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Hello, I just joined up on dakka and I'm looking for a bit of advice on painting up some blood angels. I'm considering buying some new vallejo paint to use. All in all I've got around 120 infantry and a dozen vehicles to paint. I've always used gw paint in the past and I'm considering making a transition to vallejo. The main reason for using go paint is because it's easy to buy where as vallejo I have to order. I'm just unsure if I should make the switch since I already have a good bit of money in my current paints. I looked over the vallejo line and decided if I decided to use them I'd go with a base of cavalry brown then flat red, red, and carmine red. I've also heard good things about secret weapon paints and their washes. If anyone has some advice or recommendations I'd appreciate it very much.

As long as you go 'all in' either will do haha... I love the vallejo paints you listed and your scheme seems good, but I will say that the newest GW Mephiston Red is an amazing red.

But vallejo is easier to use because of the droppers, whether you use a wet pallet or airbrush or otherwise and they don't dry up as fast as the GW paints.

Hey thanks for the reply. I do have an air brush and have had a horrible time using the gw paint as most of my time is spent trying to mix the paint. I know Vallejo has the air line of paints as well. I guess I'm just having buyers remorse over my collection if go paint ha. Could you recommend a wash that would work well with that?

The GW paints are nice if you already have them. Washes vary on taste... most people use GW earthshade... but I prefer black (null oil) or even blue. I also like heavy dark shadows on my BA so I don't have to highlight all the way out to orange or pink for contrast.

Firstly, there's no need to go all-in on one range or the other. Everything I paint uses both Vallejo and GW paints, usually mixed together, and with no adverse effect. So long as you keep your method consistent, there's no issue in mixing ranges, so your GW paints are not going to be 'wasted' should you decide to pick up some vallejo. In general, I like GW for their base/layers and washes, and the Vallejo Air range for highlighting or mixing (as it's already thinned).

Now, on to Blood Angels in particular. My method is as follows, with the emphasis on speed and decent tabletop quality.

Prime black
Basecoat: Armour- Mephiston Red, Metals- Chainmail, Bolter casing: black

Wash the whole thing with Agrax Earthshade, Once that's dry, hit the metal areas with Nuln Oil.

Then, re-highlight with thinned down/semi-transparent Mephiston Red, leaving the darker colour in the recesses. Do the same for the metallics with Chainmail.

Paint the eyes a colour of choice (I like green), add some scrollwork with Vallejo Ivory/Sand (along with any parchments), add Chapter and Company badges in yellow. The end result takes about 45 minutes, with 20 of that being wash drying time, and looks something like this:


And welcome to Dakka! Hope this helps.

To be clear Para... what I meant by 'all in' is ...once you find a formula (vallejo, gw, or a mix of both, or other) - stick to it and commit to it!

I have so many different generations of Blood Angels that were painted with very similar, but slightly different schemes and they all look so different side by side despite my best efforts.

Fair enough, I wasn't trying to shoot you down. Just checking that the OP knew you could mix brands with no ill effect (lots of people don't know that). But yeah, don't go changing your formula mid-army... *Looks at that one Imperial Fist that is just the wrong shade of yellow*

Army painter coloured primer would be my go to fix for an easier job.