It has once again occurred, it has been that day when I have become one year older. And as per my tradition I give my self a day of from work to celebrate my self. This year I got a box of raptors from my Wife. The models are quite good looking and I have thought of getting a box of them before but I have not really felt that I had a place for them in my collections. They really look very chaosy and most my my stuff is a bit more toned down. So I was at a bit of a loss about how to paint them, but then it hit me. Some time ago when I was painting my Guilliman model I painted a pinkish chaos marine for the base, and I remember that I at them time thought that it would be cool with an army of them. As I had the day off and I had planed to spend it in the hobby room it became apparent that I needed to test the that paint scheme on the raptors. Once I started building the models i realized that the claws looked much cooler than the sword and bolter option, so I think they are more warp talons than raptors now. Well, any way, it does not matter much as I am not really playing games any more.
The painting technique used for these models are pretty much the same as I use for my ultra marines. I start out with a black base, drybrush some bronze and silver tones onto the model. Then I used a heavily watered down screamer pink to paint the armor plates. I added some metal rust tones the filigree and edges. Then it was time for another pass with the drybrush going from bronze to mithril. Then it was just to add some eye lenses and exhausts to the back pack.
I think they turned out ok. This way of painting really gives the models a very special lighting effect were the highlights move with the light source in a very realistic way. I will try to make a series of pictures as the model is turned and the camera is fixed, or perhaps I can make a short movie showing this effect. But that will have to wait. Now I still have two more models left to go. Then I am really tempted to go for the shadow spear box and make the chaos marines all pink.
I see what you mean about the level of decoration. But I can also see that your solution really works, they look great.
SvaraRadera