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Greetings all,

Below are images for the first squad of my new Raven Guard army 'Shadow Force Dragomir'. The army has a deliberately muted and flat palette to reflect my view of the RG as one of the more 'professional' and less obviously passionate Space Marine forces. The army also includes liberal use of older Marks of Power Armour to represent the RG liking for old equipment following their decimation on Istvaan during the Heresy.

The army will mostly be made of plastic but I've utilised plenty of the new Forge World armour variants and Raven Guard upgrade pieces to make sure the army feels Raven Guard rather than looking like a different black SM army such as the Iron Hands. I've also used the FW decals, I honestly can't recommend these highly enough for RG players, there's a great selection of symbols - Chapter insignia, squad markings and honour markings for Marines and vehicles both - and the decals themselves are great to use, molding easily to shoulder pads and greaves.

Without further ado, Tactical Squad Khalid:



Below are some shots of a few minis to show some more details, more photos are available for the other minis if anyone is interested.

Sergeant Khalid:


Brother Nebosja, formerly attached to the Deathwatch:


Brother Drazan, in a mix of new and older armour marks:

They look great! I love the muted colors. Not bright and obnoxious.

What's up with sergeant Khalids right shoulderpad, though? That doesn't look like an RG symbol.

It's the Iron Halo.

'Awarded for displays of great initiative the Iron Halo is the Codex approved symbol of a Squad Leader (second in charge of a squad after the Sergeant). Like the Iron Skull it is most often rendered on a Marine's armour in red, frequently on the helmet or shoulder pad.'

Khalid has kept his Iron Halo, a hard earned symbol of his climb up the ranks whilst his white helmet marks his status as a Sergeant (or at least it does in my RG army, it's normally an indicator of veteran status rather than sergeant's rank but what's life if you can't take the odd liberty).

Wow, best Raven Guard tac squad I've ever seen. Great conversions and attention to detail. I love the FW decals too.

Are you using the Green shoulder trim to represent Tactical Squad, or for 4th Company?

those models are extremely crisp and clean. i seriously cannot wait to see more of this army.

Very nice work, you've achieved a lot there with a limited palette.

Awesome, like the mix of old and new mks of armour, very charecterful.

s.j.mccartney wrote:
Are you using the Green shoulder trim to represent Tactical Squad, or for 4th Company?

I've gone with the older style markings, shoulder trim represents squad type, squad number is noted on the Tactical arrow and the knee/greave markings represent Company. So these guys are the the Fifth (Tactical) squad of the 4th Company.

@DA666: I think it suits the RG to have a mix of armour, plus, it gave me a chance to play with all those lovely older armour bitz from FW.
@Ensis Ferrae: Thanks, I'm a slow painter but I'm just about to finish off the first Combat Squad for the next Tac squad and a Rhino for Khalid and his lads.
@Natorum: Thanks, the aim was to keep them subdued but still recognisably RG, I gave in to the occasional splash of colour (blue cabling on multi-melta pack, the red strap on the bolter of the top right Marine etc.), but I tried hard to keep them dark and menacing.

I really like your Raven Guard, which is saying a lot from me since I'm rarely interested in marine armies. The FW armor variants look stellar and I like the mix you've given to each marine. I hope to see a full army of these guys on the table in the future.

EDIT: Also, those FW transfers came out great!

That looks great!

I like the older looking bolters. They look almost like H&K MP5s w/ silencer which fits well with the raven guard's stealthier fluff IMHO.

Wow, I'm very impressed!

Raven Guard are hard to do well, making the black look different and good. You did awesome!

Wow dude, those are pretty awesome! Look forward to seeing a full army like this =).

@Kilted Samurai, Tylerkabana & Sturmtruppe: Thanks guys, I'm pretty pleased with how the army is turning out so far too, black is so much quicker to paint than my previous army (Brazen Claws - I barely finished a squad plus a Dreadnought for them in 7 years!)

@Snake: Yeah, the old style bolters from FW are great for a bit of sneaky-sneaky flavour, I'm just trying not to go overboard, I've got to make the FW stuff last for a whole army.

As promised the next Combat Squad is now ready:



Combat Squad Atanas are part of the Second (Tactical) Squad of the Fourth Company of the Raven Guard.



Atanas (above) is one of the Sternguard metals with various parts filed off and replaced by Raven Guard etched brass and the like.



Brother Goran (above) features a 'Corvus Corax' Mk.VI helmet - the idea was stolen from FW who have a neat little beak-like Mk.VI helm in the RG upgrade kit. I posted a simple tutorial for it over on the B&C if anyone's interested.

those are awesome dude... if i had your skill with black armor, i would still be playing my marines as RG.

good job on them.

They are perfect. Realistic feel all over. Very, very nice attention to details. Excellent work!

awesome!!!
5 more?

How are you painting your blacks?

It works very well, and I think I'd like to...emulate this on my RG army!

Thanks!

OK - found your method over on the B&C:

1. Spray undercoat black
2. Broad highlights of 'RG Black' (a very, very dark grey I made from approx. 1 part VMC German Grey to 3 parts Chaos black with just a touch of Foundation Adeptus Battlegrey to tie it to the highlights).
3. Badab Black Wash
4. Fine highlight of 50/50 RG Black/ Adeptus Battlegrey
5. [Blackline with black ink - 'true' black and recessed/shadowed areas only
6. Final highlight of ABG
7. Black wash
8. Touch up

Nice - and I'll definitely be giving it a try!

I was of the opinion that Raven Guard were one of the more boring chapters to paint, but you have made them look interesting despite the drab color scheme. Very well done!

Very nice work SCC. I love the realistic paintjob you've given these.

They look really good, i like the corax helmet, simple conversion that looks very effective

These are fantastic, how did you highlight them to get that look? cos they don't look too flat. Also, by FW decals (first post) do you mean their brass or their transfers...cos it looks like a mix on these minis...

I gotta say, this inspired me to get back to work on my Raven Guard!

Thanks guys, I'm pretty happy with the way the army is shaping up too.

@Menziez: The rest of the squad are basecoated and ready to go but I'm actually working on a Rhino for the first squad right now. I haven't painted a Rhino in years so this one is an old UM Rhino I had that's been re-purposed for a practice run so it'll be fairly plain and simple while I practice the techniques needed to highlight big flat areas and so forth. Pics soon with any luck.

@Imperial Monkey: Alpharius posted my recipe from the B&C but it's below for your convenience too:

1. Spray undercoat black
2. Broad highlights of 'RG Black' (a very, very dark grey I made from approx. 1 part VMC German Grey to 3 parts Chaos black with just a touch of Foundation Adeptus Battlegrey to tie it to the highlights).
3. Badab Black Wash
4. Fine highlight of 50/50 RG Black/ Adeptus Battlegrey
5. [Blackline with black ink - 'true' black and recessed/shadowed areas only
6. Final highlight of ABG
7. Black wash
8. Touch up

For those contemplating a black army of any kind I'm averaging about 3-3.5 hours painting time per Marine - and I'm normally a very slow painter so I expect others could bring that down a fair bit. I'm also limiting myself to no more than 5 hours per mini, once it hits 5 hours the '3 colour' rule comes into effect and I do the minimum to get the figure on the tabletop so there's room for a better looking army if you've time to invest.

As for decals, the first squad is FW decals only, the etched brass didn't arrive in time for them so the recently posted combat squad includes a mix of EB and decals.

I really enjoyed those pictures. A really nice "clean" painting work keep it up mate and post more photographs with the rest of your army.

Wow, you make black look goooood...

Really love the look of "Brother Goran" he looks really beefy and exactly like SM from the artwork, well done!

Simply amazing renderings. Thanks for sharing!

His Blog over on the B&C is more active than his here (jealous, no, of course I'm not!!! ), so check that out too.

A nice start to a rhino in it there.

I'm excited to try out his black recipe on my RG too!

I finished up Squad Khalid's dedicated transport earlier today, here are some photos of both Rhino and squad:





The Rhino is an old UM vehicle I simply over-sprayed black and added the 'aquila bar' on the roof too. Most of my 40K experience has been Marine infantry so I was using this as a chance to learn (or re-learn in some cases) vehicle painting techniques and to experiment with colours, decals placement and so forth. Given that the total time for the squad and transport is around 60 hours I'm pretty pleased with the results. I'm also pretty sure that the vehicles to follow will benefit greatly from what I've learned with this one, not to mention they'll all be built as dedicated RG vehicles to boot.

@Alpharius: I promise I'll show everything I finish here too, time spent blogging is time not spent painting, right?

@Theofilos, General S & Hollo: Thanks guys, encouragement from other hobbyists plays a big part in keeping me motivated