25th anniversary

As you are all well aware, the WH40k 25th anniversary happened very recently. GW shipped out a special model to celebrate. The model is really cool and being a big fan of this universe, I just had to have it!

I painted the model in 3 logical steps; first the base, then the banner and then the marine.
The base was a simple drybrush job with some odd detail painting of the skulls
and the helmet on the ground.

The banner was a bit tricky. I'm still not too good at super fine details so even though the thing is sculpted, I had some small problems with it. I tried to do my best with shading but again, this was my first time at shading a larger, flat area and it's not such an easy task. One thing I definitely could've done better was the lettering. I was too afraid of just heavy washing them with badab black or something and instead, took the chicken road of going around them with the cloth color which makes them look too jagged. Lesson learned?

The marine himself was not too much of problem. I used those same techniques as with the plague marines, just with a different color scheme. Mordian blue base, lightened up to ultramarine blue. The picture is a bit too bright to distinguish the subtle blends but they're there :)

Finally, I decided to go all the way with the base so I purchased this wooden base from an online store and did 2 passes with a dark wood varnish on it as well as some sandpaper work in between. I also went to a local locksmith who also happens to do some minor engraving work and he did that "plaque" for me. It looks quite nice, brasslike, but in reality it's just a special kind of thick foil with adhesive that had the words laser cut in it. Quite nifty result in the end and I'll probably use it again in some future projects.