Captain Erasmus Tycho

I was going to hold on to these images and have them with the whole army shoot later in the week but I just can't! Ladies and Gentlemen: I present Blood Angels, 3rd Company Captain Erasmus Tycho!

Edit: All kinds of excited, PVP has got on the SCW Honour Roll! Click the banner to go there.

Readers familiar with Blood Angels will notice immediately that I have gone with red over the more common gold. Why? Several reasons, first, I only think that non metallic gold would have worked on that scale. Truth be told I could have had a good crack at it but it just does not suit my painting style. NMM either looks amazing or rubbish so I had a rethink. Second reason is that everyone paints Tycho gold. Why? He isn't Sanguinary Guard or a chapter master. He's "just" a captain. Hence I settled on red to match his command squad. Trouble is, Tycho is the most understated Space Marine hero model out there and I worried that he would just vanish into the command squad. Enter... big rock! This gives him a ton of presence and solves that problem right away.

Painting wise, he is essentially a pimped up version of the basic Blood Angels scheme I usually do but with two extra blending layers in between each stage. I went for a zenithal lighting scheme - meaning an assumption of a single point of light to inform the position of shadows. You can see it quite effectively on the bent right elbow. The yellow is worth talking about because I think I might have finally nailed a rich yellow tone. It is achieved by starting with a base coat of 50:50 Tausept Ochre and Golden Yellow, white is then added for highlights and Gryphonne Sepia is thinly washed over the result for shading. Highlights are reapplied making the whole effect look quite pastel and insipid. Finally I glaze the entire part in Vallejo Yellow Ink which intensifies the colour and is translucent enough to show the shading and highlighting work.

Gods I love my new camera, there is no way I could have gotten that shot a few months ago. I decided to paint Tycho as a young captain, not long after the incident that scarred him mentally and physically. When I inevitably paint a "psycho Tycho" variant in the black Death Company armour I shall make him older. For now just a touch of Fortress Grey in the final highlight on the skin gives him a slightly older and more experianced look than the sergeants under his command.

So there we have it. Two thousand points of fully painted Blood Angels, I'll do a full army shot over the next few days. Time to get on and finish the 32 models that will turn that into a FOUR thousand point army. Yikes. Anyway whole army shot up soon, stay tuned! Till then...

TTFN