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So I'm trying to do a 1000 point black templar any and I was wondering how do I avoid making the models look so flat. I really want the black to have a little depth. Is this even possible?

Really light drybrushes with dark grey or edge highlights with dark grey are pretty much your only option...

some people will know ways of mixing your blacks with blues or greens or purples and blending themto give depth.. unfortunately..thats not me. for now at least.

I like to paint black boltguns, and I highlight with dark reaper and then only slight highlights of codex grey, or i think its called dawnstone now. Dark reaper is a nice way to give texture to the black.

I have painted a black templar army before, and it turned out great.

Use white and red as contrast colours wherever you can. Add silver into the armor joins or wherever you can.

Carefully use line highlights of medium grey then light grey on the blacks.

Add text in white to anywhere that look too flat (this works great on tanks).

When I did my black Templars I used a dark grey base coat, painted the Aquila white, and then dipped the models in a black wash. It doesn't produce a true black, but it had great depth of color.

Kinda of what jeratoll said. I painted my Templars as well. I gave mine a base coat of black then dry brushed with the fang and then Russ grey. I then washed them with muon oil to dull it down. The finished result gives you a edge highlight that was not painted that way. Other tricks to make black look good are to use PP coal black. It's got a bit of a greenish hue to it but is not as hard looking as a solid line grey highlight.

Nice thanks guys.I really hope to try these out soon.I'll pay pics when I have some

Whenever I put a large area of black I mix the black with a little water. Base the model in a dark grey then layer over the black to get the depth that I want. This is a little more time consuming but I feel it gets a better result.

You don't use black when painting black for it to not look too black.

Wow, that's a lot of blacks in one sentence. But really, just use pure black in the deepest of shadows.

http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.de/2014/05/tutorial-painting-colour-black.html

Here's a tutorial that can explain it better than me. Good luck and have fun painting black!

Think about this, Models look good because of contrast. For this to happen you need a dark shade, a mid tone and bright highlights. That means for black models your darkest recesses are going to be pure black, and there for you don't want your mid tone to be the same!!! So I would use a dark grey,and then shade with black. Here is an example:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/344192?browseid=9558844

I personally love the look of this model. What do you think?

I usually use a near black colour for basecoating black instead of pure black. This means I can use pure black for shading so the models recesses will have depth instead of the shade colour being the same flat base.