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I've been asked a few times about how I paint the bone colour on my Marines, so I did up a short tutorial for people. I hope it proves useful.

Painting Bone by SonofGuilliman

Paints Needed



Or if you only have GW colours...



Stages



Step1: Paint a coat of Bestial Brown. Doesn't have to be neat, just has to be over the areas you want to paint bone.

Step2: Apply Menoth White Base or Bleached Bone over Bestial Brown. Will take roughly 3 coats of Menoth White Base to cover smoothly and probably 4+ coats of Bleached Bone for the same effect.

Step3: Apply Gryphonne Sepia over chosen bone colour.

Step4: Add highlights around edges. Chosen bone colour to start around all edges, followed by a 1:1 coat of bone plus white around sharp edges and middles of areas. (I.e. Top and bottom of knee pads, and above the foot, etc.).

SoG

It looks very nice, really.
May i just inquire, however, as to why you use Bestial Brown and 4 coats of Bleached Bone rather than, say, 2 coats each of snake bite and Bleached Bone?
Feel free to prove me wrong, It could be interesting to see what ectras Bestial Brown brings to the scene.

I don't actually use Bleached Bone, I use the Menoth White Base, which is a lot better than Bleached Bone. I think I actually started off using Snakebite but forgot and started using Bestial Brown. In any case, I just use the brown colour to cover the black so I can apply the bone colour. I've found Bestial Brown and Snakebite Leather pretty interchangeable for what I want them for.

SoG

Ahh, okay, soudns good.
Being chaos-obsessed my bone technique is a bit more complicated... but thats not to say better. As i said, i like how it looks. Im just into highlighting up to Skull White
(sorry, i talk in Citadel paints)


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Oh, and Jack of Blades FTW

Huh learn something new everyday. wouldnt have even thought to use brown as a base for bone but it makes sense now.


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Nice simple and good tutorial by the way.

I think you just made up my mind between ice coated or bone wolf claws.
This will look great!

@Bascilica: I used to use only GW, but found that P3 works a lot better for the colours I use, especially the white.

Thanks to everyone else, glad I could be of assistance.

SoG

Thanks for making this; I just started playing 'Nids again, so this might be what I need to make the talons look better.

Very nice. I usually use the Skin Toned Foundation to base white for bones, either that or the Really Light Grey color. Otherwise, put in the Vallejo versions of those colors and I do the exact same thing, though sometimes I drybrush with white before washing to catch some highlights.

This method also works well with parchment and purity seals, only with more white highlights before the wash. Good tutorial!

This is a different technique that I use but it seems to look really good. Do you use a dullcoat over the bone to give it a matted look?

The wash does that anyway. They seem to be more matte than the inks.

SoG

oh, the Gryphonne Sepia is a wash not an ink? I didn't realize that... definitely makes this all a lot easier.

I'm not sure why you wouldn't spray white primer, then 1 or 2 coats of gyphonne sepia. I think it would get you to the same place, with a lot less effort. Finally a drybrush or highlight with bleached bone.

I don't have white primer. And this way doesn't take too long either.

SoG

That turns out pretty sick.

I'm lazy so I usually just go Blech Bone with a wash of Dev. Mud, or prime white and Dev. Mud wash.

Just for a proof of concept on something other than his SM, I finished up one of my Tyranid Warriors... I'm quite happy with how he turned out.

BTW, totally not trying to highjack your thread, just trying to support your painting technique.

Thanks mate great tutorial. Much needed due to the abundance of bone trinkets on the ork, guard, space hulk models thes days

Yeah, though you could have used another coat of Gryphonne sepia, Muffinbutt.

I'm going to try this on my next Noise Marine project.
Thanks!

This could work with snakebite leather and bleached bone from cidatel paints. do you think so?

Wow, thanks SoG all i need now is 5 packs of Terminators, then it's Deathwing time !!!! woooooo

looks nice, gonna use this for sure, but what is the use of the bestial brown if you use 4+ layers of bleached bone? is it just me or does it give the same effect without the bestial brown :p

Unless you're painting that Bleached Bone straight out of the pot, (which you really shouldn't do, especially for colors that need several coats) the primer color underneath will subtly change the final color of the model. If your coats of paint are too thick, you'll avoid that issue but then you'll end up with a very ugly/overpainted model.

Hey SoG, I have my Battleforce now so I've started assembling and painting models in chunks. This paint scheme is looking pretty ace so far. It is a bit of a bitch having to do so many coats over all these necron warriors, but then I guess that's the price of doing an interesting paint scheme. I could've just gone with drybrushing Boltgun Metal like all those other necron players... In the end though, my army will look better, and it'll reflect better on me that I took more time and effort than the average Necron player on such a notoriously easy army to slack off on.

@Snarkbolt: You could use Snakebite Leather, Bestial Brown was just what I had on hand at the time.

@drakenkanon: It means you have to do less bone and gives it a warmer tone overall.

@MasterDRD: I never said it was the quickest method of doing bone . Be sure to post results when you have some.

SoG

I Just use the Reaper triaid of Bone color give you a nice meduim dark brownishgrey... then two lighter colors. I need to post my DE to show the bone color.