All Things 40K: Step-By-Step Dark Angel

Monday, June 14, 2010

Step-By-Step Dark Angel

I painted this veteran sergeant for a friend. He's an accomplished painter himself, so I hope this is up to snuff.

Step 1: Basecoat

Step 2: Dark Angels Green / Knarloc Green mix

This serves as the base that will be darkened with a wash. It took some fiddling to find the right mix, and Knarloc is in there to make it thicker and easier to apply. The mix is 2 parts DA Green to 1 part Knarloc.

Step 3: Goblin Green

This is for the edges. I had previously used Knarloc for this, but I like the added brightness that Goblin Green brings.

Step 4: Badab Black

Yeah, there's our Dark Angel. Before this step, I'm always afraid I'm painting a Salamander.

Step 5: Dheneb Stone

For all cloth, bone and parchments.

Step 6: Mechrite Red

This is for the gun casing and the lining of the robe.

Step 7: Blood Red

Covered all areas based in Mechrite (plus a sword icon on the shoulder cloth as well as the eye-lenses).

Step 8: Fiery Orange

Edged out the gun casing.

Step 9: Shining Gold

Step 10: Mithril Silver

This was lightly drybrushed over all the gold bits.

Step 11: Vermin Brown

For the sword handle and the waist rope. Ignore the old pot, this color has been renamed Vermin Brown.

Step 12: Bronzed Flesh

I like to drybrush Bronzed Flesh over all leather and rope areas that I based in Vermin Brown.

Step 13: Devlan Mud

Ok, several areas are ready for Devlan Mud; The cloth, parchments, all red areas, gold bits, and the leather/rope.

Step 14: Bleached Bone

I'm building back up the mid-tone for the parchments and cloth.

Step 15: Skull White

Highlighting the parchments/cloth.

Step 16: Gryphonne Sepia

I'm not coating the parchments/cloth here. I applied it only in the recesses, where there was still some Devlan Mud to bring some more depth to the cloth. Basically, stay away from the white areas and you'll be fine.

Step 17: Boltgun Metal

Step 18: Badab Black

Applied to the metal. Do not apply this to the sword though. I'm going to apply a power weapon effect to it.

Step 19: Skull White

I'm laying out the lightning/power arcs along the blade sides. I've drawn them specifically to have the lightning hug the edges to better accentuate the blade's shape.

Step 20: Asurmen Blue

This sergeant's power weapon will be blue. However, feel free to exchange this wash with any of the other washes for a different color power weapon.

Step 21: Skull White

I pulled the Skull White back out to pick out a few edges and corners in the lightning to make it pop just a little more.

Step 22: Skull White

I still have the Skull White out. This time to get the chapter icons on his shoulder and his helmet.

Step 23: Chaos Black

Parchment writing and gun barrel holes.

Step 24: Calthan Brown

My friend's armies are based in brown dirt with patches of static grass and a brown rim ... similar to how a lot of the GW staff do theirs.

Step 25: Basing Sand

Glued down with PVA (Elmer's White) glue ... then after it dried I added a layer of watered down glue over the top to seal it in and keep the sand from falling off.

Step 26: Devlan Mud