Carroburg Crimson > Wazdakka Red > Wild Rider Red
Armor gaskets: Mechanicus Standard Grey > Nuln Oil > Dawnstone
Metal and piping: Leadbelcher > Nuln Oil > Stormhost Silver
Jump pack jets: Caledor Sky > Drakenhof Nightshade > Temple Guard Blue > Baharroth Blue
With the Death Company color scheme reversing the usual Blood Angels colors — black dominant, red accents — I wanted to make sure their bases added some pops of color beyond my usual skulls and rocks. Other base elements are as per usual, but the stuff I added to these particular bases is covered below:
Tau scrap: Caledor Sky > Drakenhof Nightshade > Temple Guard Blue
Ork scrap: Castellan Green or Averland Sunset > Agrax Earthshade > 50/50 Castellan Green/Moot Green or Yriel Yellow > Ryza Rust drybrush
As expected, the Death Company color scheme makes a nice palate cleanser after the red, red, red of the rest of my army. Onwards!
As of September 1, I now have paint on every unfinished model in my Blood Angels army. Squad Adamo is mostly base-coated; Squad Zahariel, my Death Company unit, is primed and fully based; and Squad Barakiel, my Terminator Assault Squad, is primed and partially based.
Starting in on Zahariel’s basesThe tail end of my Land Raider’s varnish-curing period overlapped with both Adamo and Zahariel, making this feel like a proper little painting areaZahariel fully based, I think (not sure if they were waiting for terrain wash or drybrushing when I snapped this)Adamo nearly base-coated, Barakiel freshly primed
I’ve painted 15 Space Marines in a month before, so it’s doable for me to completely finish my first-ever 2,000-point army in September. But I think it’s more likely that I’ll finish Squad Adamo and either fully or mostly complete Squad Zahariel in September, leaving Squad Barakiel (and the balance of Zahariel, if any) for October.
Actually playing, which once felt like a possibility at the end of this summer, and then seemed more realistic to imagine in spring of 2021, now — depressingly — feels like it might not happen until 2022. On the flipside, it’s not unreasonable for me to imagine that I could paint another 2,000-4,000 points of Blood Angels in 2021. I’ll take my silver linings where I can find them!
I wrote about getting a bunch of Princeton Velvetouch brushes back in April of this year, and have been painting with those brushes (and my hodgepodge of others) for the past four months, or about 1,400 points of Blood Angels.[1] I just ordered a second batch of them from BLICK, which is itself an endorsement. I like these brushes a lot.
Princeton Velvetouch brushes: reloaded
My two most-used sizes are 10/0 and 3/0, and both of those finally gave up the ghost about 2-3 weeks ago, with splayed/curled tips no longer able to to detail work — so let’s call their front-line service life about three months. (Now they become drybrushes, get dipped into metallic paints, etc.) That’s not nearly as long as my non-synthetic brushes, but that’s a trade-off I’m fine with.
Before their tips inevitably curl or splay (despite daily washing with brush soap), these brushes paint just as well as my natural brushes. When my natural brushes wear out, I’ll replace them with their Princeton Velvetouch analogs.
Lots of other synthetic brush lines have a couple brushes small enough for minis but are primarily geared for other types of painting. One thing I love about this line is that they cover all of the sizes and shapes I’ve ever wanted for miniatures, from ultra-fine to relatively massive, including the chisel-shaped tips I like for drybrushing.
So: Princeton Velvetouch brushes are excellent, and in my experience especially good as synthetic brushes go.
[1] I started a daily “work on miniatures” streak on February 22, 2020, when I dug out my Space Hulk Terminators and started painting again. It didn’t start as a streak; I was just painting every day because I was excited about it. But I bumped into the idea on Twitter and have had success with using Seinfeld chains for motivation in the past, so it turned into one. Today is day 192.
I finished my second tank, the mighty Land Raider Crusader Judgment, on August 22. This beast swallowed primer, paint, and varnish alike, and it took me quite some time to get through.
The Land Raider is an iconic model, but what sold me on the Crusader — and on painting one for my first army — was a post somewhere about how utterly intimidating this tank would be in real life when a squad of Terminators come boiling out of it. It’s like a jumbo tank shooting out five smaller tanks!
Light it up, buttercup
The Land Raider is patently too large for my modest little lightbox. No way to hide the seams, no way to make it look like it fits — sorry about that.
Let’s kick off with Judgment‘s golden angle:
Blood Angels Land Raider Crusader Judgment, 1st CompanyFront viewLeft side
I can’t remember if I ever mentioned it in my assembly post(s) for Judgment, but I bobbed the radio antenna because the original length looked like a pain in the ass to store and use without breaking it.
Rear viewRight side
Unlike the previous shots, this top-down view is kind of like using a light ring: I’m shooting through a hole in the top of my lightbox. It balances the colors a lot better (which a fancier lightbox would do with more light sources).
Top view
Plus a couple natural light/casual shots for good measure:
Pretty happy with how this guy turned outRear angle
With Judgment complete, and some sort of minor points update that made Commander Dante 5 points more expensive, my army now stands at 1,581 of 1,996 points painted. I’m getting close!
Because I’ve slowed my posting pace and am queuing posts a bit more sporadically, I’ve actually finished Judgment as I sit here writing this post. But WIP posts are neat (I like them, at least), so I’m wrapping up my photo roll for Judgment and adding in a bit of my Assault Squad for good measure.
Prepping for the multi-stage varnish and glue affair to comeTwin assault cannon turret varnished and glued into placeRight-side sponson Hurricane Bolter assembly varnished and glued…And the other sponsonBottom of the tracks varnished — now we let it cure for two daysSquad Adamo primedAdamo now fully based, with base coats going down on the MarinesJudgment fully glued, ready for writing, decals, and the rest of the varnish
I just updated BattleScribe and checked my totals again, and finishing Judgment will put me over 75% done points-wise. Onwards!
I hit my stride with Judgment in early August, blowing through shading and into layers. That tipping point always feels good.
This WIP post compiles a couple weeks’ work.
Base-coating and touch-ups finally done! This always feels like the stage that takes the longestGotta wash the bottom of the treads first…Then everything elseReady for layers/highlightsMy palette has developed some cute little paint-hills over the past few monthsFirst-layer highlights done!All of the final highlights done except the orange, which is underway
With Judgment on the back nine, I got out Squad Adamo — already primed — so I could work in parallel.
Primed and ready
I thought a bit about how to handle the ruined stone structures on 3/5 of this squad’s bases, because I wanted them to stand out from the brown/grey stones of Armageddon, and settled on brown. The only brown I have is Mournfang Brown, which looks like poop.
Mmm…poopy
But once the wash is down, it starts to look a lot less like poop — and I had faith in my first layer, 2:1 Kislev Flesh:Mournfang Brown.
I drybrushed on my Ryza Rust this time around, and I like how it turned outMore rusty metalBasing elements done, ready for texture paint
This was my first time drybrushing Ryza Rust rather than spot-painting with it, and I like this approach quite a bit. It’s easier to take a light, subtle touch and make the metal look old and rusty, rather than just rusty. Pure spot-painting seems to work well for something poorly made that’s had a few years to rust — like Ork scrap and vehicle parts — but doing it on these metal elements would be overkill.
I started painting my Land Raider Crusader, Judgment, in earnest back in July. Vehicles are fun to paint because they’re such broad canvases, and I get to break out my largest brush — but they also take me some time to finish! Hopefully Judgment will be wrapped up this month.
Testing to see if the pick-and-pluck KR Multicase tray I chose will hold this beast (it does!)
I can’t paint the sponsons and front turret if they’re glued in place, so I started with them and then moved on to the main body.
Side bits base-coated, tank coming alongAnother dead soldier: the second bottle of paint to fall to this army, my “liquid talent”Sponsons and turret washed, now getting highlightedAll the bits in place to dry, and the body coming along (albeit messily)Trying to stay consistent with my Rhino, so he’s out there as a reference while I work on details
Painting Judgment has me even more excited to tuck into some of the vehicles I have waiting in the wings once my initial army is done. If I had to pick one right now, it’d be down to a Redemptor Dreadnought, Repulsor tank, or the Stormtalon Gunship I’m going to convert to use the sealed cockpit from the Stormhawk.
I painted my first Dreadnought, the Librarian Narses, back in April, and it was a lot of fun. Work-wise, he was about somewhere between one model and a five-person squad of Space Marines; I was curious to see how my second one would go.
It felt like it went more smoothly this time around, although with no prospect of a face-to-face 40k game by the end of summer — a real motivator, as it turns out — it still took me a long time to paint him. I finished him on July 19.
Lightbox shots
Turiel, 2nd Company Furioso Dreadnought
Immediately after uploading the photo above, I noticed that I’d forgotten to add the lens flare to the green lenses in his torso. I’ve since dotted that in and re-varnished those two spots (visible in the final shot below).
Right side view, Frag Cannon (I knew I’d be building that version the second I saw it; Rule of Cool, baby!)Rear view; Blood Angels backpack and Ork scrap debris up frontLeft side view, Furioso Claw and Storm Bolter
The kit includes a complete alternate right arm and it seemed silly not to paint that one as well — especially since if I paint it months/years later, the style and skill level (hopefully!) won’t match where I’m at right now.
Spare right arm installed, Furioso Claw and Heavy Flamer
And finally, I’ve learned that while the lightbox is lovely my inexpensive one tends to leave the front of the model a bit shadowy — especially when the figure is a big box like Turiel. So here’s a final shot in natural light.
STOMP STOMP STOMP
WIP shots
Over the course of the 2-3 weeks I spent painting Turiel at a leisurely pace, I tried to remember to snap a few WIP shots.
Base done, lower body mostly done, starting on the upper bodyUpper body base-coatedWhole body done, trying on the armsAll arms washed (Narses, on the right, is wearing the spare) and ready for layers
Turiel color guide
I wanted Turiel’s base to stand out from Narses’ base, and to emphasize that Space Marines have fought on Armageddon many times before. While painting it, I decided I liked the idea that the Blood Angels had fought there before and painted the Marine debris accordingly.
Unlike my previous bases, which applied layers only through drybrushing, Turiel’s is a mix of drybrushing and layers/highlighting. Ceramite can’t rust, and Space Marine stuff is just “made better,” so the Flamestorm Cannon and Backpack got the highlights I usually would have applied followed by some drybrushing to make them look (I hope) dusty and weathered — like they’ve languished on the plains of Armageddon for years.
His body colors are primarily the studio colors (which notably use the Dante/Sanguinary recipe for gold, rather than the mainline Blood Angels version):
Red: Mephiston Red > Agrax Earthshade > Evil Sunz Scarlet > Fire Dragon Bright
Frag Cannon tubing: Averland Sunset / Macragge Blue / Castellan Green > Agrax Earthshade > Yriel Yellow / Altdorf Guard Blue / Moot Green
My to-build stack includes another walking fridge of death, which I’ll be building as a Death Company Dreadnought so that I can have a full complement of the Blood Angels’ unique Dreads. I love big ol’ doom-walkers, so I’ve also got two Redemptors, a Contemptor, and two “near-Dreadnought” Invictor Warsuits in the queue.
My painting pace has slowed a bit because based on the current COVID-19 status here in Seattle it seems pretty clear that I don’t need to be working towards the possibility of actually playing 40k by the end of summer — but I’ve still been quietly working on my army every day.
The points values will almost certainly change as soon as they’re updated for 9th Edition, but as it stands now under 8th Edition rules this is 1,034 points of WYSIWYG Blood Angels (photographed on June 21).
My current Blood Angels army
There are elements of the 1st, 2nd, and 10th Companies here, as well as the Chapter Master and characters from the Librarius and Reclusiam. I started building my first Blood Angel on March 11 and finished my most recent mini as of this photo, Commander Dante, on June 20. I’ve also built the rest of my army, and done priming and basing work on some of them, so there’s a bit of fuzz factor to the total time spent. Nonetheless, this represents about 14.5 weeks of painting.
June has been my slowest month so far, but I’ve still managed seven miniatures as of the date I wrote this post (June 21). By the time fall rolls around, I might just have a complete 2,000-point army for the first time in my life. It feels good!
My original plan for Dante was to go with the studio recipe for gold on Blood Angels — Retributor Armour> Agrax Earthshade> Auric Armour Gold > Liberator Gold — and not the scheme for Dante and the Sanguinary Guard, which is brass over bronze. They’ve got gold armor, why not make it gold?
But then I followed the studio scheme for some other Blood Angels, even when it wasn’t my first instinct, and loved the outcome. And I thought that this “angelic brass” look would also help set them apart from the rest of the army (which I suspect is part of why it’s the studio scheme!). So I went for it, more or less — and I’ll be damned, it turns out gold!
I was fascinated to see how Dante would go from deep, dark bronze to gold, so I took a couple WIP photos to highlight the stages of that process. This kind of magical transition is one of my favorite things about miniature painting.
Base-coated and washed, so his armor is currently Warplock Bronze > Agrax EarthshadeFirst layer colors down, so his armor now has Brass Scorpion layered on top of about 90% of it.
With one exception, all of my Blood Angels to date have had their layers applied the same way: as edge and transition highlights. Somehow this makes them read as fairly bright red despite the fact that most of their armor is still Mephiston Red darkened with an Agrax Earthshade wash.
The exception is the Chaplain’s helmet, which had its first layer (atop a Rakarth Flesh base coat and a wash of Agrax Earthshade) applied to 90% of the surface area rather than just the edges/transitions — I basically repainted the whole helmet in Pallid Wych Flesh, leaving only the cracks/shadows alone. Then the final layer, White Scar, went on as an edge highlight.
That second approach was the only way I could see Dante’s armor turning out gold. If I left it mostly dark bronze, no amount of edge highlighting was going to change that. Unlike a normal Space Marine, he has musculature and other features molded into his armor that make it fairly simple to paint the “highest” areas over completely — trusting the lower pigment count in the layer paints to allow the richness of the bronze underneath to show through — and then do a spot/edge highlight with the final, most gold-colored, layer.
It definitely didn’t come out perfect, but it was a blast and I can see doing more parts of other figures this way in the future.
Commander Dante color guide
I mostly stuck to the studio colors, but diverged in a couple places — mainly because I didn’t want to buy more paint and I didn’t have the right green for his laurel or the Fenrisian Grey for his black elements. (Shades in italics, as always.)
I was tempted to paint some Sanguinary Guard first before taking on the chapter master himself — but when I started this army I painted a Sergeant Karios first rather than an unnamed battle brother, so in that spirit I started the “golden boys” with Dante.
It feels good to have him done, and it was fun to paint just one figure rather than a whole squad. I’m impressed with Citadel’s recipe for the gold on him (and the Sanguinary Guard), which includes no gold paint but somehow reads perfectly as gold.
