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Blood Angels Space Marines Miniature painting Miniatures Painting tools Warhammer 40k WIP it good

WIP it good: first time using brush-on primer

Priming minis used to stress me out because spray primer is so finicky, and I’ve ruined minis using it wrong. I’ve switched to brush-on primer (Vallejo white primer, paid link) . . . and apparently it still stresses me out. I think it’s because it feels too easy to mess up, and unlike a painting mistake it’s not trivial to fix.

Time to learn how to brush on primer!

Destiny awaits, brothers

After a couple of minis, I’d figured out a few things. One, this stuff dries faster than varnish. With the varnish, I can quickly do the whole miniature and then backtrack to pop bubbles, eliminate puddles, etc. With the primer, the top half of the mini is dry before I’ve finished the bottom half. So I learned to tackle a section, backtrack, and then tackle the next section.

Two, it’s less forgiving than the other two new approaches I’ve used since I got back into miniatures: brushing on wash/shade and varnish. This Vallejo primer is quite good about “self-correcting” — many bubbles will pop on their own, it settles into cracks a bit as it dries, and a thin coat works nicely. But if I dab it on too thick in, say, the vents on a Space Marine backpack and don’t notice it right away, I can’t fix it; with shade and varnish, it’s fixable for some time.

Three, I primed my first couple like they owed me money and I was going to beat it out of them with my brush. As a result, I over-primed them a bit. Once I figured out to put less on the brush and apply it with a lighter touch, the whole process went more smoothly.

Halfway there

As ever, I started with Sergeant Karios — the first mini in my Blood Angels army that I built, and the first for every stage of the process. Even if I mess him up, I like that he’ll always be special because he was the test pilot.

Sergeant Karios, the first to be primed

By my last, things were looking better: a lighter, smoother coat; many fewer bubbles and puddles; and less like an explosion in a cake frosting factory.

The last one I primed
This Squad Karios is now fully operational

The saving grace here — I hope — is that I just finished painting a dozen Terminators that I’d 1) over-primed, 2) with spray primer, making them fuzzy, and 3) bounced around in a Plano box for six years after priming them, and they turned out okay. I can see some bubbles and pooling on my Blood Angels (note to self: Space Marine pauldron edges like to collect primer), but they look better than those Termies did.

Fingers crossed for the painting stage! I’ll be starting with the bases, and I have to say that putting together this post, and seeing Squad Karios up close in photos, makes me more optimistic than I was as I primed them.

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Blood Angels Space Marines Miniature painting Miniatures Painting tools Warhammer 40k

Testing Vallejo primer and two edge highlighting options

I wanted to keep my painting technique fairly consistent across my Space Hulk set so they’d all look similar despite being painted over a seven-year period, but now I’m ready to try some new techniques with my Blood Angels army.

One is a simple switch to a brush-on primer, rather than the spray-on stuff. Another is edge highlighting, likely in combination with drybrushing. I dabbled a tiny bit with highlights on my Terminators and liked it, and I love how it looks on minis I see online. I recognize that my skill as a painter will improve over the course of painting my army, but I want to start out with a baseline that’s likely to stay reasonably consistent over time.

Since I’ve got a pile of old BattleTech mechs just sitting around, I figured I’d bust one out and use him as a test subject.

The Ti Ts’ang is goofy enough that I won’t miss him

Earlier this month I posted about feeling a bit overwhelmed with painting options, and this experiment is a good way to narrow things down a bit: I’m going to try edge highlighting before the wash on one shoulder, and after the wash on the other one.

My guess is that highlighting after the all-over wash will look better. Let’s find out!

First, the primer

I’ve used Armory spray-on primer for every miniature I’ve painted since the 1990s, with mixed results — not because it’s a bad primer, but because it’s a spray primer. They’re sensitive to heat, cold, and humidity, so unless you can spray indoors your “priming year” can be quite short.

So: brush-on primer. I’m trying white Vallejo surface primer (paid link) because it has good reviews. My experience with their matt varnish (paid link) over the past few weeks has been excellent, so I’m expecting the primer to be solid.

One thin coat of Vallejo primer

After a single thin coat, including a follow up with an “empty” brush to pop bubbles and deal with pooling (just like I do with the varnish, and with washes/shades), you can barely see the difference between the primed shoulder pads and the bare metal. I suspect I need to do a second thin coat, but either way I know I should let it cure overnight.

The next morning I could see bare metal in a couple of spots I’d primed, so: too thin. I put on a second coat and left him to cure again.

Two thin coats on the shoulder pads

Then I thought, what the heck: I’ll single-coat the head and sloppily single-coat the ax blades, giving me two more tests in one curing session.

A few hours later I wondered why I was doing a full cure for a paint test — let alone one that’s keeping me from tackling Squad Karios! So I grabbed my Mephiston Red base and Evil Sunz Scarlet layer and went to work.

I came here to kick ass and paint things red, and I don’t know how to kick ass

One thinned Mephiston Red base coat later, here’s how ol’ Ti Ts’ang looks.

Mephiston Red base coat

Right off the bat, this stuff is much easier to paint over than my old spray primer. I don’t know if it’s the nature of spray primer, bad technique (overspraying), or the seven-year gap between priming and painting, but when I was finishing up my Terminators I found myself fighting the pebbly/fuzzy texture of the primer. My money’s on me applying it poorly, but whatever the case it wasn’t fun to work with and it overwhelmed some of the model’s details.

Three primed bits enter

In terms of one coat of Vallejo primer vs. two coats, there’s a clear winner: one well-applied coat.

  • The shoulder pads got two coats, and I can see the primer overwhelming some of the finer lines and details. It’s not awful, but it’s not great.
  • The sloppy single coat on the ax blades left a bubble or two here and there, but smothered no details.
  • The properly applied single coat on the head (no bubbles) didn’t annihilate any details and was just as easy to paint over as the other two areas.

In hindsight I think I forgot to stir the primer for the first coat on the shoulder pads; I distinctly remember stirring it for the head and ax. Eh, my conclusion would hold even if I’d stirred it: two layers of primer plus a layer of paint is too much.

To the Emperor’s highlighting salon, brothers!

First, the pre-wash highlight areas.

From the photo’s perspective: Evil Sunz Scarlet on right ax blade, right half of helmet, right shoulder pad

Evil Sunz Scarlet is subtle. I don’t have GW’s recommended color for a second-layer highlight, Fire Dragon Bright, so I grabbed my closest analog for another experiment: Wild Rider Red, my drybrush color for my Space Hulk Terminators.

From the photo’s perspective: Wild Rider on left ax blade

That’s much less subtle! My line is pretty bad, but even though the paint is notably orange the actual color pops nicely.

Time to shade

Next up is an Agrax Earthshade wash.

Pre-wash, the Evil Sunz Scarlet looked too subtle to my eye. But post-wash, it’s more visible. Still somewhat subtle, but not bad.

But look at the contrast between it and the Wild Rider Red — and between the Wild Rider before and after the wash. The Agrax knocked the orange right out of it, but it still pops noticeably more than the Evil Sunz.

I don’t think he knows about second highlight, Pip

Okay, after a few minutes of drying time it’s the final stage: a single edge highlight on the bits that have been base coated and washed, so I can compare those effects (and the two different highlight colors).

In the head/shoulders photo, the left half — as you look at it, not the model’s left — was highlighted after shading; the right half was highlighted before shading.

Head and shoulders (Evil Sunz Scarlet)

I can see why GW recommends shading before highlighting, and that color combination. Particularly at arm’s length, the post-wash highlighted portion pops more and has clearly been highlighted. The pre-wash side is more muted, and at arm’s length I can’t even tell it has highlights.

Let’s peek at the ax. On the front of the ax, left is post-wash highlighting and right is pre-wash (again, the photo’s right/left). On the back, it’s reversed: left is pre-wash, right is post-wash.

In the photo, the Evil Sunz Scarlet pre/post look about the same. At arm’s length, I can tell the pre-wash side has been highlighted — unlike the head and shoulders — but I still prefer the half that’s been highlighted after the wash.

The back is too orange in both versions. Even though 40k minis — where I’ll be trying out the combo of wash and highlighting I land on here — are pretty over-the-top, this blade looks downright cartoonish. That’s not inherently bad, but it’s not the effect I’m after.

One last data point, since I’ve got a freshly painted Blood Angels Terminator from my Space Hulk set handy.

P3 Khador Red base + Citadel Wild Rider Red drybrush (Terminator) vs. Citadel Mephiston Red base + Evil Sunz Scarlet edge highlight

I prefer the GW-approved color combo to my old one (which I was expecting), and I prefer the edge highlighting to drybrushing. Even though my edge lines suck! That’s something I can work on.

Conclusions

Summing up this whole little experiment:

  • One coat of Vallejo primer, stirred and applied with care
  • Edge highlight my base coat of Mephiston Red in Evil Sunz Scarlet after the Agrax Earthshade wash
  • For crisp edges, like armor plates, I prefer edge highlighting to drybrushing

And hell, I may even take a crack at doing a second finer edge highlight in Fire Dragon Bright, too. Time to paint some Blood Angels!

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Miniature painting Miniatures Space Hulk WIP it good

WIP it good: the final two, and my Space Hulk set is painted after 11 years

It’s the home stretch for my Space Hulk set — I can’t believe it! As of February 22nd, I had 12 Terminators who were partially (and sloppily) base-coated in red back in 2014. Now I’ve finished 10 of them and am working on the final two: Leon and Deino.

So close I can taste it
I love how my water cup looks after a good swizzle with metallic paint

When I first got back into painting minis — like three weeks ago — I dismissed the notion of trying freehand painting out of hand. But the more I paint the more confident and willing to take risks I get, so I tried freehanding the decorative plates on Leon’s armor.

Top half
Bottom half

Up close they look pretty bad — but at tabletop distance, they’re not too shabby!

Somewhere in the past couple of weeks I also stumbled across a piece of advice about freehanding that stuck with me (I don’t recall where I saw it): It’s always worth trying, because 1) that’s how you get better at it, and 2) fellow painters respect that you tried it, even if it doesn’t look great.

I wish I’d tackled a couple of the other 50/50 elements on these Termies, but I just didn’t feel ready. I’m glad I gave these a whirl, and I’m looking forward to continuing to expand my comfort zone.

Final base coat and touch-ups done
Final wash complete
. . . and drybrushed

Took a break to watch Friday the 13th: A New Beginning with the fam (worst one out of the first five, and I hope it turns out to be the worst overall) and then came back a drybrushed these two.

Gave ’em a couple minutes to dry, varnished them up, and . . . that’s that. I’ve painted 100% of my Space Hulk miniatures, and it only took me 11 years!

Fuuuuck does that feel good.

I’ll get the Terminators up in the lightbox after the varnish on these two dries. I don’t think trying to cram them all in there will work, but 3×3 or 3×4 should do the trick.

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Musings on miniature basing

With a pile of Blood Angels to paint, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m going to base them. I’ve tried four methods over the years, with mixed results.

Number one is just painting the base black. This is boring. I no longer own any of my minis that are old enough to have been painted this way.

Learning from that, I glued little rocks to my mech bases (1997-2007).

Fuck these little rocks

Those little rocks were a learning experience. They look okay, sometimes even good, but they fall off all the time. I probably didn’t use enough glue, and I definitely didn’t paint them. They likely did get a coat of sealant, but it wasn’t enough to keep them from being annoying.

For the MERCS mini below (2010), I used lots of glue, fewer rocks, larger rocks, and painted and sealed them. I also painted the flat bits of the base dark green. These look pretty good and they never fall off, but the flat green bits are uninspiring.

Tiny rocks, evolved

The Terminators and Genestealers I’ve been working on since 2009 are all molded with bases (left) or lack them entirely (right). These are dead simple, easy to paint, and of course never fall off.

Molded bases (and single-position miniatures)

For my Blood Angels, I was planning to use a thick layer of white glue, basing sand, paint (base, wash, drybrush), and sealant. But a bit of reading and video watching made me wonder about the durability of that approach — and I don’t want little bits of sand coming off everywhere.

This excellent review of Citadel’s texture paint range (now renamed/merged with their technical line) on Age of Miniatures got me interested in using texture paints instead. GW also provides a neat free PDF showing some of the different approaches you can take with these paints.

Based (hah!) on the AoM review, it sounds like the thin and thick non-crackle options both offer sterling durability, and the thick gives you the most options in terms of washing and drybrushing for a base that pops a bit. I’m drawn to Astrogranite Debris because it looks like it will contrast nicely with a sea of Blood Angels red armor.

A possible basing recipe

Combining the Astrogranite Debris base shown in the above PDF (Astrogranite Debris > Drakenhof Nightshade wash > Longbeard Grey drybrush) with the image in this Spikey Bits post for the Plains of Armageddon (which adds the now-OOP Mordheim Turf tufts, i.e. pale grass, and little skulls) gives me a recipe with which to experiment:

  1. Astrogranite Debris base coat
  2. Drakenhof Nightshade wash
  3. Grey Seer (or similar) drybrush
  4. Add little skulls, rocks, and tufts to taste
  5. Paint the edge black or medium-to-dark gray

In my head that looks really cool with a little red dude standing on it. Add that to the still-a-WIP Faceless Strike Force concept for my Blood Angels army, apply some campaign decals, and it’s starting to feel like the kernel of a solid theme.

After I commented on how great his bases looked, a fellow minis painter on Twitter recommended this winters SEO video on using texture paint to base minis — and what a great recommendation that was. Different colors, but this is more or less exactly where my brain was heading; now I have a tutorial to follow.

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The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is available in print and PDF.
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Blood Angels Space Marines Miniature painting Miniatures Painting tools Space Hulk Warhammer 40k WIP it good

WIP it good: splitting my time, first Blood Angels model

It hit me that when I finish my Space Hulk minis I might, in that happy glow of satisfaction at finally completing a task I began in 2009, stall out and loose my painting momentum. I decided to start a second parallel hobby track, assembling Blood Angels, so that when my Termies are done I’m already in the middle of my next project.

I kicked this hobby session off by getting these two Termies shaded, since washes take a bit of time to dry.

Noctis and Zael drying after being shaded

Then I broke out my Blood Angels Tactical Squad box, assembled all my Gunpla tools — plus my newly acquired Citadel Mouldline Remover (paid link). I’ve always struggled with mold lines, and this looked like a handy tool to have.

Excluding the hobby knife (I have a couple), my other tools are from this little kit I bought on Amazon (paid link). It’s been a great kit, and the files and buffing board are useful for minis. The only tool I don’t love is the nippers, but unlike Gunpla — where a bad nip will really mess up the look of an unpainted model — it seems like light nip marks will be masked by primer and paint.

The options feel overwhelming

I thought about starting with a grunt in case I made mistakes, but decided to start with the sergeant since he would “flavor” the whole squad: I’ll be naming the squad after him (and naming all my squads, of course).

Oops

Ha ha, this little dangling blood drop was too fragile to survive being trimmed off the sprue with a hobby knife. I thought nipping would mangle it, but in hindsight I should have nipped. Ah well, nothing a quick filing-down can’t take care of. It’s only a priceless heirloom that this thousand-year-old warrior has carried into countless battles, after all . . .

Baby steps

It felt really good to glue his little legs down! A literal first step.

I’m also quite liking the mold line remover. The back of my hobby knife is free, but it’s not curved and it seems like it’d be all to easy to cut myself or accidentally snip off something near what I’m scraping.

I see why people have special clips for this

Compared to the two Deadzone miniatures I started assembling (Huscarl, Captain), which were so poorly sculpted that they prompted me to sell all my Deadzone stuff, this was a great experience. Even though this sergeant is composed of a whopping 14 separate pieces — more than I’ve ever assembled for a single figure — they all went together perfectly, and the whole process was supported equally well by the instruction booklet.

And the reward for using 14 pieces was a staggering amount of customization and a good amount of posability. This is an incredibly detailed model, and having a myriad of choices in how to kit it out was enjoyable.

I’m going by Rule of Cool but also paying attention to the actual 8th edition 40k rules — because while Rule of Cool says this guy would look awesome with a Combi-Melta in one hand and an Assault Cannon in the other, that’s just creating headaches for myself down the line when he can’t actually see table play.

So I picked two weapons that looked cool (but were also valid choices) and test-fit everything before putting glue to plastic. Which was a good idea, because the massive wings on his original right pauldron wouldn’t fit with the Hand Flamer.

Sergeant Karios, Tactical Squad Commander

And with that, I’ve officially started the process of building my Blood Angels army: Sergeant Karios, resplendent in his glorious nipple armor, reporting for duty!

After that I circled back and drybrushed and sealed Zael and Noctis, leaving me just two more Termies to go before Space Hulk is complete.

Ready to rid the space between the stars of heretics
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TaoTronics LED desk lamp for painting

I picked up this TaoTronics LED desk lamp (paid link) to brighten up my painting space and extend my “painting day.”

Brother Omnio in the spotlight

I looked at both cheaper and more expensive options, but landed here — on the cheaper end of the middle, at $44 — for a few reasons.

  • Compact form factor — my desk is already too crowded
  • Dimmer
  • Multiple color temperatures, not just cool white
  • Three points of articulation: tilts at the base, tilts at the bend, and the head rotates from side to side
  • Touch controls, which sounded cool
  • Mode memory
  • Aesthetically pleasing (not a top concern, but still)
Brightness 3/5, “reading” color temperature (neutral white)

Shown above is my default setting, medium brightness (the top is about 450 lumens, which isn’t a lot but is actually quite bright for a task light) and neutral white color temperature.

I wish the color temperatures were spelled out a bit better, but “night” is warm, “coffee” is warm shading into neutral, “reading” is neutral white, and “writing” is cool white. To my eye the reading setting has the best color rendition, which is what I’m after for miniatures.

The lighted area this lamp produces is a good size for minis, with even, diffuse lighting

The lamp includes a cord and wall wart, and there’s a single USB port on the back of the base. The next model up (paid link) includes wireless phone charging for about $6 more, if that’s something you need.

I opted against a magnifier lamp for now because I’m not convinced I need one (holding minis close to my face does the trick, so far) and most of the ones with a good magnifier and selectable or neutral white color temperature were quite expensive. I figure by the time my painting skills could really benefit from magnification, I’ll have learned more about what sort of lighting works best for me and will be able to make a more informed choice.

It’s a lamp (paid link)! With it I can paint better, for longer each day (and have been). I like it. You might like it as well.

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Miniature painting Miniatures Space Hulk WIP it good

WIP it good: Zael and Noctis

With the end in sight, and having just done three of the most detailed minis in the box (Gideon and Lorenzo, and the Librarian), I figured I’d apportion the amount of detail work needed in the final four and split them into pairs.

Noctis (Bolter) and Zael (Heavy Flamer)

Now that I’m thinning paints more regularly (which I never used to do — thanks, Warhammer TV!), it makes sense to me to get, say, Lothern Blue on the palette, thin it, and then hit all the blue bits on a couple of minis at once. It’s not quite an assembly line — it doesn’t feel like a slog — and it creates a little natural break between colors, which I like.

Now fully base-coated and touched-up, ready for shading
4 done and drying, 4 in various pre-wash stages

That’s going to be it for now — my wife and I have a date to watch Uncut Gems. I may sneak in shading after the movie, we’ll see.

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Finished miniatures Lightbox photos Miniature painting Miniatures Space Hulk

Space Hulk Genestealer showcase

Space Hulk has consumed my imagination since I was about 12 years old, and actually getting it to the table to play — with miniatures that didn’t make me sad, and which were painted by me — has been a lifelong dream that’s never been closer to fruition than it is now.

The game (at least the 3rd Edition, the one I have) comes with 22 Genestealers, and I finished painting all of them in 2012 or 2013. Until I started working on my Terminators in February of this year, these were my most recent painted minis.

They incorporate everything I’ve learned from past painting sprees, which I’ve shared and critiqued here on Yore: reasonably careful base coating; color-matched drybrushing, rather than just white, and not too heavy on it; an ink wash courtesy of the Dip Method; and walking that line between trying so hard to be perfect that I never paint any miniatures and not being so sloppy about it that it’s a waste of time.

Deep breath. Let’s see how they look in the lightbox.

Let shine the lidless eye

My lightbox is pretty small, around 9″ x 9″, and there’s no way I can cram all 22 minis in there at once. So I’ve picked one of each pose (I think I got them all), a representative 11 out of the 22.

Games Workshop knows how to sculpt dramatic poses!

I like how the veiny head on Mr. Righty turned out, and the decking on both of them is some of the best I’ve done. Base coat in Leadbelcher, bolts picked out in gold (not sure which one), washed with Minwax PolyShade floor varnish, and drybrushed with Mithril Silver.

A runner, a lurker, and a showoff
Alas, poor Yorick!
Look at this fool who brought a sword to a Genestealer nest
The massive Brood Mother

She deserves a larger look, and from the other side. Such a cool sculpt! I’m curious what she’d look like with a lighter wash than the Dip, and with less drybrushing — or perhaps drybrushing in two steps with two colors. But overall I’m happy with her.

Mmm, licorice whips

These are my two overall favorites in some ways. The decking on the one bursting through the floor rewarded my simplistic base coat + wash approach by looking exactly like rusty spaceship deck plating.

Rear views of a couple from the pics above

I like these two from the back, as well. The texture on the taller’s one back spines and the rustiness of the deck plating on the short one came out nicely. On the flipside, the pile of armor could have used more drybrushing and the Genestealers’ claws could probably have used less.

This guy was a lot of fun to paint
Not quite as strong from this side

The guy running down the busted strut is just such a dynamic sculpt, I love it. I had fun with him. I’m still figuring out how to showcase an individual mini in the lightbox, but this feels like I’m on the right track.

I can see where I blobbed on too much gold on the bolts, and where the wash didn’t “take” on the left end of the base — but I still love this mini. The head, especially the teeth and the jawline, looks solid. The skulls have depth, and they pop against the rusty metal of the space hulk’s architecture.

Hopefully when I look back after painting my next 85 miniatures (doubling my approximate lifetime count), I’ll have improved by leaps and bounds — or at least measurable, joyful hops — from these Genestealers. But as they stand, they were my best work prior to February 2020.

And they’ve inspired me to take a bit more time on my Terminators, especially in the final detailing pass before the ink wash — to nail the little specks and spots of color, the wax seals and other pieces of flair. Terminators love a good bedazzling; I owe it to the Emperor to bedazzle my heart out.

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Blood Angels Space Marines Miniature painting Miniatures Space Hulk WIP it good

WIP it good: closing the book on the Librarian

My goal for tonight was to take the Librarian — Terminator 8/12 — as close to completion as possible. I started out with him about 80% base-coated, still needing lots of little fixes and detail work, and got him through to the next stage.

This was one of those nights where it felt like every time I touched the mini, it got worse. He’s quite extra, color-wise, adding Flash Gitz Yellow, Kislev Flesh, Mechanicus Grey, and Army Painter’s Toxic Mist — which didn’t help.

But on the plus side, my painting area has a new mascot presiding over it now — a Funko Pop! Blood Angels Assault Marine (paid link).

Adorable chainsword goes brrrr

I may use his shiny yellow head for transfer practice at some point — but now back to painting.

I usually paint to either my all-time favorite work/create album, Nicolay’s City Lights Vol. 2: Shibuya or a playlist of Timecop 1983 tracks, but today has sucked some big ol’ balls so I’m switching to one of my all-time favorite hip-hop albums, Die Antwoord’s Mount Ninji and da Nice Time Kid.

One washed Librarian

It wasn’t a relaxing wash, like they usually are . . . but it was a wash.

D-U-N-N

I was going to call it done here, feeling okay overall — and even having taken a stab at an energy effect on his Power Axe and continued to dip my toes into the edge highlighting pool — but I looked at those big blank pages and said fuck it.

So I went back in with Mechanicus Standard Grey and did my first-ever freehand faux-text.

Fueled by a bad mood and fantastic South African hip-hop

And then I said fuck it again and made the possibly ill-advised choice to go back and freehand the larger scrolls on the two previous minis where I’d ignored them. How am I going to grow as a painter if I don’t make some ill-advised choices?

“The sacred scroll says, ‘-:~~..-~,’ brother. What does it mean?”

Four more to go!

SOON
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Space Hulk Terminators: officially over 50% done

With Brother Gideon wrapped up over the weekend and Brother Lorenzo put to bed today, I’ve now painted 7/12 of the Terminators in my Space Hulk set.

Gideon on the left, Lorenzo on the right

I experimented a bit more with edge highlighting on Lorenzo, and so far I like it. I went too far — both in color difference and application — on his gems, but the sword edge and “power lines” came out pretty good.

I’ll probably take a better, less-cluttered picture of the whole gang once they’re done, but here’s a quick and dirty photo to mark this milestone.

Seven down, five to go!

Seeing these guys all together makes me excited to play Space Hulk — and to watch my Blood Angels army come together, once those start hitting my painting mat.

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