Queries on Painting Certain Details

[Mmmmm Napalm]

EDIT: All right, i'm decided on some things but still as indecisive as ever regarding others.

 

I will be painting Aquilas bone for the whole army, sans perhaps Marshals, Castellans, and Chaplains.

I will be painting armor joints gunmetal, using either Iron Warriors or Leadbelcher.

 

As for what I'm undecided on, it's whether I should go with red weapon casings for Initiates. It would provide a nice contrast, but I don't want there to be an overabundance of red when looking at the whole army; I want red to be largely confined to the Sword Brethren so they stand out.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Mmmmm Napalm

[Marshal Reinhard]

I do pure white Aquilas. Shaded with some watered down drakenhoff. Pairs nicely with the white on the shoulders I find.

 

Metal joints. It just looks better I think. And you can have metal colored rubber :p

 

Nuln can be used in most places. You can use nuln if its cracks or crevices in the red. if you want the shade over a flat red surface otherwise, i'd go with carroburg so it isn't too harsh.

[Acebaur]

I paint my initiates chest emblems(aquilla, skull, etc) silver and my sword brethren and commanders gold. Chaplains get bone or gold. 

 

Armor joints I do in Leadbelcher with a Nuln Oil wash

 

Boltgun casing I go with black or gunmetal for my initiates and gold for my SB. 

[BitsHammer]

Metal joints is a must for me as well.

 

As for chest emblems, white shaded with blue seems to be the standard from our old codex, so I'd do that.

 

I'll be doing red casings because it's a classic though.

[redmapa]

I drybrush the joints in silver and the guns are also painted in leadbelcher with golden details and a wash of agrax to add a gradient of color to the whole thing. As for the Aquilas I do some form of metallic, right now its bronze or gold.

[Urkh]

I mostly do silver aquila, but my joints I paint bronze. It looks nice against the black and doesnt put too much silver on the mini.

[painting.for.my.sanity]

How would you guys go about painting the following details:

 

Aquilas:

 

Silver or bone/ivory for Initiates and Sword Brethren? In the 4th edition codex they're painted silver, but I don't know if that provides enough contrast with cool black armor. Inspired by the work of Maxime Corbeil, I wanted to go with bone/ivory Aquilas. Bone Aquilas come with another dilemma, however: differentiating between bone, parchment, and cream-colored cloth. Managing two of these on a miniature is easy enough, but all three could be an issue (the upcoming Bladeguard are an excellent example, with Purity seals, robes, and bone/ivory aquilas all potentially blurring together).

 

Armor joints:

 

Eshin Grey or Gunmetal? Gunmetal provides the most contrast and helps the armor "pop", but precludes painting Aquilas silver, as it would result in too many silver details (Aquila, boltgun components, joints, etc.)

Furthermore, painting joints as metallic surfaces inherently bugs me lol, I always interpreted the material covering joints as rubber.

 

Boltguns casings:

 

I'm pretty set on giving Initiates red boltguns casings and Sword Brethren gold casings, with grey handguards for each. If anyone has any other recommendations, though, I'm open to them. (Also, how would you shade Mephiston red casings? Nuln oil, Agrax, or Carroburg crimson?)

 

I do Aquilas in white with a very light Nuln shade for everyone bar Castellans, Marshals and Chaplains, who I do in gold. Parchment and bone are in cream, with different levels of shading and highlighting to differentiate. Cloth, I do in white: Corax White > heavy shade Apothecary White > layer Corax White > highlight White Scar. I then weather it down with stippled Baneblade Brown and small flecks of Agrellan Badland.

 

Amour joints I do in heavily shaded Eshin Grey so as to not get to many bright details, given I use quite a bit of gold and steel.

 

Given I'm not so much of a fan of red, I use fairly bright steel for weapons: Leadbelcher > heavy shade Nuln > heavy drybrush Leadbelcher > light drybrush Ironbreaker > minimal drybrush Stormhost Silver.

 

Examples of all techniques below:

 

[Gendo]

I use metallic silver on joints, silver for aquilas and gold or silver for other details. Skulls almost always bone colour.

[Mmmmm Napalm]

Welp, after ruminating on it for a while (and basecoating a few guys) I'm going with Gunmetal joints and bone/ivory Aquilas, which I think strike the best color balance, especially when paired with red boltgun casings.

In regards to differentiating bone, parchment, and cloth, I'm still looking for solutions.

My bone recipe is Zandri > Sepia wash > layer Ushabti > highlight screaming skull.

Edited June 11, 2020 by Mmmmm Napalm

[Medjugorje]

white aquila for the whole army and golden ones for higher ranks.

[Marshal Reinhard]

In regards to differentiating bone, parchment, and Aquilas, I'm still looking for solutions.

 

Had that proplem myself to a degree at one point. Was solved by doing white aquilas

Edited June 11, 2020 by Reinhard

[Mmmmm Napalm]

 

In regards to differentiating bone, parchment, and Aquilas cream cloth, I'm still looking for solutions.

 

Had that proplem myself to a degree at one point. Was solved by doing white aquilas

 

whoops that was a typo, I meant "cloth" not "Aquilas". 

 

personally i'd rather not paint any more white than I have to lol. Getting the right consistency - even for off-whites like Ulthuan - is difficult for me.

[BitsHammer]

 

 

In regards to differentiating bone, parchment, and Aquilas cream cloth, I'm still looking for solutions.

 

Had that proplem myself to a degree at one point. Was solved by doing white aquilas

 

whoops that was a typo, I meant "cloth" not "Aquilas". 

 

personally i'd rather not paint any more white than I have to lol. Getting the right consistency - even for off-whites like Ulthuan - is difficult for me.

 

Celestra Grey followed by Ulthuan works well for me, but that's always been more of a personal preference.

 

 

Been playing with different ways of doing black armour, and I'm starting to consider Black Templar over Leadbelcher. Go for a Black Knight sort of look for the armour. To steal an example from Twitter:

 

I like it because it looks black without falling into the trap a lot of black schemes do of using a true black and having nowhere to go to push the shadows, so I thought I'd share it here just incase it inspires anyone else.

[Mmmmm Napalm]

Okay, here's my tentative plan for the chest icon colors:

 

Bone: Initiates and their Sword Brethren squad leaders

 

Brass (like the studio's BT Bladeguard): Sword Brethren units like the Bladeguard, to differentiate from the cream cloth.

 

Gold shaded with Reikland Fleshshade: Marshals, Castellans, and Chaplains.

 

 

My concern is that having three different Aquila colors across the army will look inconsistent. Part of me wants to just do silver Aquilas for initiates and Sword Brethren, but I think that the bone aquilas are a nice contrast to the cool black armor.

[Mmmmm Napalm]

Would red cloth work on that new chaplain? Given the prevalence of bone and parchment on that mini (the rib motif, and the skull helmet I will give him) I figured that red robes would contrast nicely. I don't want them to be too strong and draw the away from the rest of the mini though. Edited June 24, 2020 by Mmmmm Napalm

[Mmmmm Napalm]

 

 

 

 

 

 

In regards to differentiating bone, parchment, and Aquilas cream cloth, I'm still looking for solutions.

Had that proplem myself to a degree at one point. Was solved by doing white aquilas

whoops that was a typo, I meant "cloth" not "Aquilas".

 

personally i'd rather not paint any more white than I have to lol. Getting the right consistency - even for off-whites like Ulthuan - is difficult for me.

Celestra Grey followed by Ulthuan works well for me, but that's always been more of a personal preference.

 

 

Been playing with different ways of doing black armour, and I'm starting to consider Black Templar over Leadbelcher. Go for a Black Knight sort of look for the armour. To steal an example from Twitter:

 

I like it because it looks black without falling into the trap a lot of black schemes do of using a true black and having nowhere to go to push the shadows, so I thought I'd share it here just incase it inspires anyone else.

Yeah I base Celestra and then layer Ulthuan too. It can be hard getting the consistency just right. It gets watery so easily.

 

Yeah I thought about going for a black substitute, but my meticulousness stopped me. For one thing, as annoying as it is to highlight black, it's fairly easy to neaten up. If I drybrush or shade to get a black substitute, then if I mess up I have to repeat the whole process on that spot, which can look uneven. There's also the issue of transfers. Pure black transfers would make the rest of the armor look grey.

[Medjugorje]

Aquilla - white

Armor highlights - mix between fenrisian and grey while the armor itself is painted with Black Templar contrast paint after sprayed black and bone (contrast) + tiny bit white.

Bolters are still just metal (dont like color on them doesnt matter which chapters)

Edited June 24, 2020 by Medjugorje

[BitsHammer]

I'm a sucker for punishment so no transfers, only freehand (or sculpted icons from the upgrade kit). Most of the free hand is over surfaces with flat color (cloth, shoulder pad inserts) so there isn't much to worry about in that regard.

[WAR]

Aquilas white

Robes/ Tabards like this

Black Armor

weather and damaged hopefully.

and Im lazy/ glutton for punishment going the decal route....

[painting.for.my.sanity]

I'm a sucker for punishment so no transfers, only freehand (or sculpted icons from the upgrade kit). Most of the free hand is over surfaces with flat color (cloth, shoulder pad inserts) so there isn't much to worry about in that regard.

I have exactly the same policy - there isn't a single transfer across my entire force, but plenty of freehanding - I try to keep it limited to shoulder pads, tilting plates, banners, and the fronts and backs of vehicles.

[Mmmmm Napalm]

Welp I was decided on red weapon casings for all Initiates, but then I was thinking about how the whole army would look during a game. I don't want too much red, because I want my units of Sword Brethren (bladeguard) to really stand out. Thus, I've been considering some alternatives, one of which is making the weapon casings a black-metal as seen on this Ravenguard mini. I think that, while it wouldn't contrast with the armor as much as red, it would still look like a distinct surface next to matte black armor with grey-blue highlights. 

Edited September 21, 2020 by Mmmmm Napalm