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Hey guys, ive recently decided to start a Raven Guard army but im having problem with the painting.

I thought as they were mostly black they would be easy to paint but this is not the case , the two i have painted so far just look well....too black.
They look as if they are unfinished i know im not the best painter in the world but has anyone got any tips on how to highlight etc that would make them look more complete??
And could you suggest any paints that i need to buy for it ?

Thanks , Xylthian.

Do you highlight your colours?
If I were going to paint a whole army black I'd do something like this:

Start with a very dark grey
highlight once with a slightly lighter grey
highlight again with a lighter again grey
wash with badab black

thanks for the suggestion.

Anyone else got any ideas?

If you want it to be very dark, your best bet is to just highlight the edges and raised areas in grey to break it up a little bit. A good example would be the Kayvaan Shrike model on the GW website, it had very fine highlights on the edges of the armour plates which look neat and cool.

Always had mixed results highlighting black. A very light drybrush with Boltgun/Mithril has worked for things like embossed Imperial Fist symbols but I wouldn't want to try it on something like power armour.

I would go for an initial highlight of black with some dark grey in it then work more grey into the mix as needed when you get to lighter areas or sharp leading edges.

I'd go with lunarman's method as it's the same one I'm using on my Dark Angels (doing them in their original colours as I like it better & can use them as Fallen, Dark Angels or vanilla marines).
Just get an old paint pot, clean with hot soapy water & a tooth brush. Then put in 50% black & start adding shaddow grey bit by bit until you get the right shade.
Use greys that are on the blue side rather than the brown side.

Have a look at my Raven Guard pics in my gallery and if you like the look i can tell you how i did it?

Btw they are a great sm army too!

I had a look at the pictures and thats what i want my raven guard to look like.

try mixing a 1:1 ratio of black and shadow grey. for a further highlight you can go with shadow grey and for an extreme highlight a mix of shadow grey and fortress grey. If you want something easier, then I would just hard highlight shadow grey. Best of luck

Gonna buy some paints like the greys etc then give it another go and hopefully it turns out well