STEP 1

The first step is the scariest so just bluff your way through it and get on with things :-) I used Shining Gold to paint a bacis goblet shape, then with a tiny brush I painted think black lines around the edges to define the edges (chaos black thinned with black ink). Then I defined the wing design - I knew there was a lot to do inside the wing - but first thing to do is to define the area, that's what's going on here...

STEP 2

Now that the design shape had been outlined I needed to bring in the white. White over red takes a couple of coats (and some patience so you don't end up with chunky layers of paint!) so go slowly, thin your white so it is a smooth consistency, wash your brush often - be patient as the layers dry. I think I had about three layers of white before I was satisfied. Notice the feathers aren't perfect here - that's okay - we'll touch them up soon :-)

STEP 3

Painting the blood - I cheated here by using Gore Red first to help define the shape of the dribbling blood, I say cheating because Gore Red so closely matches the armor color that it's almost invisible - so it let me get good "blood" shapes at minimal risk - once I had the shapes I liked I went over those patterns with Blood Red, which is what you see here.

STEP 4

A lot happened in this photo - I cleaned up the shape of the feathers with a little Gore Red (VERY little) then I lined all the edges with black to define them (chaos black, thinned with black ink). I then looked very carefully at the feather design in the Blood Angel Codex and noted that the two inner rows of feathers were significantly shorter than the last row, so I carefully doodled out "feather" markings with the black paint/ink. Afterwards I used white to touch up a few bobos, then a very thinned black ink wash to add a hint of shadow to the lower edge of each feather. Black edging was also added to the blood drops now - our vision keys very much off of contrast to define shapes, so that little tiny edge of black can make a WORLD of different - see how much more distinctive it is now? :-)

Oh - one other thing, to give the Chalice more "dimension" I painted a teeny tiny fleshwash on the undersides of the Chalice, I then used the TINIEST touch of Burnished Gold at the highest points of the Chalice as the highlight. It doesn't really show up well here, but it is noticeable firsthand (metalic paints are hard to photograph - at least for me!) :-) 

STEP 5 - Finished Chalice Icon

The light gold highlights may be more visible in this photo (but I promise I was VERY sparing with that light gold paint!). Notice now the gemstones in the Chalice are now red - I painted them Blood Red, then touched them with red ink to give them a slightly different hue of red than the "blood" which is simply pure "Blood Red" then touched witha  glosscoat (which you can't really notice here - but which adds a really cool glistening effet in first person :-)

Conclusions

It was a scary project in all honesty, but one that I'm happy I tried because it became fun about halfway through, and in the end I've added a really interesting bit of artwork to one of my landraiders. If I had totally botched the thing I would have simply repainted the red armor and weathered it again - no one would ever had known a thing :-)

That's it for me, I hope this will encourage you to try some fancy painting on your minis, you only have to be brave for the first little bit, then it gets fun :-) Kind of like riding a rollercoaster, you're nervous at the beginning, scared as you get going, then when it's all done you want to go do it again :-)

happy painting to all! ~ Brother Edward
 

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