Space Knight and Flying Marine!

It feels like ages since I posted here - it's actually eight days. In that time, I've painted a couple more space marines. 

Our first chap is another cloaked space knight type. He's a bladeguard veteran from the Black Templars. He's a metal model from that period where GW's metal models had reached a peak: really detailed and nicely sculpted, with tons of interesting stuff hanging off his armour. I made one tiny conversion, to replace a skull on his cloak-fastener (or whatever it is) with a plastic grail from the Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard set, of which more shortly.

Here he is, looking fancy. I tried a scuffed leather effect on his cloak, but it might actually be too subtle! More scuffing is clearly required.

I've had a few old Dark Angel bodies - the robed sort - lying around for a while, and I thought it would be cool to use them as a particular sort of space knight.

While most of the Shining Knights favour close combat, some bold warriors use jump packs to hurl themselves at the foe. Their zeal for battle and their white robes has earned them the title of the Brotherhood of the Jumping Monks. While some see this as undignified, it certainly works. Many enemies of the Jumping Monks have thought "I can see up your habit", just before their doom crashes down from above. 

I decided to make a leader for this unit, who would be much fancier than his colleagues. I built him out of a Dark Angels body and Sanguinary Guard arms and head, with a green stuff hood.

A suitably colossal sword!

Unexciting rear view

He needed a jump pack, so I used a Sanguinary Guard one with wings. Classy! After all that, it seemed only right to paint him in as showy a way as possible, so all his wings and laurels got a brass colour.

I painted the brass with brass over a black overcoat to start with, and then washed the whole thing with chestnut ink. Once that was dry, I added darker shadows at the edges of the feathers - basically, the dark recesses - with strong tone. I then highlighted by adding silver to the brass colour. I think this gives the brass a nice rich feel.

Silly? Yes. Impressive? Hopefully. I certainly wouldn't want this chap to drop out of the sky onto my head.

Close observers might notice that he's holding his enormous sword in a slightly unusual way. Apparently, this is a legitimate Renaissance style. Frankly, I doubt it would matter much: he could just bounce onto his enemies and squash them. Although that might cramp his style.

EDIT: Last night I had a go at photographing a couple of marine squads. It's not perfect, but I suspect that, without a different camera, this is the best that it's going to get.