Painting Sisters of Battle ep. 1

Hello everyone!

„Recently”, that is when they were released in November I have purchased Sisters of Battle box set with a Codex, dice, cards, the whole shebang and of course PLASTIC Sororitas minis. Oh boy was I excited!
I actually was toying with the idea of starting my own army of the Ministorum way before that. I always liked their fluff and visual style but it was 3 years ago when I decided to collect them. Back then plastic SoB were a running joke in the community. My friends at the club had a good laugh when I told them I am going to wait for them anyway. So you can imagine my excitement when Games Workshop finally announced that they are releasing the Sisters range in plastic, after all the teasing they did about it.

Anyway, let’s get back to the topic. 🙂

The scheme

When I finally got my grubs on them I still wasn’t sure how I wanted them to look like, but I already had come up with the fluff for my own Sororitas minor order – The Order of St. Aurelia.

After much deliberation I decided to paint them in the scheme of the classic Canoness Veridyan. It is not quite the same as that of Our Martyred Lady, so it is distinct but still has this power of what my friend called “Darth Vader’s groupies”.

Base colours & shading

I started with a base coat of plain black. I didn’t use Chaos Black spray here but a paint with a more matte finish. Then I drybrushed the whole mini with Dark Reaper from Citadel. After that I painted the gold elements with Retributor Armour shaded with Reikland Fleshshade and the steel ones with Leadbelcher shaded with Nuln Oil. It was easy up till now, but there were some nuts to crack ahead. I wanted the armor and the cloak of the miniature to look like they are really made of different stuff. As both are almost entirely black, I had to come up with a way to make that happen. So I decided to use a glossy shade on the armor and matt on the cloak. In the end I was content with the way it worked out, giving my miniature a quite menacing look

The next step were the rims of the cloaks. I wanted them painted red, but I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to paint the lines as neatly as I wanted to. I was right in part, the lines didn’t come out ideal but it was easier than I thought it was going to be. To paint them I used Khorne Red and Carroburg Crimson.

Highlighting

Finally I started highlighting the miniature. I decided that I want the highlights to represent a single source of light placed somewhere above the miniature in the direction it is looking in. I used both layering and edging. For the colours I chose Liberator Gold and Stormhost Silver for the metal elements, Thunderhawk Blue and Fenrisian Grey for the blacks and Evil Sunz Scarlet along with Wild Rider Red for the red rims. I had a lot of fun trying my strengths in representing this kind of light and I think it came out ok for a first try.

Next time I will tell you about basing and how I refined the process, while painting the second batch of sisters. Until then, please meet sister Ophelia, first of her order. 🙂