Blood Angels Sanguinary Priest

About 6 months ago I decided to try my hand at painting Warhammer 40k models as a creative outlet. Its been a fun hobby so far, although its been a slow process. At 6 months I barely have enough of my blood angels painted to put together a 500 point army. Fact of the matter is, not only am I a slow painter, but it normally takes a back seat to video games and anime (all of that takes a back seat to my fiance, and work). So I have not even gotten as far as playing the game itself, sadly.

My first project in the Warhammer 40k universe was a five man vanguard veteran squad. The blood angels really called out to me with their ability to have an entire army of jump pack troops, but while I have the veterans to thank for helping me choose my army, they are not really worth photographing. The five models really took it for the team as my painting guinea pigs, and served my mediocre painting skills well. After I finished them I was feeling a bit more daring and decided to put this guy together with some of the bitz that I had lying around from the army that I bought. I liked the way some of the Sanguinary priests that I saw online looked with the wings from the Sanguinary Guard set, so I gave it a go. 

Looking back I think I could have done a better job, but at the time I was really happy with how this guy came out. This was my first attempt at a power weapon that wasn't just a flat blue or white, and I think it came out nice. I mixed white to blue about 3:1 with water for a wash on the wings and highlighted it white again. His armor is blood red with highlights in blazing orange. 

Picture from the side shows of his power weapon and armor a little more. As the first figure that I put a reasonable amount of time into, I'm happy with the results. I cant remember exactly how much time I spent painting this, but it was multiple hours (once again, i'm a very slow painter).

These photos show my first real attempts at taking some decent pictures of models as well. I only used one light to the left of me, with a piece of poster board blocking it so it wouldn't shine on the backdrop. For the backdrop I just used a black poster board. Camera was my fiances Canon Rebel, just set on close up mode. I will have to experiment with the camera settings in the future to see if I can get some different looks. 

Next up will most likely be some of the assault marines that I painted.