Blood Angels: Mephiston the Lord of Death

Recently, my graduating cohort of trainee teachers gifted me with a £25 GW voucher. There wasn't anything Ork shaped that I had my eye on so I decided to use it to get Mephiston for £1! Ordinarily, I wouldn't spend such a ridiculous price for a single plastic miniature (£26) but the voucher was basically free money so it seemed a sensible idea. 

Anyway, Mephiston is an excellent miniature and I had a great time painting him. There are a lot of soft materials present (capes and robes etc...) so I worked hard to develop my skills around wet blending and glazing to get the smooth transitions in the cloth. I agonised over the free hand details on the robes but decided to give it a go in the end. I'm glad I did because I think the model might have been a tad dull otherwise. The glowing eyes also came off better than my previous attempts at glowing effects so that's good too. 

These images are not of the complete model. All that was left to do at this point was add some grass tufts and paint the edge of the base. Onwards and upwards.

Blood Angels: Death Company

I have been able to pick up another 10 snap-fit Primaris marines from eBay for a reasonable price to bolster the original 5 I had painted. This left me with 5 spare so I decided to build and paint them as death company members.

It was a nice painting challenge as I've never been all that confident painting black. I decided to highlight the armour using cool blues and greys as a contrast to the warm reds and oranges of their less deranged brothers. Hopefully, this allows them to stand out a bit from the others, which is something that the death company have always done in Blood Angel armies. 

Only one has been completed so far, with another 2 almost complete. I'll paint all 5 backpacks at the end, which is why it is missing. Overall, I'm quite pleased with how this one turned out and I'm looking forward to eventually having a full squad charging around causing mayhem! 

Blood Angels: Second Company

I have recently been keeping half an eye out for useful issues of Imperium magazine, which my local Forbidden Planet store stocks. By 'useful' I am referring to any issues with Primaris Space Marines on the front! 

Recently, my son was born and so I came up with the idea of starting a little collection for him that I can build and work on over time. When he's old enough, he'll have his own army that he can begin using right away. My own dad did something similar for me when I was younger when he made me a train set and also helped me with painting my Airfix aircraft models. 

Anyway, I love the Blood Angels painting scheme so I've also used this as an excuse to really push myself and learn some new painting techniques. I present to you some examples of a small squad of assault intercessors that have now been completed.

I've been using contrasts, washes and blends to get the smooth transitions of colour on the armour, which is then sharpened with extreme edge highlighting. I really pushed myself on the sword, which was wet blended. This was a really useful technique to learn and I'm really pleased with the results. 

I love the clean, uncluttered look of the Primaris marines. I think Space Marines became far too busy with trinkets and details etc... Blood Angels were amongst the worst offenders for this! These new Primaris marines have allowed me to go right back to the original 2nd Edition colour schemes so I have tried to be faithful to these (including the squad markings). The heraldry on the models is a new addition, which is giving me an opportunity to get creative without adding loads of fussy trinkets. 

I've completed this squad of five now and have recently moved on to a Lieutenant. Hopefully, he'll be competed soon!