Just more progress of my Cadians for Kill Team.
As I was painting these I suddenly realized that I was painting them kind of in like a modern U.S. military color theme, with khaki uniforms and black weapons. I didn't do it consciously at all. I think I just like the idea of a Kill Team that's more military-looking than it is sci-fi, so I chose a more subdued kind of military-issue look with them. I'm keeping a lot of things like the canteens and bayonet scabbards the same color as the rest of the uniform for this reason.
For weapons I often like to do them in a black base coat, and then drybrush them with a dark gray like Citadel Standard Mechanicus Grey. This gives the weapons a nice, 3D-popping look where all the edges are picked out and gives the illusion that the weapon is black but the light is hitting it on all the high spots.
I took this same technique and used it on my kit-bashed Tempestus Scions. Same idea. Black suits and helmets, with a dark gray drybrush. Gives a really nice feel of a black surface with light hitting the high areas.
This also can get a squad of minis. painted really quickly as opposed to actually going in and doing layering and washes and all of that. It also briefly touches on how exactly do you highlight black so that it still gives the impression that the overall color is black and doesn't mess up the actual black color? I finally figured out that dark gray is the answer!
One thing I finally picked up after doing all this painting for the past year is how to control a metallic surface on a mini, particularly with bladed weapons. When I was painting the bayonets, I used a very thinned Citadel Leadbelcher so that the paint wouldn't look clunky. But one other thing I realized is that when painting metallic weapons like swords or bayonets, it's important to paint using brushstrokes in the LONG direction of the weapon's blade. This way the actual brush strokes of paint follow the grain of the weapon. If you paint the silver across the weapon perpendicular to the blade's length, it looks artificial and more "painted".
Just something I picked up on that I'm pleased I can now control when doing metallics!
Link to gallery:
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Individual pics of Cadians:
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Kit-bashed Tempestus Scions in black armor color scheme:
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sails to the Skeleton Seas, and finds inspiration as she goes.
