First of all, special thanks to Stgoodson3 for commissioning me to do this! Thanks also for his contributions in helping define specific elements to be present in both the devastator sergeant’s and primaris marine’s design.

This commission was pretty much a culmination of all the tweaking I had done to improve my painting (by this I mean the processes of painting an individual character) workflow.

I say it as if it was all rainbows and sunshine while doing this piece, but that isn’t the case because a lot more other elements began to come into focus. Things like composition, narrative elements, colour balance, colour composition are now starting to take center stage. (Those are probably going to be the next area of ‘focus’ when studying)

This painting wasn’t all about tweaking existing painting methods. Because I had been watching some blender tutorials on youtube lately, I decided I want to use 3d models to help speed along the development of the background. The main arches you see in the background were done modelled out and exported using blender’s cycles render engine(?). The reason I approached it this way was because

A: I could not be bothered to go in and painstakingly construct each and every arch, knowing it my skills at the time did not permit me to complete it in a reasonable span of time.
B: The construction of the pillars and arches would be mathematically ‘perfect’. So when I did go back and paint in more details, it would serve as an excellent base to build off of
C: I wanted an excuse to practice something I had just learned.

Part of the image I especially liked:

– The Iron Warrior with a hole in it’s chest. (well its specifically the hole in his chest)
– The battle damage on the devastator sergeant’s knee.
– The light and steam effects on the plasma incinerators.
– The overall lighting and colour balance pass.

Once again, thanks to Stgoodson3 for giving me to the opportunity to do this commission!