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!