Dark Angels commission finished - veterans, command squad, banners and objective markers

Hi guys,

Although I've been posting quite a few articles of late my actual painting and modelling articles have been few. The reason for this is I have been undertaking a new venture into the world of commission painting. This has been a great opportunity for me for several reasons. Firstly, my client was kind enough to give me creative freedom for the project and so I have been able to use techniques and colour schemes other than that for my own army. Second, I have been able to hone the skills needed for batch painting models when assembling them from scratch - something I rarely do as I usually have mine assembled and sat in box for a while before giving them a decent coat of paint. Lastly, it has given me a much needed cash injection which will, amongst other things, fund an Imperial Knight which I hope to pick up later today and post about.

So what was this commission then? The same client had purchased one of my custom Cyphers and had also ordered an Azrael custom from me. It is no surprise therefore that the commission was Dark Angels based. The brief was for 20 DA veterans, 10 with combi meltas and 10 with combi plasmas. In addition, there was to be a command squad with champion, apothecary, standard bearer and two veterans with storm shields and plasma guns. The standard bearer was to be magnetised to hold any of the 3 sacred standards, which were also included. Lastly, 4 objective markers were scratchbuilt to fit with the army theme.

I'm incredibly pleased with how this project turned out. Not only were the paint jobs of my highest standard but the inclusion of so much freehand on the banners really stands out. The paint job on the command squad was an inverse scheme on the robes and the apothecary and champion had different robes to distinguish them. The objective markers are the real show stealers for me as they were late additons to the project and were so much fun to envisage and build (cheers to Alex for letting me buy some bits from his bitsbox). To manage it all in such a short timeframe (3 weeks) around everything else was also a feat of organisation and dedication. This will be the last commission for a while as I have exams to focus on in the immediate future. Hopefully it won't be my last commission though. If anyone is interested in one please drop me a line. Cheers.