As I mentioned in my previous post, I managed to grab some hobby time on Sunday to continue painting the tactical squad and Aion Advancer. The tactical squad had all the trim and various gubbins painted VMA Gun Metallic. While the highlights on the armour were applied with Scale 75 Arphen Jade, followed by VMC Ice Yellow. I quite like how they look at this stage, except that they aren’t black enough for me here for what I am aiming for with the Dark Angels.

Before I glued the shoulder pads in place I finished off the white Dark Angel logo. This was painted in 4 steps.

1. Logo based in a dark grey, VMA German Grey, paying particular attention to the edge of the symbol to provide a good border between the white of the logo and the red of the shoulder pad.
2. A medium grey, VMA US Blue Grey is carefully applied blocking in most of the logo, but leaving a good border of dark grey around the edge and any deep recesses.
3. The symbol is highlighted with VMA White Grey.
4. Finally a pure white highlight is added, VMA White.

With the pads and bolters in place I hit the models with a gloss varnish in preparation for a black oil wash. On my test mini i messed up the shoulder decal, and ended up free handing a tactical marking. I now attempted to do the same freehand on all the remaining pads.

The Aion Advancer made some significant progress too. Having had the same paints used to highlight the green armour, Arphen Jade and Ice Yellow. The yellow was also used on the red panels and bolters.

The same process as the tactical marines DA logo was used on the iconography on the front of the tank, but this time including some Scale 75 Necro Gold and VMA gun metal plus a little white added for a highlight. The red hexagamatron and the sword handle/wing edges were painted GW Mephiston Red with a highlight of VGA Bloody Red (I should probably add a very tiny highlight of ice yellow too).

The tracks were painted VMA German Grey, then had a dry brush of VMA Gun Metal, and a some VMC Mahogany Brown splodged on (heavily stippled?).

The tank then had a gloss varnish to allow decals to be added. Here i used a way too small number ’10’ from the GW Indomitus boxed set, in hind sight I wish I had placed this on the side doors. The checks on the top are from Microscale Decals and are 1/8″ Wide White Checkers. The key on the side is from GreenStuffWorld’s Heraldry Decal set.

After the decals a black oil wash was applied all over. Although the tracks and red panels also had a brown oil wash too. I tried to make sure that the pristine white of the decals was stained buy the oil wash to make the white look dirty and worn. I’ll the save that image to the next post hopefully with a complete tactical squad to be transported.

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