As promised, I’m pleased to present a detailed painting tutorial on how I paint Black Legion Chaos Space Marines. Amazingly, this paint job (I would describe as gaming standard plus) is achievable in 25 easy to follow steps. Join the Black Paint Crusade after the jump.
During this guide I will link to previous tutorials to give you the option to read about that step in more detail, for example in step one I link to Vallejo Black Primer, just click the link if you want to find out about it. Each picture below shows four chronological steps. Underneath each picture are the corresponding instructions. Each step shows the paint I used during that step. All paints are from the current GW range (except Badab Black, switch this for Nuln Oil). OK then, Death to the False Emperor and away we go!
1. Undercoat the model. I use Vallejo Surface Primer in my airbrush.
2. Mix some Eshin Grey with Lahmian Medium. Paint the mix on to the areas of black armour. You’ll notice I’m area highlighting instead of edge highlighting. The major difference is the highlighting looks more natural. Try to think how spheres and cylinders bounce light off their surface.
3. Working within the Eshin Grey areas, paint Dawnstone on to the model. Water it down or mix more Lahmian medium in to soften the layer.
4. Paint within the Dawnstone layer with Administratum Grey. This should now be thin lines and spot highlights. Don’t worry if it looks harsh, we’ll fix that on step 7.
5. Paint Warplock Bronze onto gun casings, grenades, close combat weapon metal parts which are not blades.
6. Using Doombull Brown paint all the cloth areas. Layer it up from the black undercoat so the black creates the shadows in the creases.
7. Badab Black (or the newer Nuln Oil wash) is used to wash the Black Armour, the Warplock Bronze and the Doombull Brown. Combining steps like this saves time, you’ll notice I do this a couple of times during this tutorial.
8. Now we need to paint the Demon flesh armour and tubing. If you’re painting normal Chaos Marines that don’t have these details you might want to consider painting a shin and/or shoulder pad to look like daemonic leering faces. Use Khorne Red for this step (seems appropriate). Highlight the loin cloth with some sharp edging of Khorne Red.
9. Wash over the Khorne Red with Druchii Violet, you’ll notice this changes the hue drastically and also helps shade the areas.
10. Highlight the areas sparingly with Pink Horror. Thin lines work well.
11. Paint even thinner lines of Cermite White over the Pink Horror.
12. Now to make these areas look red, use Bloodletter Glaze. It’s already been highlighted and shaded so this glaze is just to colourise it red.
13. Paint Leadbelcher onto leg armour trims and blades. Also use it to highlight the previously painted Warplock Bronze.
14. Wash the metal areas using Agrax Earthshade. Don’t worry about highlighting for now. This is covered in step 18.
15. Paint Brass Scorpion on to the chest, shoulders, arms, helmets and back vents.
16. Turn Warplock Bronze into a glaze using lots of Lahmian Medium and shade Brass Scorpion with it.
17. Highlight the Brass trim with Runelord Brass.
18. Using thin lines of Runefang Steel highlight both the Brass and Metal areas.
19. Paint all skulls and bones with Skrag Brown.
20. Go over the bone areas with Tau Light Ochre. Leave Skrag Brown showing in the deepest receases.
21. Highlight Tau Light Ochre with Ungor Flesh
22. Finish the bone areas by painting Ushabti Bone.
23. Eyes and Icons now. Paint the eyes with Khorne Red making sure to leave some black in the outer corners. Using white paint an under highlight line on the eye lens and then a small dot of white in the black corner. For the icon use watered down Ceramite White to paint the outline of your icon. You might need a couple of coats. It’s better to do a couple of thin coats then one lumpy thick coat. Tip for freehand, use watered down paint. It flows from the brush with no friction. If you don’t water it down you have to drag the brush and that’s when mistakes happen.
24. Finish off your icons with Flash Gitz Yellow. I took Stahly’s advice and dotted the deamon eye on the shoulder pad with yellow just to tie in the yellow somewhere else.
25. Base and Blood. I paint my rusted bases with an edge of Doombull Brown. The rust is just Leadbelcher with Forge World’s rust pigment. The blood is painted with Tamiya Clear Red. You can read more about the rust pigment here and I have a how to paint realistic blood tutorial here.
I hope this tutorial is an interesting read and you’ve found it useful. I try to make it simple to follow but also detailed. If anyone tries this out, I would love to see the results and I would find it useful to hear how you found following the tutorial.
Make sure you bookmark us and regularly check us out. I really enjoy making these tutorials and I want to make more soon. I’m open to suggestions from you guys as to what you’d like to see as well.
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I will always come back to this tutorial! Please never take it down <3
This is fantastic. Great tutorial. I have to try this!
Amazing guide, thanks a lot. Would you say this is achievable for a beginner painter?
Another thing, it seems like the link to your Hellbrute guide is broken.
I would love to see how you would do Word Bearers. I believe your painting tutorials are the best on the internet
Aw thanks, that means a lot. No plans for a Word Bearers tutorial I'm afraid. I don't have any spare CSM.
More dark vengeance tutorials coming soon ? Would be much appreciated.
Here are some of our other Dark Vengeance tutorials:
Helbrute – http://taleofpainters.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/tutorial-how-to-paint-chaos-helbrute.html
Ravenwing and Deathwing Tips – http://taleofpainters.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/tutorial-how-to-paint-ravenwing-and.html
Dark Angels – http://taleofpainters.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/tutorial-how-to-paint-dark-angels-from.html
Awesome tutorial! I hate to nitpick, but in step #8 the pic looks like you also highlighted the Doombull Brown painted cloth with Khorne Red. Is that the case?
Ah well spotted Michael. Yes you are correct. I'll update this accordingly. Thanks for pointing it out. 😀
This looks amazing!!! Great job
thanks a lot for the awesome paint jobs and the fantastic tutorial 🙂
I like your recipe fro the trim. I'll be liberating that for my night lords chosen…
Very good tutorial, the most interesting part is how you highlight the black armour. I think I'll apply this method to my Ultramarines, it's more realistic. Good job!!
Awesome work man! Will apply a lot of this to my DV chosen.