Either way, here's what I added to that tiny circle on his shoulder that you can barely see as it is. At first, I wasn't sure what to add there.
Then I got to thinking... since he's more of an "old school" model, I figured I would paint something you don't see too often anymore. The markings for an Epistolary Librarian. The highest rank there is.
I've talked before about the process of adding freehand to models. From when you should be painting your freehand to how you can break it down into manageable pieces. In this case, I was doing it after the highlighting and shading.
The process went fairly quick in the end. The first thing was to block out the shape of the horned skull in black. After that, I went in and cut out the skull with a tan color. Where I made any mistakes, I just cleaned it up with the black again.
The hardest part was getting the original shape onto the shoulderpad. I didn't want to mess that up since it would mean having to repaint/reblend the shoulderpad over. Once I had the outline in place, it was just a matter of filling everything in.
The final step, once I had the tan down and the eyes and nose cut back in, was to add some highlights and shading to the art. I added my highlights all over to show the artwork, but kept my shading to the area on the underside of the pad so it blended with the rest of the shading on the model.
The shading was nothing more than few passes with GW Gryphonne Sepia to tone down the underside of the image and get it in line with the background behind it.
Now he's done... honest.
Follow my Project: Space Marines Commission
Make sure to check out these posts as they might help:
When to add freehand to your models
How to add freehand to your models
