Dark Angels - Ravenwing Talonmaster - White Pics

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer my Ravenwing Talonmaster. Really I should have taken these pics against black, given their colour scheme 😉 but white will do.

Monkeychuka will be most pleased with these unadulterated images, he's right they do show off the painting a bit more, even though they're a little less atmospheric.

It's weird seeing some of the finish as the weathering in particular looked over the top when I first did it [so long ago]. However, now I think it's fine and fascinating to see how the Turquoise pooled.

The glow FX aren't exactly my best on the jets, but again I think the overall look is worth more than the effort I put in. I'm getting a lot of satisfaction from the 'cost/benefit' ratio out of this, the cost being my effort in achieving an effect.

I mean this angle makes those jets look really good, framed with the aged bronze and then the BLESSED VERDIGRIS. I've loved that effect since I first did it on my Dark Vengeance Plasma guys 8 years ago! 

It's often a bit hit and miss, like my purity seals but for the most part the result works out OK.

I also added my 'Bear Claw' tribal stripes, both on the crew and the top of the Land Speeder.

I did the ones on the top both diagonally left and right, the existing Speeders ones is angled right and one is angled left, so it had to be both, as the 'tip of the spear'. But you can just make out the angles aren't quite mirrored perfectly, which is annoying. I'll stick to one set in future.

Close-up of the 'lava' sword and the Talonmaster's tribal stripes.

The Gunner's tribal stripes and the now obvious simplicity of the highlights. I think the eye lenses were even simpler than usual, with a few less steps but I don't see much of a difference.

That BLESSED VERDIGRIS tho! And to think I wasn't going to add the hood ornament, but what was I going to do with it otherwise?

And here we are swapping out the radar dish and honour badge for the Typhoon Launchers.

The orange missiles are a bit more vibrant than my previous too, thanks to Trollslayer ORange.

And I love how that ties in with the Power Sword colours, something a silver blade with blue highlights would have introduced more colours to the palette.

There were still some bits of Tamiya Clear colours to add and I do need to glue some of my Speeder bases together but I really, really love a Speeder squadron.

That's one of those items I think I'd just keep buying more of, unnecessarily! Anyway, since this I didn't quite capitalise on the momentum with my Attack Bikes, just some metallics added. That's because my son is back from university and we've been watching the Expanse. 🚀  Which if you haven't watched it you should as it's possibly the closest thing we have to a 40k TV show right now. The final season in particular has some excellent space battles.

Dark Angels - Ravenwing Talonmaster - TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer my Ravenwing Talonmaster. This feels like ages ago. I think it's about 2 weeks since I finished the Talonmaster. I've since picked up the eldest from uni, so my hobby time has been reduced and it feels odd to be writing this post [I;ve a Blood Bowl tournament to report on too and that was like 3 weeks ago!]

Anyway, with my epiphany regarding the simplicity of my black highlights I cracked on no bother. All the red's got highlighted, parchments and purity seals and any additional glow or lense effects.

It was only two or three sessions after the last update to get it finished and I was really chuffed as it's a big deal. Unfortunately I hadn't got any of my attack bikes or other Ravenwing up to speed so it's a retrograde step to be starting them from the beginning of the metallic stage.

But back to the Talonmaster and you can see I opted for the currently en vogue molten lava/red hot power sword. I watched a number of tutorials from the likes of Artis Opus, the one and only Duncan Rhodes, Vince Neturella and 2brushes1cup.

Given the wealth of research one might expect better results but I'm really pleased with it. It totally does not stand up to close scrutiny and there are so many subtleties from those tutorials that I just didn't do. BUT, from a tabletop perspective I thinks it's perfect.

I really can't see what difference hours of additional blending and glazing would have added to the sword. Even the quick and dirty additional glow FX feel bob on. It's amazing how some rough stippling hast achieved this. That's nto say I might not try to be more careful next time, that is practice afterall, but I'm over the moon with the end result.

I also got the Typhoon Launchers finished, I'd forgotten to do all the orange missiles for so long, so that was a last minute thing.

I do like a Squadron of these.

I don't think these can be armed with Power Swords, but I wasn't going to magnetise his weapon, not everything has to be 100% W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G.

I do like how the blade echoes the missiles though.

That trophy banner will inevitably get snapped off.

This will at least be something new for my #ArmiesOnParade2022 Ravenwing Vs Death Guard, so that's another bonus.

But I also envisage if I ever play with my Dark Angels the Talonmaster will be an essential choice to support the rest of the Ravenwing. So it's a major achievement [even though I don't always differentiate that in my stamps of approval...).

So, here's my Great Big BLESSED VERDIGRIS Stamps of Approval! White pics to follow.

Dark Angels - Ravenwing Talonmaster - Highlights

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer my Ravenwing Talonmaster. And so it comes to edge highlighting black, a task I have been avoiding like the plague and I can't seem to figure why. Having committed to finally finishing this Talonmaster I learned something:

Black highlights are nothing to be afraid of!

The recipe is quite simple really:

• Incubi Darkness
• Dark Reaper
• Fenrisian Grey•

I do have an Anita's Baby Blue craft acrylic that is an alternative to the Fenrisian Grey, it's paler and naturally more blue, but it's thinner so I stuck with the Citadel paint.

Eventually when I'd done all the highlights I like to go back in with some more AP Matt Black, to try and tidy up the highlights, particularly the chunky Incubi Darkness ones. Whether it adds the occasional 'tide mar' that you see in matt black on flat surfaces is somewhat of a gamble.

But really, there's mothing to be afraid of. Is it the greatest black highlight ever painted? No. Will it do? Absolutely, and far from something I should fear it's relatively simple and easy to do.

Fingers crossed I can hold onto this knowledge and power through the 3 Attack Bikes and 3 Ravenwing Black Knights too. They're a bit behind, I haven't even done their metallics, but it'd be nice to ride this crest. With them done it'll be a nice set of nids and Dark Angels that will have been done on the bounce. Then it's new challenges?

The highlights on the front of their helmets need a bit of tidying up, red areas need highlighted and I've still to decide on what colour to do the power sword.

But I am back in the saddle and I am going to get this done, mark my words!

Dark Angels - Ravenwing Talonmaster - Blessed verdigris and glow FX

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer my Ravenwing Talonmaster. I have, but technically these are not what I painted. These parts were painted of July last year and for reasons I can't recall I didn't share the progress. 

Having completed the fussy bits of blessed verdigris and orange glow FX I was left with highlighting the black which killed my progress stone dead.

In fairness I was building a lot of stuff and finished off my Macragge Tactical Squad, which was a challenge in itself. But something about the prospect of the black highlights did nothing for my mojo. Luckily I did have plenty of projects to keep me busy, it's just a shock when you realise this has been on hold for 9 months!

Now, I went a bit overboard on the blessed verdigris, far more than I previously added to my Land Speeders, but this is a special one, so deserves more blessing.

It looks worse than it does in reality actually, but even so I was shocked how generous I'd been with the AP Hydra Turquoise.

But it works on angel 'hood ornament'. I was dubious about using it but I think it works, so I'm happy now.

I know I'm a little inconsistent with my plasma, jet and maglev glows. Actually I'm consistent as I use orange for all of them when they're different tech, but it looks cool and I'd rather not have loads of blues, purples, reds and green glows [he says with red light glows].

Whatever, the palette didn't need a load more colours and I surprise myself sometimes with how this orange comes out.

Of course, it's underneath so you're not really going to see it, which is a shame as I think it's pretty good.

Anyway, I have started the black highlights so we'll be more up-to-date with our pics next time

Dark Angels - Ravenwing Talonmaster - basecolours

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity Alongside my Macragge Tactical Squad I've been #paintingwarhammer on my Ravenwing Talonmaster. The metals were finished in conjunction, that Army Painter Strong Tone taking that bronze to a proper aged look in places.

Perhaps too much? But the blessed verdigris will obfuscate things a bit - hide issues, fill in discrepancies. It's a great leveller, I'm not even too proud to suggest it isn't a crutch. But it is more than just that. It adds as well as hides for so little effort.

That relic banner will be a constant annoyance, I have no doubt. It's very fragile and precarious, I suspect it'll snap off repeatedly. I'll have to find a gentle way to transport it. All of the black has been recovered, reds and I'm going to work on the cockpit next.

The irony of doing this, is I wish I was doing more of them. I really like the little compactness of them - the new speeders are just too big. Saying that I'm certain to do more than just this one would probably kill my motivation dead.

What I could do is get those Ravenwing attack bikes ready to prime and then they could waiting in the wings should I still have a Ravenwing itch once this is complete.

It does annoy me that I tried really hard to keep this model as tight as possible, to prevent gaps in the kit, but those angled edges around the cockpit are awful! I should have tried a little harder to smooth them over...

I think I'm feeling the urge to try and rectify that somehow, even if it is a step back I should be happier with the finish before I go on and paint the rest of the model. We'll see.