Squaduary 2018: Week 3 Progress

Time for my week 3 progress report for Squaduary 2018.  The Hellblasters edge ever forward to completeness. During week three, Remaining details were colored in and some highlights applied.  many details are complete, while others still require final highlights. It all started with the chapter icons and purity seals.  The chapter symbols where highlighted with Vallejo Game Color Ghost Grey (72-046).  The purity seal paper was painted with P3 Menoth White base, shaded with GW Agrax Earthshade, then highlighted with P3 Menoth White Highlight.  The wax seals were painted with P3 Sanguine Base and shaded with GW Agrax Earthshade.

Starting to look snazzy!  Next, the bases got some love while I took a break from the finer aspects of painting.  Here, a dark Vallejo brown was painted on and highlighted using progressively lighter browns.  The whole was shaded heavily with GW Agrax Earthshade. At some later stage, time permitting, additional highlights and different color shades will be added to break up the consistent browns. As I typically do, the bases were cleaned up with a GW Chaos Black rim to help both the "ground cover" and the models stand out on the table a bit.

Next up, the lenses on the "targeter/flashlight" looking bits on the ends of the plasma weapons were given a layer of GW Caledor Sky and shaded with a 50:50 mix of GW Drakenhof Nightshade and Lahmian Medium. The silver parts of the plasma weapons were also cleaned up at this stage making them appear brighter.  

Last up for the week, the plasma weapons, purity seal wax, and helmet eye lenses got their first highlight of GW Wildrider Red. This took me some time, particularly for the weapons, but I'm very happy with my results.

[UPDATE - One last unexpected session for week 3, company badges!]

Last up this week, I was able to paint freehand the company badge on the left knee pads.  I started by painting a black cross with GW Abaddon Black to section each knee pad, then painted in the black quadrant.  This was followed with P3 Menoth White Highlight for the off-white quadrants, and then GW Caliban Green was used for the green quadrant and to tidy up around the knee pad.  A pin-wash of GW Nuln Oil was then carefully painted around each pad to shade the edges and hopefully help it pop out a bit more and set it apart from the rest of the armored leg.  

With most of the obvious colors painted in by the end of week two, week three progress is not so obvious to make out.  Many hours were spent though and these Dark Angels creep ever closer to field readiness.  Week four will be exciting.  I must finally complete the armor edge highlighting (seen partially complete on the front left marine in the pictures) which will be time consuming.  Then decal the right shoulder pads and complete all remaining highlights and touch ups.  I may not see every planned detail done, but I am confident I will close out Squaduary with a respectable squad none-the-less.

I hope you will stop back next week to see how this journey ends.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Squaduary 2018: Week 2 Progress

Welcome to Squaduary week 2! We're half way through the challenge and the Hellblasters are starting to look like true Dark Angels now. This week I blocked in more base colors, focusing one the guns first, then the chest eagles and chapter insignia. Vallejo Oily Steel (70.865) was painted on all the metal bits of the weapons and then shaded carefully with GW Nuln Oil.

Next, GW Mephiston Red was painted on and washed with GW Agrax Earthshade. Then the plasma coils were painted in starting with a base of GW Sotek Green, layered with GW Temple Guard Blue and highlighted with GW Baharroth Blue and finally GW White Scar.  The lot was then carefully shaded with Drakenhof Nightshade.  The Nightshade did its job of blending things and toning it down...but perhaps too much. I'm leaving it for now so as not to allow "perfect to be the enemy of good." But I may come back and add new highlights.  I am purposefully avoiding an OSL effect here.  When I rethink the highlights, I may dry brush in some OSL instead of painting highlights directly...we'll see. I'm not firmly in the OSL camp and feel that a poor job looks messy, which I want to avoid here. For now, these weapons are very identifiable as plasma weapons, so mission accomplished.

Last up for this week was work on the chest and shoulder iconography.  Rather than follow the box art for the chest eagles, I chose P3 Menoth White Base for the base coat.  This was shaded with Agrax Earthshade and layered with P3 Menoth White Highlight.  I then stepped away from it for now.  I may come back with some GW White Scar highlights on the most prominent parts.  For now, I have the look I wanted. I'm holding off on most of the highlights at this point in order to get a base coat on everything. The chapter symbols on the left shoulders were given a base coat of a Vallejo grey and then shaded with GW Nuln Oil. Time ran out for the night so I'll come back next session with a layer of a lighter grey and then highlight with GW White Scar.

And now the squad really starts to look like proper Dark Angels. I'm very pleased with my progress on the squad so far.  At the halfway point, I feel I can easily complete the squad now.  Highlighting the armor will take the longest, possibly.  I need to go through my decal collection to see if I have 10 company badges of the right size for the left knee pads.  Otherwise, I'll be hand painting those which will be time consuming too to get right. During week three, the reaming base colors will be completed and the highlighting done on the weapons, icons and equipment at the least.  Hopefully the armor will see some progress too so I can coast through week four with the decal work, bases and final cleanup.

Best wishes to my fellow Squaduary 2018 challengers.  I hope your projects progress well too this week.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Squaduary 2018: Week 1 Progress

Well, week one has come and gone, and I missed the official Squaduary 2018 update with this post. But no matter, progress has been made! To start things off, a coat of GW Caliban Green was laid down with the air brush.  On the far right of the front rank, you'll note my early experiment with highlighting this. 

Before I got to business with highlighting the armor, however, I brushed a coat of GW Nuln Oil over all (including the highlighting experiment). Now on the far left of the front rank you may note my second experiment with highlighting after the shade was dry.  You might say...just get on with it! And you'd probably be right, but highlighting space marine armor is not my strong suit and I want these gents to come out well so I'm taking my sweet time with the effort. It will all come in time.

In fact, I took a break from highlighting of the armor (I'm overwhelmed by how long it takes me to do one model) to poke at some of the equipment.  For some reason, the leather work caught my eye this session and I took cheerfully to painting up all the bolt pistols and belt pouches. Then I decided to toss on a splash of color and base coated all the eye lenses with GW Mephiston Red.

So not a tremendous amount of progress for the week, but they are dark green and I guess pass for a three color minimum. ;-) And there are TEN of them...OK, enough whining from me on that matter.  I'm excited to gain progress on a new squad of Dark Angels.  This squad will most certainly set the new standard for my force.  Once complete, I'll post up a comparison of this squad with one of the two tactical squads I completed...hmmm...four years ago?  Five?  The Dark Angels deserve more of my time than they get.

A shout out to the rest of the Squaduary 2018 challengers.  Best of luck for your projects!  What I have seen so far in posts looks great.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!