Officio Assassinorum: Back In Black

Welcome back to the Vault my fellow Imperial Commanders! My hobby time has been practically non-existent this week, although I have managed to find a few minutes to flick through Vigilus Defiant (yes, I am late to the party on this book) and start plotting how to use some of the cool rules with my Space Sharks, and I've drafted a mission for the upcoming Mayhem tournament which should get a play test next week. More on both of those in future posts.

Today I'd like to share a painting tip I'd picked up from an online conversation; "washing in" colours.

In the case of the Callidus Assassin, the washed in colour is the black of the body suit.

"Washing In" involves applying one or more layers of wash to a base colour to achieve the desired final colour. So in the case of green for example a model's could be painted in blues (working up highlights of the blue), and then apply a wash of yellow over the top of the blues to apply shading, and turn the colour green (remember your basic colour theory).

In the case of the Callidus Assassin, the model was primed black, and then progressive highlights built up using Dark Reaper, mixed lighter and lighter for each highlight with Celestra Grey.  This gives a nice transition of dark blue/grey to a lighter blue grey.

The model is then washed with 4 or 5 liberal washes of Nuln Oil; this stains the Dark Repair/Celestra Grey highlights to a more dark grey/black and gives a nice transition on the model. You can see the effect on the Assassin's abs!

Here are a few more views of the model where the effect can be seen:

I really enjoyed painting this model, particularly the blue pony tail, and some blending on the purple sword blade.  The little lamp on the base was a fun little addition as well.

I've seen some funky purple lightning claws on a squad of Deathwatch Vanguard Veterans; I quite like the combo of purple and black so I think I'll play around some more with this set of colours.