Tutorial: How to Paint Dark Angels Tactical Marines from Dark Vengeance

In today’s post I share with your a complete photo tutorial guide to paint the Dark Angel Tactical Marine pictured above Just in time for the rumoured up and coming Dark Angel codex. What are you waiting for, more after the jump!

This tutorial assumes you have a basic understanding of how to paint. For the beginners, I will explain the techniques as I go along. Each picture below shows four chronological steps. Underneath each picture are the corresponding instructions. Each step shows the paint I used during that step.

Paints you will need for this tutorial:

• Black Undercoat 
• Caliban Green (base)
• Warpstone Glow (layer)
• Moot Green (layer)
• Beil-Tan Green (shade) 
• Abaddon Black (base)
• Leadbelcher (base)
• Agrax Earthshade (shade)
• Iron Breaker (layer)
• Khorne Red (layer)
• Evil Sunz Scarlett (layer)
• Wild Rider Red (layer)
• Fenrisian Grey (layer)
• Ceramite White (base)
• Zamesi Desert (layer)
• Ushabti Bone (layer)
• XV88 (base)
• Baneblade Brown (layer)
• Rakarth Flesh (base)
• Dawnstone (layer)
• Screamer Pink (layer)
• Emperor’s Children (layer)
• Teclis Blue (layer)
• Temple Guard Blue (layer)
• Armageddon Dust (Texture)

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Dark Angels painting guide

0. Undercoat the model using a black undercoat. I use Vallejo surface primer with my airbrush. 

1. Basecoat the model with Caliban Green.

2. Create a mix of Warpstone Glow and Lahmian Medium (50:50) and paint a thin layer (a glaze) over all the rounded areas of the armour that would catch natural light. Once dry, repeat to build the intensity. It’s these thin layers that create such nice soft blends. 

3. With a fine detail brush, paint the upper sharp edges of the armour with Moot Green to represent glints of light on the edges.

4. Wash the whole model with Biel-Tan Green to tie together the blending.  

5. Paint the rubberised areas between the armour, the bolter and tactical symbol with Abbadon Black.

6. Pick out any metal areas with Leadbelcher.

7. Wash the metallic areas with Agrax Earthshade.

8. Highlight the edges of the metals with Iron Breaker using a fine detail brush.

9. Paint the bolter casing and any other areas such as the tactical arrow with Khorne Red. Look carefully at the pictures above to see where the red goes on the gems (you should leave the top left area of the gem black.

10. Highlight the previous areas with Evil Sunz  Scarlett.

11. Edge highlight the red areas with Wild Rider Red and a fine detail brush.

12. Basecoat the Chapter symbol with Fenrisian Grey.

13. Paint the Chapter symbol with Ceramite White. This might take a couple of coats to get a solid coat. Water your paint a touch to make it flow from the brush easier. It makes for a more accurate method.

14. Paint the chest Aquilla with Zamesi Desert.

15. Highlight the chest Aquilla with Ushabti Bone. Make sure you leave some Zamesi Desert showing through for shading.

16. Water down some XV-88 and use it to shade the chest Aquilla. Just paint thin lines.

17. Paint any scrolls or parchments with Baneblade Brown.

18. Highlight the scrolls/parchments with Rakarth Flesh.

19. Run a wash of Agrax Earthshade over the scrolls and parchment areas.

20. Paint thin edge highlight lines of Dawnstone onto the rubberised areas under the armour pieces (elbows, back of knees, groin etc).

21. Paint any wax seals with Screamer Pink. Leave some black showing through as shading.

22. With very thin highlights use Emperor’s Children to highlight the wax seals.

23. The eyes actually require three steps. Firstly paint Teclis Blue into the lens leaving a black area showing in the upper most corner furthest from the nose. Then paint a line of Temple Guard Blue along the bottom of the lens. Finally, paint a thinner white line below the line of Temple Guard Blue and paint a white dot in the middle of the black area you left.

24. Paint the squad marking on the knee with Ushabti Bone.

25/26. Finally, base the model in a way that fits in with your collection. I used Armageddon Dust texture paint highlighted with Screaming Skull and the base edge was painted with Steel Legion Drab.

That all the tutorials I have planned for the moment. I hope to return with more soon. Hope you enjoyed this one.