Progress update on Devastator Squad

I haven't been active lately on my blog, but I have been active in the game and hobby world. I figure I would show how the Devastator squad looks so far. The pictures could be better, but I haven't been in the mood to setup both lamps to get the best lighting.

For the most part, the squad looks great. I did something different in which I painted the inner coils metal instead of the normal black, but also applied a wash as well. I made a fair number of over painting mistakes, but the matching army painter pure red paint works great for covering those areas. Something new I have painted is the rear section in their packs. I liked the look of this so much I will apply to all future painted Blood Angels marines. All of the purity seals turned out nice as well even though I never add lines to them.

The squad sergeant is taking a bit longer than expected, but the overall looks has proven worth the extra time. I tried and new paint recipe for the leather portions and a new paint recipe for the flesh portion as well. I would like the flesh a bit lighter, but it looks good for now. I went with green for his hair just for color contrast reasons. Every time I start a new Fallout game  I seem to create a character with a Mohawk hair style colored green  I never see it, because having a helmet in Fallout helps considerably. I need to finish the auspex/signum or for simplicity just leave it green screen.

You can barely see the frag grenade to the right of the bolter. I started out dark and worked up to light with a light recess application Badab Black wash.

Just what was GW's intention to have him pointing at anyway?

The marines holding the missile launchers are up to par with the sergeant. I am in the finishing stages of painting the helmets and then they are good to go. This particular marine I tried to remove the head prior to paint stripping, but couldn't do it and damaged the front vent a bit. I left the front vent damage as is and considered it some form of battle damage.

The missile launchers for some reason never seem to paint nice and smooth. They didn't look appealing, but after some clean up they did look much better. The under slung coil had to be repainted to though. I initially debated on how to paint them and eventually decided to keep the barrel of the launcher black and the other parts metal in color.

The other half of the squad which are normal bolter marines and according to GW have no idea how to pick up their fallen brother's weapons and use them against the enemy. They lighting was not good in the lower portions, but the marines do look stunning up close. I didn't use any special paint ideas, just normal armor and a metal chest armor plate decoration. They will have their heads attached once those are done.

I painting the base of this marine as a test bed for the basing material I will be using. I will be using a combination of Army Painter Black Battleground mixed with Pegasus Hobbies Small Grey Bricks for an urban base theme. The Blood Angel's in general are shown fighting in urban landscapes so the original boring green base and green flock had to go. I can debating what is better a black or grey base rim. The Black Battleground starts black in color and is designed to be glued and dry brushed as desired. I believe leaving the rim black is the best choice as the Black Battleground mix will be dry brushed slightly grey and I don't want to avoid color issues. The black base visually helps bring the model back to the playing field as well.

This particular marine will be the leader of the rest of the squad. I chose the Aquila chest plate for only this marine in the squad. All of the normal marines will receive normal marine heads, but I was thinking of using a Corvis helmet for the Aquila plus beak deal.

Here are the heads so far in the painting process. I initially used a 5:1 ink mix when I intended to use a 10:1 ink mix causing me to paint strip these heads again, lol. The 10:1 ratio works great alongside matching the color intensity of the ink mix on the normal armor. I have painted the eyes so far with Warpstone Green and not sure how to proceed from there besides a glaze of Waywatcher Green. The front vents are done along with the side metal pieces. I am undecided on the metal coils to the side of the front vent as sometimes they tend not to look so good. 

The head closest to the camera had some odd flash stuck to the front vent. I didn't see this till to far in so I left it as a possible enemy round permanently lodged in the front vent. The mistakes from the eyes shoukd be easy to clean up with a light ink mix application.

Here are the materials I will be basing the army with. Army Painter Black Battleground mixed with Pegasus Hobbies Small Grey Bricks. I might even add a few random skulls in the mix I bought from Secret Weapon Miniatures because who doesn't need more skulls.

Once these heads are down I believe I will place the Assault squad heads and start working on them. Painting the Assault squad is no big deal, the heads are the toughest part to get the colors right.

My intentions are to finish this squad for good this week and then proceed with the Baal Predator next. I would like to get the Baal Predator spry painted before the wet weather sets in this week. I also have spray painted my other Land Raider and it is ready for painting as well.

Any thoughts on the areas I am concerning or pondering to much are greatly appreciated.