To paint a banner... life sized...

Hey folks!

So the Heroes of Armageddon project is coming to a close. There is roughly five days left until the drawing.  But if you are a Blood Angels fan, or a 40k fan in general, I have one more surprise for you.  Not to be outdone by Dave Taylor and his team's absolutely fantastic IG army, I pulled out my secret weapon.

I mentioned it before, but due to the fact that my supplier stopped supplying, and I had no room to work, I did not think I was going to get it done. Well, I am proud to say that I indeed will be finishing it. What is it?

A full sized Armageddon Blood Angels banner. After Ron Saikowski so masterfully painted the miniature size for the standard bearer, I made up my mind, I had to make it happen. Here is some work in progress.

First of all, Ron's banner.

Gorgeous, I only hope I can do it justice.

Here we go!

First step was to get the lines drawn out, and lay down base color.

I used a dark umber for the brown, and a 50/50 Paynes Grey and White for the wings.

Then things start to happen fast. I layer up from the Umber using two lighter shades of brown.

Then I add Unbleached Titanium into the mix.  Since the skulls, robes and scrolling are all about the same color, it makes it easy.

Since the skin needs to be darker than the robes, but is still the same basic color, I do more layers with light brown. I will layer thinner layers of unbleached titanium.

The wings get the same treatment. I layer lighter and lighter shades of white, starting from the ends and working my way up.  I painted the straps with the same browns as the robes, but only use the unbleached titanium as a highlight. I painted the hour glass grey, and stippled unbleached upon it to make it look like it is filled with sand.  I will add a darker shade.

On the robes, I went back in with darker browns to add more contrast and make the lights jump out.  Remember, when you put a dark next to a light, it will push the light closer towards you in space, creating the illusion of depth.  See how the foot and robe look like he is almost stepping off the banner?  The darker colors of the scroll create that illusion.

For the hair, I used pure Yellow Ochre. I will add lighter shades of yellow.

The face and skulls require more work than the robes and skulls because I am painting rounded shapes that have shadows.  I do this by stippling lighter and lighter shades of brown, starting with the raised areas like nose bridges, eye brows and cheek bones.

Then I go back in with some black and push out the highlights with a nice shadow. Look at the ork skull nose area for a great example.

I used some Hunter's Green for the stripes on the bottom of the robes. The green had a fantastic translucent quality. It built up on the edges of the points, creating a natural shadow. Those took just a few seconds, but they look outstanding.

Now to lay in lines. I will be framing the entire image with a red box. Because of the organic irregularities of the banner, It is very difficult to make the box the right shape without it being all misangled. I think I did a fairly good job using a long ruler.

I started laying in some more green to create the horizon at the bottom.  

The next few steps? Tomorrow I will lay down masking tape to help paint the lines. I will also mask out the lines to create the lance that the ork skull is impaled upon. Then I will do the lettering on the scroll, and finally go over all the edges with a thin line of black.  

EDIT Pic added.

Phew!  Almost 8 straight hours of work. :)

This 3x8 FEET banner will be included with the Blood Angels army for the Heroes of Armageddon giveaway and will look beautiful in your game room. As well as serving for my entry into the banner contest at Gamesday!  If you are at Gamesday make sure you come out and scream for me!  

Just as a reminder. It is not too late to donate.  There is now a countdown clock at the top right of my blog. This is ticking down to the live drawing!  Click on the clock and it will bring you to my ustream channel where the drawing will be taking place at 6pm EST this Sunday.  

You do NOT want to be left out of this drawing.

If you would like to see more of my banners, check the links on the right. Let me know if you want one!

Jawaballs