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Hello all. It's finally come to the point where I'd like to start painting my CSM and I had a question about it. The color scheme is black armor with silver trim and green details. Now I was wondering what some processes would be to getting the armor to look a little more than I just primed and based black. I've been looking around and it seems edge highlighting with codex grey and chaos black mix would be a decent method, but I'm just wondering if there are any other methods people might have.

You could start off with a dark blue basecoat and work up from there. I find that useing very dark blues works better for highlighting black than gray does.

Start from dark grey and work your way to black with shadows. Plain black rarely looks good.

So like say a 2:1 codex gray/ chaos black, then a 1:1, then just black? or something else? What would the process for that be as well? Honestly I've never painted anything.


Actually I painted 1 unit of swooping hawks threeish years ago, much different than power armor though.

I've had pretty good luck doing a hardline highlight of chainmail or mithral, then washing badab black over it to dull the shine, then going back with the silver to place a focused highlight. Of course, you could always use a colored wash to accent the detail colors you're using instead.

I think fafnir was recommending to start with a base black and highlight up to a dark gray, say Codex Grey. I think your proportions are pretty accurate, but I'd probably do one final line or spot of just codex grey to finish it off after the 2:1.

I have a pretty easy method I just got working.


Front view of Raven Guard test model #2. Flesh is Codex Gray, washed with Ogryn Flesh wash--then given a glaze of watered down Kommando Khaki. Armor is done by basecoating 75% Charadon Granite, 25% Scorched Brown, washed with a heavy wash of Badab Black.

It's quick, it's effective, and what's more: it's easy.

Also, it does work best if done on a black primed model--but it can be done over white or gray.

I do it by drybrushing the black primed mini with codex gray to pick out the different surfaces on the model and generally make the black more visible. Then when I am done doing my other painting I do hard edge highlighting with codex gray on edges of the black armor. It ends up looking pretty darn good.

There's probably as many ways to highlight black as there are hobbyists Personally, a Chaos Black basecoat with two layers of edge highlighting -- first a color called Charcoal by Delta CeramCoat and then a finer highlight with Shadow Grey -- works for me.

Click for example.

As The_Armyman said, there are a lot of techniques and it really depends on what actual look you are going for.

I dislike black on its own, I always mix it with a brown or blue so I can highlight the actual lighter colour of the black mix.

In general I would have a chaos black-necron abyss mix as the basecoat, and highlight very carefully with increasingly lighter mixes of space wolf grey and the base coat colour. It leaves the model looking very black, when in reality it is an extremely dark midnight blue.

I like that idea ifalna, I'll try tat one for sure and one or two others then compare. I've got three models to test on.

Catyrpelius wrote:You could start off with a dark blue basecoat and work up from there. I find that useing very dark blues works better for highlighting black than gray does.

I agree highlight the edges of your armour with shadow grey Thats what I use and i find it very effective!

Ok, I took a picture of one of my berserkers I have done with black power armor ... so like I said I drybrush gray over it first, and then later highlight the edges with hard lines of codex gray.

For me it is an inexact science but I try to hit any highlights that make sense.

I was once told never to paint a pure black, if you add either a blue or grey into the mix you end up with a more realistic colour. Another method I have seen recently is to prime grey and use a series of badab black coats, this builds up the shadows whilst still maintaining a degree of transparency on the raised areas. Either way I'm sure they'll look great.

I have three models I can test on, so I'll try the drybrushing method, and the mixing method one with blues and one with greys. Thanks for the ideas everyone, I'll post up pics whenever I finish.

Also consider the 'no paint' highlight method - after your black (or very dark grey) basecoat has dried, use a scalpel to very gently scrape paint off the raised edges, revealing the grey plastic underneath. Looks amazingly good - but of course only works over standard grey plastic

Clang wrote:Also consider the 'no paint' highlight method - after your black (or very dark grey) basecoat has dried, use a scalpel to very gently scrape paint off the raised edges, revealing the grey plastic underneath. Looks amazingly good - but of course only works over standard grey plastic

Thats a really interesting idea. Do you have any pics of the final result?

I would paint Mithril or Boltgun and wash repeatedly with Badab.

Clang wrote:Also consider the 'no paint' highlight method - after your black (or very dark grey) basecoat has dried, use a scalpel to very gently scrape paint off the raised edges, revealing the grey plastic underneath. Looks amazingly good - but of course only works over standard grey plastic

I've never tried that, but I typically build my doods all in seperate pieces and then assemble when painted. As such I paint over say, where the arms will go on the torso. When getting ready for final assembly, I carefully scrape that area with a knife: in my experience it sometimes flakes off in really unpredictable ways. I'm used to that, so scrape very slowly and always in the direction of what's already been removed, but I'm sort of dubious this method of highlighting will result in more success then misery.

Clang wrote:Also consider the 'no paint' highlight method - after your black (or very dark grey) basecoat has dried, use a scalpel to very gently scrape paint off the raised edges, revealing the grey plastic underneath. Looks amazingly good - but of course only works over standard grey plastic

This sounds ridiculous to me for some reason. Also, I would like to build up my skill with highlighting anyway because I can't do it with metal minis.

I use a method similar to lennysmash, i found it whilst browsing the web looking for ways to paint black quickly, I can't tell you who it belonged to originally but the army he/she did was called the sainted swords, i liked the idea so i took it, tweaked it and used it.

first things first, assemble and undercoat all your models with chaos black primer I leave the guns off, then from above and slightly to the front of each model i give them a couple of quick bursts of skull white primer, this gives the models a highlight and natural shading where the recesses are, once dried i then give 2-3 washes of badab black until i'm happy with the look, paint all extra details and they're done! I painted 50 tac marines in 3 days using this way, you can see what they look like in my gallery if you like?

The ravenguard models? If so it's hard to tell just because none of he pictures are all too close to see the highlight clearly.


I found the article you're talking about though and I might try that as well. I like the effect it gives.

Could you post a link to the article, I would be interested to see the effects myself.

@nerdfest - you should try adding at least one layer of Asurman blue to the layering see if you like the effect.

My only experience with black armor comes form a squad of death company space marines. My scheme went like this:

- 2:1 Chaos Black/Codex grey -- this color was watered down a little and applied to the surfaces that would reflect light. Also applied to all edges.
- 1:1 Chaos Black/Shadow Grey -- applied to all edges as a highlight
- 2:1 Codex Grey/Chaos Black - applied to all edges in a very thin watererd down line.

the end result ended up looking pretty tasty. also I have seen tutorials that suggest mixing hawk turquoise with black. they suggest this because grey has a tendency to overpower the black and lighten it too much (I agree) you will get a more natural and brooding look from mixing with the turquoise. I plan to paint my black this way on any new armies I make.

Good Luck!

http://saintedswords.blogspot.com/2008/11/ftw-how-to-paint-black-armour_23.html


THE DUDE LIVES ON!!!!!!

As many before me, I really recommend you using blue instead of grey, it makes the highlighting tie in much more with the black.

Yeah I'm figuring that as much. Gameplan now is to use the drybrush method, the mixed with blue, and the halo highlighting, possibly with some blue in it as well.

Question is what would be a good blue to use? I have necron abyss, mordian blue, regal, ultramarine, hawk turquoise, and ice blue. I'd assume starting darker and working my way lighter would obviously be better. So maybe a mix of 2:1 chaos black and regal blue, then starting on the highlight a 1:1, then a regal blue highlight. Would Hawk turquoise be better for this or some other color? I just said regal blue because it's dark.


EDIT: since the secondary color of the models is green, does anyone think it would be possible to do the blue mix method with green instead and have green highlights? Would this look good or do you think I should just stick with blue?

Please post pics after you have tried on a few models, i am curious to see how yours turn out!

GW also paint iron hands black power armour with boltgun metal trim but the edges of the ceramite get a very fine highlight with shadow grey. It helps break up the monotonous black very well I find. Also if it stands out too much, thinly apply some badab black to blend it in.

I'll make sure to take pictures of the test models.