Friday 29 April 2011

On the Smurf Bench: Sisters of the Ebon Chalice

There's something a bit different on my work bench at the moment. Yes it's sisters of battle. In my opinion they are some of the best models in existence! They have had my imagination captured since the very first 40k catalogue I picked up some 13 years ago. There's just something inexplicably cool about space nuns. 

Anyway, I wasn't until last year that I actually realised my goal of owning some when I saw a little collection going on ebay for about £12. I got a squad of 5 (including the superior and a flamer) and the sister saint model minus the backpack. I dug them out yesterday and began painting.

I'm not sure if I am really happy with the paint scheme yet. I chose the ebon chalice scheme but replaced the black with a really dark blue. I'm having real trouble blending the white robs up properly. Ahh well, any advice on how to paint white over black would be greatly appreciated.

Here's the pics:

5 comments:

  1. Looking good so far! As far as painting white, one of the best bits of advice I ever got was "don't ever paint anything bright white". By this they meant that anything that you want to be white should stop at a very, very light grey level, using 'true' white as only the most extreme of highlights (i.e. just a thin edge highlight). Generally speaking, the eye can be tricked into thinking the light grey is white, using a gradient of (for example) shadow grey up through fortress grey (or a 50/50 mix of fortress grey and white). Your mileage may vary of course, but in your example pictures I'd go back over the white that you have done with fortress grey, and just edge the extreme folds of the tabards with white... In any case, I'm liking how they're coming along, the dark blue in lieu of black looks awesome!

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  2. I agree with Mordian, i had the same trouble painting white on my DE snow bases. In my case i was determined to get True White, and so used a light GW foundation paint over the black to speed up the blending. Otherwise do as Mordian says and go for Off White.

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  3. Great painting... but I must be frank - old Sisters, while characterful, are not exactly my favorite models. Perhaps it's because of quite a few plastic conversions I've had the luck to see on Bolter and Chainsword. And the whole discussion on an Imageboard That Must Not Be Named on the proper shape of a female breastplate.

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  4. Hey Smurf - I think the boys are right - start from grey and work up to white only as an edge highlight.

    Codex/Fortress will get you a grey white whereas Space wolf/Shadow gets you a blue white finish.

    I do like some of the Sisters models - I picked myself up a squad of 5 to act as body guard to a Hereticus Inquisitor when i was working towards getting a section of each Ordos - now they sit gathering dust on my shelf of shame while I jump between projects - I will get to them eventually.

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  5. No worries. I started off with a shadow grey base but I painted over most of it with off white. Now it's all solid. Ill try again and make it more grey.

    Diolch yn fawr iawn pawb! (thanks very much everybody)

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