This is the third of three tutorials voted for by the Tale of Painters Facebook group. This is a tutorial explaining how to paint the Sons of Horus Space Marines using the latest Games Workshop paints. The model above was painted in 14 steps. I break each step down with a high resolution picture and detailed instructions. Read the full tutorial after the jump.

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I’ve designed this tutorial so established painters find it interesting but also so new comers to the hobby can learn some basic and advanced techniques. I will use terms such as glazing and washing, don’t worry if you don’t know what these mean because I will elaborate and explain during that step.

Paints you will need for this tutorial:

Black Undercoat spray
Waaagh Flesh (base)
Warboss Green (layer)
Sybarite Green (layer)
Incubi Darkness (base)
Nurgling Green  (layer)
Abaddon Black (base)
Dawnstone (layer)
Leadbelcher (base)
Agrax Earthshade (shade)
Runefang Steel (layer)
Evil Sunz Scarlett (layer)
Fire Dragon Bright (layer)
Ceramite White (base)
Steel Legion Drab (base)
Zandri Dust (base)
Armageddon Dust (texture) 

In case you need to expand your paint collection, head over to Wayland Games, Element Games, or Taschengelddieb, which all stock a huge selection of paints at competitive prices.

Sons of Horus tutorial

1. Basecoat the model with Waaagh! Flesh.

2. Mix Lahmian Medium and Warboss Green together in a 50:50 mix and paint the upper two thirds of each armour section. This mix is designed to be thin so after each coat is dry build it up with another layer. This technique of layering is called glazing and it’s a great way of blending layers without having to mix paint for intermediate layers.

3. To get the shade of green I wanted I had to mix a warm green (more yellow then blue) with a cold green (more blue then yellow). I mixed together Warboss Green and Sybarite Green onto a white mixing palette (roughly 50:50, but feel free to tweak). Then I mixed Lahmian Medium with the mix (50:50 again) to create a glaze and repeated the previous layering/glazing technique on the upper half of the armour sections. 

4. I created a glaze of Incubi Darkness and Lahmian Medium and used it to shade all the armour panels. This thin mix is great for blending the shading into the basecoat. Only apply it to the armour gaps and the very lowest parts of each armour section.

5. Edge highlight the armour with Nurgling Green. Try to keep your highlight lines as straight and thin as possible.

6. Paint all the detail with Abaddon Black, including the back pack vents, bolter and rubber armour joints. It was at this point I carefully painted the Eye of Horus icon on he shoulder pad using reference material on the internet. 

7. Edge highlight the black pouches, bolted casing and rubber armour joints with Dawnstone and a fine detail brush. I also highlighted the aquilla on the chest, you won’t have to to do this if you’re painting true Sons of Horus models. 

8. Paint the bolter metallic parts and the backpack vents with Leadbelcher.

9. Wash the gun metal areas and backpack vents with Agrax Earthshade

10. Edge highlight the metal areas with Runefang Steel.

11.  For the eye lenses, paint two thirds of the lens with Evil Sunz Scarlet which should start in the corner nearest the nose. Also paint the purity seal red. 

12. Then paint a line of Fire Dragon Orange along the bottom of the lens. Finally dot the black corner with Ceramite White and run an even thinner line of white under the Fire Dragon Orange line. 

13. Paint the parchment of the purity seal with Steel Legion Drab.

14. Highlight the parchment with Zandri Dust.

Finally, base the model in a way which fits in with your own army or gaming table. I’ve used Steel Legion Drab for the rim, Armageddon Dust for the base top and then drybrushed with Screaming Skull. Drybrushing is a way of picking out raised detail quickly usually with a lighter colour. To dry brush you need load up your brush with paint and then wipe it off the bristles on a tissue until virtually no paint remains on the brush. Then rapidly and repeatedly drag the side of the brush back and forth over the area to be painted.

Keep checking back regularly as I still have an Ultramarine tutorial still to post:

You can view other Space Marine tutorials using these quick links. Imperial FistWhite ScarsIron Hands, Salamanders and Minotaurs.

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