Ravenwing Attack Squadron.

Well, this has taken awhile, but I've finally finished a Ravenwing Attack Squadron of 6 bikers for my dark angels.

These guys, and indeed every type of biker I always find a trial to paint. each one is somewhere between painting a tiny vehicle, and painting a marine. As there is 6 of them, they always take my a long time to slog through.

So, the first half of the squadron is the bikers from the Dark Vengeance boxed set. The starter models Games Workshop make have com a long way now. You can barely tell the difference between the normal box versions and these guys. Another scary fact about the bikers, is that these models are only about 4 or 5 pieces for each one, and they will hold themselves together without any glue.

 

 The second half of the squadron is made up of regular marine bikers kits with Ravenwing upgrades. These upgrade sprues do wonders for the now pretty damned older bike models. I did a Minor conversion with the flame trooper. He got a tactical Sergent's head and his flamer stretched out at and angle, and his bike angled to look like he's making a sweeping turn. This brings the 2 halves of the squadron together as he looks more in line with the dark vengeance guys.  

 

As well as the slog to get through these guys being bikers, I also knew I'd be hard pressed, as I fall into that category of painter that finds paint black a challenge. or at least I did, until I found this article on From The Warp.

 

I'll let you read that article yourself, but the trick I took was that if you paint everything around the black well enough, it will all come together as you finish your model and your flat black plates with suddenly fit right in.

It works well if you have a steady hand for the your line highlights, but if not, you can always got back over the thicker lines and sharpen them up with some pure black.

I think the finishing touch for these guys was the weathering powder from forge world, which I'm starting to fall in love with, now I'm finally getting the hang of using it after so many attempts. If you're going to try using it, I would say get plenty of practice first, and keep it subtle!

The dry mud I used on these bikes adds that extra layer, giving your eyes something other than flat black to look at.

And the full squadron take my army up to 750 points finished and done. Hopefully there wont be such a big break between this and the next 250!

Till then. 

Gonders