Tutorial: How to Paint Ultramarines as seen in White Dwarf

This is a very special tutorial and bit of an exclusive for Tale of Painters. This is the tutorial and the original images that White Dwarf used for their 2013 October issue. Obviously the magazine has to be concise and appeal to all ages, so I thought it would be cool to post this on Tale of Painters in our familiar format for those people who wanted the stages elaborated or for the people that missed it in the magazine. You can still buy the issue in iPad format which I highly recommend.  

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

Caledor Sky (base)

Macragge Blue (base)

Hoeth Blue (layer)

Kantor Blue (base)

Fenrisian Grey (layer)

Castellan Green (base)

Loren Forest (layer)

Elysian Green (layer)

Gehenna’s Gold (layer)

Agrax Earthshade (shade)

Auric Aarmour Gold (layer)

Leadbelcher (base)

Runefang Steel (layer)

Eshin Grey (layer)

Dawnstone (layer)

Warpstone Glow (layer)

Moot Green (layer)

White Scar (layer)

Tallarn Sand (layer)

Karak Stone (layer)

Rhinox Hide (base)

Khorne Red (base)

Pink Horror (layer)

Ulthuan Grey (layer)

Armageddon Dust (texture)

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

1. Basecoat the model with Caledor Sky. 

2. Create a glaze by mixing Lahmian Medium with Macragge Blue (50:50) and shade the lower half of all the armour sections. Repeat this two to three times to build the shading up with this translucent mix. 

3. Create a glaze by mixing Lahmian Medium with Hoeth Blue (50:50) and area highlight the upper half of all the armour sections. Repeat this two to three times to build the brightness up with this translucent mix. 

4. Add a small amount of water to Kantor Blue on a mixing palette and then paint all the armour joins/gaps. 

5. Using a fine detail brush, edge highlight the upper edges of the armour with Fenrisian Grey.

6. Paint the armour trim with Castellan Green if you want to paint the 4th company.

7. Highlight the edges of the trim with Loren Forest.

8. One final thin edge highlight of Elysian Green finishes off the trim. 

9. Paint the chest Aquilla and parts of the bolter with Gehenna’s Gold. A touch of Lahmian Medium really helps smooth out metallic paints.

10. Wash all the gold areas with Agrax Earthshade to add some darker shading.

11. Highlight the edges of the gold with Auric Armour Gold.

12. Paint the gun metal parts of the bolter with Leadbelcher. Also pick out the tubes on the helmet and the vents on the backpack.

13. Wash these metallic areas with Agrax Earthshade.

14. Edge highlight the previous stage with Runefang steel.

15. Area highlight the upper halves of the bolter casing with Eshin Grey.

16. Area highlight the upper quarter of the bolter casing with Dawnstone. Creating a glaze with Lahmian Medium and painting on a couple of layers is a better way to blend colours. 

17. Paint the corner of the eye lens with Warpstone Glow leaving a black area in the outer edges.

18. Paint a line of Moot Green along the bottom of the lens.

19. Paint a really thin line of White Scar on the previous step. I find watering my paints down increases fluidity from the bristles and makes me more accurate.

20. Paint the parchment on the purity seal with Tallarn Sand.

21. Highlight the previous step with Karak Stone. 

22. Paint some thin lines to represent text on the parchment part of the purity seal. I find Rhinox Hide is better than black for this. 

23. Paint the wax seal of the purity seal with Khorne Red. 

24. Highlight the wax seal with some small highlights of Pink Horror.

To freehand the icons thin your paints with water, try to paint in as few strokes as possible to minimalise brush marks and paint think multiple layers. It’s time consuming but worth it. Make sure you do this for each of the remaining steps. Skip this section if you plan to use transfers. 

25. Using Fenrisian Grey, paint four dots as a guide for the U symbol.

26. Join the dots with curved lines to create a circle and paint a bar across the the top.

27. Fill the shape in by painting a few thin layers of Fenrisian Grey.

28. Paint an inner circle of Caledor Sky within the top half of the Fenrisian Grey shape. This will give you that nice thick bottom U. Then paint a vertical blue line through the bar at the top.

29. Highlight the Icon with Ulthuan Grey to make it a little lighter.

30. Use the image at the top as a guide for the position of the dots for the tactical symbol.

31. Join the dots up to create the outline of the symbol. 

32. Fill the outline in with thin, multiple coats of Fenrisian Grey.

33. Highlight the icon with Ulthuan Grey to make it a little brighter. 

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.

You can view other Space Marine tutorials using these quick links. Imperial Fist, White Scars, Iron Hands, Salamanders, Sons of Horusand Minotaurs 

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