+ inload: Painting the Blood Angels Librarian +

+ He that is first shall be last +

+ Well, we're settling into quite the routine, aren't we? For those of us getting a bit fatigued with Space Marine characters, I can reassure you that this is the final character from my Blood Angels force. Only the Land Speeder remains. As with many projects like this, I end up limping over the finish line, enthusiasm drained – only for it to be reignited when I can set up the whole force and play a game with them. +

+++

+ Theoretical: the inspiration +

+ Unlike the other characters, where there's either been kick-ass artwork or a classic model to build up my enthusiasm, the Librarian suffered from a lack of inspiration. It was also one of the first models I created for the army; before I decided to get more involved with the conversions. As a result, it's a relatively simple conversion based on the librarian model from WD139. +

+ I'm not a huge fan of this model, but then I'm not that enthused by any of the period Librarian models. There are some nice details, however. It's interesting to see that while the Techmarine symbol changed, the Librarian logo has remained the original horned skull. +

+ Unlike a lot of the army, I don't think this one has aged well. The halved scheme, with blue top and red bottom, looks awkward, and the whole figure has a simultaneously cluttered and oddly sparse appearance; with the purity seal and loincloth(?) looking a bit stuck on. +

+ My conversion involved using the (then-)new Primaris Librarian and reposing the arms. I converted the chest to make it a Mark VI torso, and swapped the head for something a bit decorative. The idea was for the robes to partially obscure the red legs. +

+ With red and blue both being used, I kept the robes neutral to avoid the figure becoming too busy. When considering how to paint robes, I tend to look at whether they're practical or ornamental. Here, the Librarian has both inner and outer robes. I decided to paint the outer one as a weatherworn leather, building up the colour with repeated stippling and washes. The inner robes were painted in a contrasting lighter tone, intended to frame the armour and provide a bit of visual pop. I added some ritualistic details (some Enochian letters) around the hem, and suggested a red decorative hem on the inside. +

+ The leather effect is clear here. I may have sounded a bit negative about this figure above; but this is a lot of lovely subtle details on the base sculpt, such as the decorated reinforcement where the split cape joins and the pipework joining the psychic hood to the backpack. +

+ I replaced the modern backpack with a period one. You can also see the decorative shoulder pad I added on the left here. It's from one of Forge World's Emperor's Children kits – these two highly-decorative Legions have lots of pieces that work well with each other's kits. +

+ I added a trussed bird to the banner (it's from the late-lamented Bretonnian Men-at-Arms sprue) as a suitably outré addition. I painted it up as a light-coloured pigeon, or dove. Perhaps he uses it as some sort of sacrifice, perhaps some sort of communication. Who knows? The little shield on the kit proved a great place to add the Company markings. +

+ The horned skull shoulder pad is part of the standard kit. I added his apotropaic name on the scroll, and added an Enochian sigil to the forehead of the skull. +

+ The split scheme can be seen nicely here. I'm glad I went for a robed figure. It allowed me to keep the homage to the original, while partially hiding a device I'm not the fond of! The robes also give a nice 'Obi Wan Kenobi' feel, which I like. The banner, as with the other personalities in the army, is a replication of the original. +

+ I don't think the Librarian is my finest work, but I'm still broadly pleased with how he's come out. I guess I'm just not all that enthused by wizards at the best of times. Must be my inner dawi. With all that said, he's definitely growing on me. Even the red/blue split isn't looking so obnoxious as I remember! +

+ inload: Crusader and Servitor +

+ Combat Arena Completed +

+ The Crusader and Servitor below are the last two figures from the Combat Arena boxed set, and that means – for the first time in my life – I've painted a boxed game ready to play. +

+ Seems weird – I've painted lots of miniatures, but never a whole set: some figures from every set have either been cannibalised, repurposed, or left unpainted. It's a nice feeling to have a game all ready! +

+ Gotfret de Montbard, Crusader +

+ A characteristically stoical pose, I'm slightly disappointed that GW essentially redid the previous metal iteration of this character type rather than trying something a bit more dynamic. That said, I don't have any of the metal ones, so no great loss. +

+ For the paint scheme, I knew I wanted to keep things nearly completely red in order to suggest Emperor Palpatine's Guard from Star Wars. I think these sinister figures have a lot in common with Inquisitorial Crusaders, and the all-red scheme is very striking. +

+ The shield's an obvious exception – and intentionally so. The helmed head doesn't make a great focal point, so I've made that secondary. Gofret de Montbard is a bodyguard, an anonymous figure; and so his mistress' heraldry – displayed on the shield – is paramount. Nevertheless, I've used a warm, red-tinged yellow for the shield in order to keep things harmonious. +

+ To avoid having all the elements blurring together, I used cool reds for the capes and warm red for the armour. This standalone figure was thus a useful bit of practise for both Blood Angels and Word Bearers. Lone characters are useful for this – had something gone awry, I'd only have to adjust this one figure. +

+ Note the orange eye lens, red purity seals and warm-brown leather – again, all adding to the warm scheme. +

+ The chequerboard effect (or 'dicing', as I recently found out it's referred to) was originally subtler. I used a mid-brown rather than cream. It had a nice effect, but I felt the shield needed more punch to work heraldically. The result is a bit scrappier than I would have liked, so perhaps I'll return to re-work it. Note the lens on the shield is painted in the same way as the eye. The legend on the shield-scroll reads Vici – 'I conquered'. +

+ Combat Servitor X-101 +

+ As mentioned in an earlier inload [+noosphericinloadlinkembedded+], I used a very workmanlike scheme for this fantastic figure, intending this brainless man-machine to appear like a JCB or similar piece of heavy equipment. +

+ Besides the techpriest, this figure is probably my favourite in the set. Clunky, ungainly and asymmetrical, it looks lumbering and threatening – in a brainless zombie sort of way. +

+ The scheme hopefully has echoes of the power-lifter from Aliens, a similar piece of industrial tech that fits neatly into the 40k universe. Like the power loader, it's got a pair of big claws, some pitted metal and a load of lights and dials. +

+ I've used a piercing green for the bionic eye – the other one is rolled back to suggest this poor soul's mindless nature. +

+ The big claw is the only bit of metal that gets the yellow scheme – all the rest is less bare. To show the rigid texture, I've added some light damage – and avoided doing so on the workmanlike 'overalls'. You can add scratches and so forth on those (to an extent, that's how I did the leather coat on the psyker in the inload linked above), but if you're trying to distinguish two similarly-coloured but differently-textured areas on one figure, I find it best to avoid confusing matters. +

+ One thing I've noticed about all these Combat Arena models is that they've got great details on their backs. The dials and switches here, the dangling charms on the Crusader... I'm not sure if it's intentional, but it'll likely look nice during the game, where you're probably looking at the rear of your character for most of it. Nice touch! +

+ As with the dials, I added some red warning lights, but kept the searchlight dim – by painting it as switched off, I didn't have to do any object source lighting, and kept the focus on the face. Note the little barcode on the shoulder, and the yellow banding on the cable around its stomach. Little details like this add some freehand personalisation for very little effort. +

+++

+ ...and so, with the addition of a drybrush and few tufts of static flock, that completes the motley crew for Combat Arena. They look nice together – so hopefully they look equally good beating the [SCRAPSHUNTERRORABORT] out of each other, too. I'm looking forward to playing a fully-painted game. +

+ Which one's your favourite? +

+ inload: Imperial psyker +

+ Primaris psyker +

+ Aradia Madellan, primaris psyker – no, not an eight-foot tall genetically engineered superhero, but an Imperial battle psyker. +

+ Following on from her Rogue Trader and techpriest comrades, the third hero/combatant for Combat Arena steps up. A similarly dynamic sculpt, I wanted to get across a slightly grubbier feel than Nayam Shai Murad, as Madellan is effectively a guardswoman. She's effectively an officer, sure, but still a relatively low-ranking member of the military. I used similar techniques for her coat, boots and gloves as for the Rogue Trader, but added touches of grey and brown to mute and neutralise the colours, giving a grubbier, less opulent result. +

+ The scheme is thus a bit of a 'symphony in brown'. Brown coat, brown trousers, brown holsters and pouches, brown wood on the staff... even brown-based skin. I hope, however, it's not dull. I've made sure to use different hues of brown, from pale wood on the staff to deep black-brown on the coat. The advantage this scheme gives is that it works beautifully as a base for some parts to leap out: +

+ To avoid the scheme being entirely brown, I added a flash of red for her sash. This 'hot spot' warms the scheme and draws the eye, so I added a little pattern with repeated dots, just to give a little freehand flair. +

 + I'm not generally a big fan of glowing eyes and so forth for psykers; I prefer to picture battle psyker's powers as more akin to Scanners-style brutality – less wizardy pyrotechnics, more people coming apart at the seams for no apparent reason. This is an example of leaving 'design space' in my collection for Eldar and similar figures who can be a lot more showy in their psychic showing. +

+ With that said, I'm always happy for technology to have a bit of object source lighting, so her psychic hood/collar thing has been painted with bright pale green light to suggest her psychic powers manifesting and being channelled through the hood. This is really at the root of why I opted for the deep dark brown scheme. +

+ If you want lights on a model to be effective, the underlying scheme needs to be low key – that is, for all the tones to be relatively dark – so that the lit-up parts stand out properly. If I'd used (say) a clean white coat, the lights on the collar wouldn't have read properly, as they'd be darker in tone than the coat – and clearly the object giving light needs to be lighter than the surroundings. Hue is largely irrelevant here; it's all down to tone. +

+ What's next? +

+ BEEP BOOP BEEP +

+ One last character – the sword and shield-carrying Crusader – is left, along with the pair of servitors above. As you can see, these are coming on quite swiftly. As befits these man-machine hybrids, I'm painting them up to look like a cross between workmen and a JCB, using the same scheme as I did for the galvanic servo-haulers terrain [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] . +