Just a quick update to show my progress on the Dark Vengeance set. When I showed these photos on Twitter I got an overwhelming response so I thought it was worth posting them here with a slightly more detailed write up.
Painting Dark Angels
A lot of people have asked me how I painted my Dark Angels so here is a break down of the paints I used. In order to maintain a dark look overall I kept the majority of the armour dark green and applied extreme highlights only to the very edges of the armour (in a similar way to the ‘Eavy Metal team’s Dark Eldar).
All of the Tactical Marines started with a black undercoat.
1) Basecoat Dark Angels Green (it took about 3 coats to get a smooth, even finish).
2) Highlight Snot Green.
3) Highlight 50/50 mix Snot Green and Goblin Green.
4) Highlight Goblin Green.
5)Apply very tiny highlights to the helmets/face using Rotting Flesh.
The idea behind the final highlights of Rotting Flesh is to subtly draw the eye to the model’s face and make it stand out more. This gives the Dark Angels a focal point which they would otherwise lack as the helmets are the same colour as the rest of the armour.
Painting Faces
The part of the Sergeant Raphael model that got the most comment was his face, particularly his stubble, and a number of people have asked me about how I achieved this. The face was painted following my usual method:
1) Basecoat Tallarn Flesh.
2) Shade with thinned Dark Flesh followed by Scorched Brown in the deepest recesses.
3) Highlight with Tallarn Flesh with increasing amounts of Elf Flesh added.
4) Apply a final highlight by adding Bleached Bone into the previous flesh mix.
5) Paint the lips Tanned Flesh.
The stubble technique was taken from the excellent Painting Faces Redux article from White Dwarf 3356 which can also be found on the White Dwarf archive (see link). One thing I would recommend is adding some Lahmia Medium to the wash in order to give you more control over the flow. You want the wash to be translucent so that the flesh colour still shows though and the medium is great for this.
Hopefully more Dark Vengeance goodness to follow later in the week.
All the best,
Andy.
