Sisters of Battle - Order of the Bloody Rose

Long time since I posted anything new here, but with the ongoing Covid-19 and lockdown situations, I've had time to hobby more this year. So much so, I've actually finished more models in 2020 than I have in the preceding 5 years!

Lately I've been working on a squad of the new Sisters of Battle. Unusual for me to be working on so many figures of the same type in one go (the last squad I finished was a unit of 5 Ghouls back in 2007!), but I really like these new Sisters of Battle sculpts. After painting one, I knew I wanted to do more!

I was lucky enough to grab one of the limited release army box sets at the end of last year, so have been working with the figures from this set, along with a few pieces I've picked up off bits sites or from generous donors from Twitter.

When it came to selecting a colour scheme, I was always taken with the red armour of the Order of the Bloody Rose. Maybe its my love of red armour from being a fan of Blood Angels? Regardless, its been a chance to refine my skills and get back to painting sharpness, as well as develop in a few areas. The following is a few pics of the squad members so far.

First up, the Sister Superior:

This model was a joy to paint. I wasn't a fan of the original head, so swapped it out for one from the Sisters of Battle Squad set. I tried a few new things with this one, including the hazards on the chainsword and freehand lining around the inner edge of the robes.

I've also tried to work with different tones and textures on the different materials of these models. While a simple enough red, black and white scheme, I've varied tones on the black and red depending on the material types. For the robes, I've kept the black warm by using tan colours for the highlight mixes. While for the bolter, I've used Dark Sea Blue in the highlight mixes to get a cooler, machine tone.

Equally, on the red, the armour is bright and shiny, while the gloves and bodice are a darker, cooler leather colour.

Next up, the veteran sister of the squad with Stormbolter. This is one of my favourite models from the set - the pose is awesome and the face in particular is great! The bases on both the above models were a lot of fun to put together and I went a little extra with some of the nosing on the stairs on the Sister Superior and the broken banister detail on the front right (the model's left) of the Stormbolter sister.

Finally, here's some pics of the latest work in progress - the sister carrying Simulacrum Imperialis:

You'll see from the sister above that I paint these in sub assemblies. In general, I paint the body, arms, head and backpack as separate assemblies. This way I get the best brush access to all areas. It has meant that I've needed to do some post-paint Milliput gap filling, but its worth it for a better overall finish in my opinion.

Hopefully I'll have some more of this squad to share soon, but check back over the next week or so as I have a few pics of other projects I've worked on over the past year or so to share too!

Feel free to let me know what you think of the sisters so far in the comments and if you have any questions.