Blood angels. All help gratefully received.

[Whirligig]

Essentially I'm a novice painter. I've been painting models for years, but I'm still a novice. The most I can realistically do is paint the model in a variety of different colours reasonably neatly and then dump an ink wash over the top. A few months ago I finally got round to starting to dilute my paints. Only took 15 years. :eyeroll:

In any case, I'm trying to make a concerted effort to improve. I've looked at a lot of tutorials, but to be honest, I really don't understand what they mean. So I'm currently watching a lot of youtube videos....

I recently freecycled my way to a bunch of blood angels, all of which look roughly like this gentleman:

(you'll have to excuse him being called 'Boom Dave'. My Year 5 children have decided that all blood angels have a name that is a variant on Dave. I still do not understand why.)

I want to make them look slightly less 'been painted red all over' and slightly more awesome. But of course, I know NOTHING. So I throw myself on everyone else's mercy and expertise. Currently I'm thinking I should either wash the whole model with either red or badab black, or alternatively base paint any silver bits black and any bone bits grey. I was also wondering whether I should use any base coat for yellow sections.

As you can tell, I'm pretty much flailing blindly here. Does anyone have any advice?

 

[cassar]

my advice would be to look up blood angels fans like Meph he's the font of all blood angels knowledge well the only chap i know of anyway lol, check out his banners.
heres one of his http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums/showthread.php?38937-Blood-Angels-Land-Raider-Crusader

 

[TrystanGST]

This is a good start. Next, I'd go around and start painting the other colors, like hoses and metal bits and such. Once that's done, and you've touched up any red, THEN I'd worry about washes and inks and such.

 

[Torn blue sky]

I concur, Meph is a good starting point. He's somewhat of a BA fanatic.

 

[Whirligig]

Thanks for the advice. I'm currently not able to paint for very long (bad back), but I've split the squad into two groups of 5. ON one set I've painted all the 'going to be silver' bits black, and the other I've badab black washed. I like the effect the wash has in the lines and joins of the armour, but I think I might have been over-zealous, as when I tried to go start using blood red for the armour, the wash has made all of the paltes look 'mucky'. Pictures to follow when I get batteries.

 

[Master of fact]

I dont like using anything other than black base coat. For my blood angels i used mechrite red fojundation paint, then layered blood red on top. It means everything is eaiser and neater to paint (for me anyway) buy meph will chime in im sure. Im good with rules and fluff but painting. Basic!

 

[Mr.S.Marbo]

I found a good guide here. In that link there is also a step by step from Games Worksop too. If any article mentions a technique you haven't come across before then asking on the forums will get you an answer I'm sure.

 

[vincegamer]

I love the naming convention! All of my marines are named Mushnik and are distinguished only by the subtle variation on the zig-zag pattern of their armor.
(okay, they have names, but according to the background fluff I wrote, they only ever call each other "Mushnik" any time someone else is around.)

Now tell me how you freecycled to space marines!

 

[Whirligig]

Marbo, you're a gent. Thanks very much for the link. Looks like it should be very useful.

Vince, to make matters worse, these are really Blood Angels at all. They're from SCUD. The Space Marine Chapter of Ubiquitous Daveage. The joys of being a primary school teacher. Which , incidentally, is how I got these chaps in the first place. 'Dear Freecyclers, I teach in a school. I run warhammer club. I have no models. The children are sad. Can anybody help?' It's amazing how many people are glad to offload their eldest son's stuff. I have a suspicion that a lot of people got home from uni and said 'Mum, where's all my models gone? You did WHAT!?!?' :excruciating:

 

[Whirligig]

So, what have I done to boom dave?

Well I painted the weaponry black:

And I painted the bonework in astronomican grey:

In other news, I washed one half of the squad in badab black, but found that painting over it (blood red) wasn't working too well:

So I tried a second wash of baal red (featuring the Davester). For comparison, there's a basecoated model with just a red wash:

I know it's very slow progress, but I'm very much at the baby steps stage. What should I do now? I was planning to go over the grey with bone and the black with boltgun, but after that I'm at a bit of a loss.

 

[vincegamer]

It's amazing how many people are glad to offload their eldest son's stuff. I have a suspicion that a lot of people got home from uni and said 'Mum, where's all my models gone? You did WHAT!?!?' :excruciating:

I'm just impressed anyone would know what you were asking for. I got most of my High Elf army in an antique store. There were porcelain figures in a cabinet and between them was a mounted elf. I asked about it and the owner said "Oh yeah, got a box of those. No idea what they are about. Will you give me $35 for them?" he said, pulling out a cardboard box full of jumbled minis, which I quickly assayed for quantity and said "yeah, that sounds fair." Turned out to be something like 75 figures, including a chariot and a war griffon. I just figured if I asked for miniatures on freecycle I'd get offers of dollhouse furniture.