Blood Angels - Knights of Blood Shoulder Pad Sculpt

I did a test model previously where I painted on the shoulder pad icon freehand (see picture below). I was very happy with the result at the time but recently I looked at the model again and felt like I could improve on it. Of course now I have a tiny bit more sculpting experience after my Silver Skull Marine shoulder sculpt. I also wanted to redo the paint scheme to fit in more with what GW has published in the Blood Angels Codex, the scheme is a very dark metal combined with the bright red of traditional Blood Angels opposed to the one I followed ( see picture above) which is a bright metal almost silver with the red.

So to start off I wanted to sculpt the icons on rather than freehand them. I started with the Blood Angels Tactical Symbol which is a teardrop shape and so reasonably easy to do. I began with a small piece of greenstuff which I worked into a round shape and then pressed until I was happy with the depth or height of the greenstuff, once happy I began to cut out the teardrop or blood drop shape. Next clean up the surroundings and there you have it. Remember to use a lubricant all the time, I use oil but Vaseline works just as well I hear.

Next up was the Knights of Blood Icon, essentially a shield a teardrop and some swords. Now the shield is not a complicated design nor the teardrop but the swords worried me a lot. How was I going to get them matching and in proportion. I thought about this for a long time, do I start the swords first or try and add them after the shield etc etc. In the end I went for adding them in after the shield. I began the shield the same way I did for the tactical symbol, round bit of greenstuff smoothed down to the correct height or depth. and cut out the shield design. Clean up. All great so far.

I then allowed the greenstuff to cure completely and then repeated the tactical symbol process albeit a smaller version to go onto the shield.

That was the end of the good, when I tried to sculpt the swords it was a nightmare, I managed to do one but could not get any of the other pieces to match in proportion or look. I abandoned that process and decided to start over and do the swords first, so I cut off the shield and tried to sculpt the swords, unfortunately I could not get it right that way either, my sculpting skills and experience not good enough. Don't know if I should have waited for the greenstuff to cure a bit before trying to cut out the design or what?? (if you have some suggestions please leave a comment)

I went back and redid the shield and blood drop again with the plan to paint in the swords later.

So a mixed bag of results for me here. Anyways stay tuned and see how he turns out with the new paint job in a future post.



Vitor