Tutorial: How to paint Dark Angels power armour

The perfect shade for Dark Angels power armour is not easy to find. Too dark and it will lack contrast, too light or too green and it will look more like Salamanders. In this tutorial I show you the recipe I came up with and what in my opinion is the perfect colour to highlight Dark Angels armour.

This tutorial assumes you know the basic grips of painting Warhammer miniatures. Step-by-step I explain all the paints and techniques I used. I have a rather eclectic paint collection, so when I use a paint that is not from Games Workshop (or out of production), I’ll try to provide you with suitable alternatives from the current Citadel paint range [in brackets]. However, if you want to achieve exactly the same result as shown, I recommend expanding your paint collection. You’ll find a list of all the paints used in this tutorial at the end of the post.

How to paint Dark Angels power armour

I primed the model with two thin coats of Angel Green Color Primer from The Army Painter, then applied Caliban Green where the spray didn’t reach the model, as well as a thin coat all over for an even finish.

Next, I carefully applied a pin wash by applying Gravelord Grey from The Army Painter’s new Speedpaint range [out in early 2022, you can also use Black Templar Contrast paint instead].

Once done, I used Caliban Green to tidy up the armour. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of my first highlight, but you can zoom in the next picture and you should be able to make out where to place it.

The first edge highlight was a mix of Caliban green and Vallejo Game Color [or Warpstone Green] about 2:1 [with Warpstone Green more like 1:2 or 1.3].

Then, I added a final even thinner edge highlight of pure VGC Sick Green [Warpstone Green, but I recommend Sick Green, as the coverage and consistency is much better].

Here we have the finished model. If you want to know how I painted the rest of the model, you can check out my Black Templars tutorial here. The plasma glow effect is explained in this tutorial.

If you need to expand your paint collection to follow the tutorial, check out our partner stores Wayland Games and Element Games, which offer an amazing range of paints at a discount.

Want to learn more about painting Dark Angels? Then check out Garfy’s tutorial for a slightly different approach:

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If so, leave a comment or reaction below, and if you got any questions, leave them here so I can answer them for you.