Warhammer 40,000 - Games Day 2012 Blood Angels Captain

Many a year ago I attended Games Day, a Games Workshop hosted event at the Birmingham NEC. A notable event as it saw the release of the first Primarch for the Horus Heresy; Angron. I remember getting into the hall and watching people full on sprint to the Forgeworld store to get their copy. My friends and I were fairly nonplussed by the release, reasoning that £50 for a single character miniature was insanity itself. Oh how naive we were.  

Besides I had sights on more humble releases. Whilst I didn’t, and still don’t, collect Blood Angels I was always a sucker for a limited edition release. At the time I didn’t even realise the model was based on some John Blanche artwork done for the cover of 2nd Edition Warhammer 40,000. It was just a cool limited release model that I’ve held onto for more than a decade. And so as I was working through my other odds and sods models the time had come to crack this bad boy out of his yellowing clamshell packaging. 

The 2nd Edition box art by John Blanche

I knew from the get-go that I wasn’t going to attempt a one-to-one recreation of the box art. For one I’ve never been overly nostalgic for the bright pulpy 2nd Edition era paint jobs, probably because my entry into the hobby was in 3rd Edition where the grimdark was in full swing. And secondly, there was no way I was going to attempt to free hand the black flames on the armour. 

Regret was almost immediate as I realised he was a Finecast model. Which is odd, considering Finecast was usually models that had been made in metal poorly converted to being made in resin, and this was a new model entirely. In any case I set about removing the one million or so tabs and sprue gates on the model. Once I had completed that odious task, I glued the model onto his base but left the head and backpack separate. Lastly before priming, I covered the base with PVA glue and sprinkled on some basing sand, once that was dry I sealed it down with some Geek Gaming Scenics Sealant Spray. 

Basecoats

Once everything was completely dry I primed him with Colour Forge Matt Black. I then used my airbrush to give him an even coat of Archive-X Caboose Red. This bright punchy red is quickly becoming my go-to replacement for Mephiston Red. To really make the red pop I first gave the model a zenithal highlight of Liquitex Titanium White acrylic ink, followed by Daler-Rowney Crimson acrylic ink. The is that where the crimson ink hit the white it would turn into a super bright red. Unfortunately, Crimson Ink is a little too transparent and a bit glossy. So I quickly gave up and used Blood Angels Red contrast paint instead. The end result wasn’t exactly what I was looking for but not every hit can be a homerun.

Starting on the base coats I painted all the joints and the trim on the shoulder pads with Two Thin Coats Death Reaper. For the yellow details I used my secret weapon, Vallejo Extra Opaque Heavy Goldbrown. Yellow is always a tricky colour to paint so years ago I picked up a bottle of this knowing it would be useful for yellow base coats. So yes, anytime I’ve used “Vallejo Heavy Goldbrown” on this blog it has been the, now discontinued, Extra Opaque variety. There’s a couple of grey markings on one of the shoulder pads, for this I used Two Thin Coats Carcharodon Grey. For the grenades and laurels on the leg and the back of the powerfist I used Caliban Green, quite a dark colour but I had plans to give the laurels some fairly bright highlights. By contrast, I painted the comparatively flatter leather pouches with Mournfang Brown, which is quite a bright red-brown colour. As is tradition, any parchment and bone details I painted with Army Painter Skeleton Bone. The wax seals of the purity seals and the grip on the sword I painted with Screamer Pink, which admittedly doesn’t show up too well against the red armour. Lastly for the base coats I painted any silver details with Scale75 Thrash Metal. 

Washes and Highlights

For the washes, the Imperialis, bolter grip and powerfist were given a coat of Seraphim Sepia. The joints, laurels, grenades, wax seals and any silver details were washed with Army Painter Dark Tone. The parchment, bone details and leather pouches were given a coat of Army Painter Strong Tone. For the armour, I ran a line of Black Templar contrast paint between the panels to visually separate them. 

I started the highlights with the yellow details. Layering, were appropriate, with Vallejo Heavy Goldbrown, followed by an initial highlight with Yriel Yellow and then a point highlight with Flash Gitz Yellow. The armour I then carefully edge highlighted with Troll Slayer Orange. For the laurels I highlighted the leaves with Warboss Green, a fairly bright green that brings the laurels up to the same brightness as the rest of the model. I was happy to leave the grenades on the belt as a dark green however. For the leather details I gave them some quick scratchy highlights with Vallejo Khaki. For the wax seals I mixed Screamer Pink with some Army Painter Matt White to brighten and desaturate it, and used this for the highlight. The dull pink now stands out nicely against the red armour. The skulls on the knee pad and belt buckle I highlighted with Army Painter Skeleton Bone. Lastly, the black details on the bolter and shoulder pads I edge highlighted with Two Thin Coats Dungeon Stone. 

Before moving onto the remaining details I needed to paint the gems. For the blue gems on the Imperialis and back of the powerfist I first base coated them with Kantor Blue before doing an L-shaped highlight with Two Thin Coats Celestial Blue. For the red gems I did a similar process, starting with a base of Vallejo Scarlet Red before giving them a highlight of Mephiston Red and a smaller highlight of Evil Sunz Scarlet. 

Final Details

As I had Army Painter Air Nomad Flesh and the airbrush out for another project I used that to quickly basecoat the face. With that done I painted the gorget with Two Thin Coats Death Reaper, the bionics with Scale75 Thrash Metal and the hair with two Thin Coats Carcharodon Grey. I then washed the face with Reikland Flesh and everything else with Army Painter Dark Tone. For highlights, I used Scale75 Basic Flesh on the face and then used an old brush to stipple Army Painter Matt White onto the hair to give it the impression of a buzz cut. With a ponytail, for some reason? For the final details I carefully painted the eye with Ulthuan Grey and a dot of Army Painter Matt Black, whilst the lenses on the bionic eye I painted with Evil Sunz Scarlet. 

For the backpack, I started with an all over basecoat of Two Thin Coats Death Reaper. I then picked out the wings of the Blood Angels symbol with Vallejo (Extra Opaque) Heavy Goldbrown and the blood drop with Mephiston Red. The vents I picked out with Scale75 Thrash Metal and to finish things off I gave the silver and the heat exhausts a coat of Army Painter Dark Tone. 

Whilst I was tempted to give the base the classic Goblin Green treatment, instead I opted for something a little closer to the original artwork. Our Captain appears to be fighting Orks in a pale dusty environment with a few green tones denoting vegetation. To recreate this I started by basecoating the base with Vallejo Khaki, for the green tones I opted to try and use Dirty Down Moss effects. I’ve previously had real trouble getting this effect to work, and today was no exception. Despite warming the bottle and shaking the life out of it I still ended up with a mostly green wash. It doesn’t look bad by any means, just not what I wanted. I think next time I try it I’ll not shake the bottle? Apparently, the active ingredient is in the bit that solidifies in the bottle, the just is just thinner, so I might use a coffee stirrer to scoop some of that gelatinous residue out and use that instead. 

Either way, I’m happy with how this turned out. The red armour looks especially good, almost makes me want to collect Blood Angels. Not bad for sitting in my pile of shame for over a decade. Let me know in the comments what your oldest unfinished model is.