More Black Ivan and a freehand adventure

Almost finished.

Had a real good morning at the painting table today.  My theory that Black Ivan would paint up quick is working out.  I more or less finished him today, basing and one particular bit of touch up aside.  I stuck to edge highlighting for the most part and just worked through the colors.  I started with the black, mixing Ultramarine Blue into the Chaos Black in varying degrees.  I wanted to keep all my highlights a bit sparse, but the black in particular to avoid brightening it up too much.  I probably undershot it again, but at least Ivan looks plenty black.  The red got the usual treatment, less the wash.  The fist in particular was nice to work on with its crisp edges and flat planes.  I tried using a light grey to mix in with the olive green (WWII German Army Green or something like that, from the Vallejo Model Color range) for highlighting this time and the result was good enough.  The spare highlighting probably had a bigger hand in it than the color choice, but regardless of why it happened I managed to highlight the green without hating the result this time, so that's a win.  The rivets were fun, but worth it in the end.  They make the model pop a bit more.  Schedule permitting Ivan will be finished (snow and varnish aside) tomorrow, but certainly by Friday.  I'd like to plow on into the Bombardiers, but since my last game with them (report on the way, it's a long one) I'm a bit more reluctant to take them out of action for painting.  I should really be working on the pIrusk list anyway which means WGI UA/WA and Greylords, plus the man himself, all of which I'm loathe to lose from the table.  The sooner I start them the sooner I finish though.



I was riding pretty high as I finished up Ivan, so I decided to give freehand a go.  I wanted to put something on the top armor plate, either a Khadoran anvil or the 5th Border Legion icon.  I like the latter more, fitting in with the theme and all, so I fished out the Kodiak for reference and got to work.

I started by laying down a base red blood drop sort of thing.  This is a shape I have a decent amount of practice with thanks to years of Blood Angels.

Red Gore.

The second step was the actual red color.  Red is much easier to do in a couple layers.

Blood Red.

Then I roughed in the 5 with some sort of bronze, whatever I was using on Ivan.

Something Bronze.

Next was firming up the 5 and adding the little spikes on the bottom.

Bronze detail.

Finally I cleaned up the lines with black and got things into the shapes I wanted.

Chaos Black.

Next time I'm going back in with the black to add some lining.  Looking at the Kodiak example, what makes the 5 pop is the contrast with the badge behind it (the blood drop).

My working copy.

With this in mind I'm going to do lining on the interior of the 5.  This will give it some distinct borders with the red backing and also let me thin down the 5 a bit as some of it is a little chunky (the lower part of the inner curve, the inside of the vertical arm).  I should have made it bigger and didn't get the spikes quite right, but for a first try I'm happy.  I'm unsold on the diamonds at the corners of the panel, not sure if they're part of the icon or part of the armor plate.  I'll have to comb the interwebs for examples.