Another post about metallics

Group shot: Sanguinary Guard version.

A variation on a theme today, with no very little talk of Grey Knights.  Yesterday was very productive in the painting realm.  While I made no progress on the jump packs, I made quite a bit on the Sanguinary Guard, as you can see to the right.  I knew I needed to get in a good day of painting and while I got started a little later than I'd hoped, I still managed to get the armor done.  I wanted to get a test model done, just to make sure that I had the right idea and process, but because time is a factor I decided to jump right in.  As you're no doubt aware, the LPC deadline is a week from today, and while I've been worried about it for better than a month now, it looks like things will work out.  There are plenty of little details on the Sanguinary Guard, but they're all the same sorts of details that I've been doing on the assault squad, so I have my approach down and it should be a straight shot to the finish line.  The glaives and banner could be interesting, since I haven't done either of those before, but I think I'm going to just go with the studio approach to the glaives and I've been looking forward to the banner since I cracked the box open in January.  Another two or three days of good painting and I should be done, all done, done done, completely finished (except those decals), and that's a nice thought.

Bad picture as usual, but better than expected.

I stuck to my painting plan, mostly, and things turned out pretty well.  I used Tin Bitz as a bottom layer, covering everything that was going to end up golden.  Then I moved on to Dwarf Copper, which I used as the standard basecoat, leaving the Tin Bitz exposed in the deep crevices.  Shining Gold was next which I employed as the final layer for all the shadowed parts of the armor.  Burnished Gold was next, the first highlight for all upper/exposed armor.  I had intended to do another layer at this point, a half and half mix of Burnished Gold and Mithril Silver, but I was already hitting the point of diminishing returns, plus it was getting close to time to stop for the night, so I skipped this mixing step.  Mithril Silver was the final highlight on the sharp corners, a very sparse layer.  I was confident throughout the process, having a good mental picture of how I wanted to proceed and what I expected the final product to look like.  Things are awfully shiny, which is unsurprising considering I put five layers of metallics on the figures, so I'm pondering a very, very thin wash of Devlan Mud to knock everything down a notch or two and give the details some extra definition.  I'll probably skip this step though as I'm happy enough with the results as-is and I'd hate to do something horrible that would require a near-complete repainting.

Shiny butt shot.

Because my Warstore order is still waiting to be completed, I had to use the GW paints.  I give the Vallejo paints, and dropper bottles in particular, lots of credit for my improved results of late, so regressing back to paint pots was painful.  My biggest problem in the past was transferring paint to palette.  I would use a brush, generally the brush that I was about to paint with, and scoop/slop paint from one container to the other.  This was bad for the brushes and pretty wasteful at the same time, especially since I used the brush to thin my paints as well (when I thinned my paints at least.)  A couple years back, when I was considering a return to hobbying, I got a palette knife for this purpose.  Since I switched to the droppers the knife became extraneous, so it's served as a "sculpting tool" since then.  I put it to it's intended purpose yesterday though, and it worked like a charm.  I still ended up wasting a bit of paint, but much less than I used to, and my brushes weren't wailing from the abuse either. 

I also got some ideas for a kitbashed Librarian while painting.  Another box of Sanguinary Guard has been on my shopping list for a while, so I can use the banner as a Chapter Banner for an Honor Guard and so I can have options with the Sanguinary Guard, not the least of which is the option to run two squads.  I've always liked the glaive the above pictured Guard has, and last night I thought it would work well for a Librarian.  Since the White Dwarf I got earlier in the week was a Grey Knight treasure trove, I've been pouring over the sprue breakdowns lately, especially the shoulder pads and extra bits.  It looks like the power armor box will come with an extra set of shoulder pads, so I can use one of the pads with a book on it along with a Blood Angels pad.  I'm uncertain about the torso and helmet, though they'll probably come from the Death Company box or perhaps the Space Marine Commander box I've been looking at.  I want a pair of braced legs so I can pose the Librarian as if he's taking a big swing with the sword, possibly angling the sword like it's carrying up to hit something larger than the Librarian.  I'm not sure what I'll do about the psychic hood, but I'll figure something out.  I also decided that the Grey Knight codex will be my reward for finally finishing my LPC vow, which is perfect considering it comes out a couple days after the deadline.  Now all I have to do is actually finish my vow.