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I've spent too long painting blood Angels to be a very stark red and making them look like they've just walked out of a factory. I want change. I want marines who look like they've been through the wars and back for ages. I want dark colour schemes and heavy battle damage, but I don't know how to do it! How do you do battle damage and a dark grim colour scheme? I have the forge world weathering powders too but I don't know how they work, any help with battle damage and scarring would be great guys! And any tips on how to make marines look darker would also be appreciated! Thanks

If you oil washed them, you would grimdark them pretty quick.




Battle damage, I've found, is best done by painting bright spots of the base colour, painting a smaller section in the middle of brown, then painting a smaller section in the middle of that in silver.

For darker minis in general, you'll want to start with a black undercoat, rather than white, and you'll likely want to make heavy use of washes to shade down rather than layering up. Here's an example of a marine that's free of battle damage, but still a good bit darker than your typical Blood Angel scheme. They were built up from an almost purple base, layered to a brighter red then washed back down to tie it together:



As for weathering, there are many ways to go about it. A favourite of mine for power armour is sponge weathering for realistic chipping. Take a piece of sponge or scouring pad and lightly dip it in the desired chip colour, then just dab that on the area you want to chip. It's simple, and very effective:



For powerders, just brush them on! I use chalks rather than anything fancy, just a light coat around the boots for tying the minis to the bases:



For larger chips in armour, you can take the colour you use for sponge weathering and paint it on the relevant area, then do a quick highlight of the armour colour around the edge to emphasise the chips (see the fist):



Finally, you can use washes in general to add a veneer of grime to a mini. Typhus Corrosion is a good paint to sparingly use for this, as it's formulated to look a bit gritty/oily when dry.



Hope your find some of that helpful!

I like to add physical damage to my models if I'm going for battle damage. My favorite is to take a pin vise and various drill sizes depending on the caliber of the weapon and the scale of the model.

One of my CSM on a scenic base took several autocannon rounds from the dreadnought about to stomp on him. I drilled off his leg (placing it near him on the base), through the bolter and into his chest (splitting the bolter, taking off one of his hands) and a glancing shot to the pauldron. Plenty of Blood for the Blood God and using chipped armor effects.

Melta damage can be done with a torch (if you're bold and careful) or can be done with a drill and smoothing out the inside of the hole. Then painting it as though it was radiating heat (red, orange, yellow, to white in the center).

To make the paint chipping and dirt really pop, I like to outline the damage in leadbelcher.

blackforge wrote:
I like to add physical damage to my models if I'm going for battle damage. My favorite is to take a pin vise and various drill sizes depending on the caliber of the weapon and the scale of the model.

I'm also of this mindset. I've painted on mud, ash, oxidation, and burns but to me the most prominent sort of damage is done with an exacto and drill bits. Just whittle away chunks and fragments and then paint as normal, eliminate the need for illusion or trickery of the eye with painting and shadow and instead opt for actual damage.

A simple way is washes of agrax, and using a torn sponge to stipple a dirty brown onto areas for wear