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Hi Dakka, I finished painting this marine yesterday. Its a scheme Ive been toying around with for a while and was hoping for some advice on how I could make it better.



Just a few things Im thinking about:

The Bolter: I tried to go with something other than black that would compliment the scheme but not over power it. Looks good or should I go back to black?

The base: What base would best compliment a red scheme? Im thinking a dark, city ruins base.

The overall: I started with red and black and changed things to make it look better and stop the red from over powering the model. I realise I stumbled upon something that looks a bit like Blood Ravens. Is there any way I could move away from BR and still keep the general feel?

Love it. Maybe look at how mechanicus armies are based to see what you think you would like.

I think a martian earth or an urban ruins base would work really well

As a whole I think it's very good - any base which would contrast it nicely (oddly the one I think it would do the least justice is a grey/black crumbly urban base).

I think the non-black boltgun was a very good decision. An alternate colour on the edging of the iron cross might go over well.

Thanks for the kind words .

What you guys reckon about alternative head colours for sergeants in my chapter? I was considering Yellow like BA or maybe blue. These are meant to be Imperial Fists successors, so yellow might fit well. Blue could be a nod to their codex compliance too.

I actually used Nuln oil to pin wash the red armour. I noticed that a lot of people use Agrax or the Crimson wash how much you think this would affect the overall appearance?

IGtR= wrote:Love it. Maybe look at how mechanicus armies are based to see what you think you would like.

I think a martian earth or an urban ruins base would work really well

I was originally reluctant to go for a lighter base. But looking at the Blood angels stuff they seem to have gone for a light brown earth with grass which might work really well. And the dried out riverbed look of the skitarii is really interesting too.

Elbows wrote:As a whole I think it's very good - any base which would contrast it nicely (oddly the one I think it would do the least justice is a grey/black crumbly urban base).

I think the non-black boltgun was a very good decision. An alternate colour on the edging of the iron cross might go over well.

I think youre right about the urban base. I was looking at blood angels work and there were one or two darker bases and they didnt look as good as the brown earth ones.

Good to hear about the boltgun. For the cross I originally tried black on the other shoulder but it was too bland. I was considering a yellow outline but It could be an eyesore.

That's a beautiful model, very nice

I generally like dark grey or dark brown for bases, without much thought for what the models are painted like. Those colours rarely clash with schemes I've painted or tables they're playing on, and I tend to go with safe options for basing that I've used in the past

That model is killer good. Nice highlights. I'd use some sort of dark urban rubble base for it, that way you don't take away from the model.

If you want something else for the weapon color, you could probably do okay with a dark violet. Search "color theory" and it'll give you lots of information.

As for bases, it's all your preference. I dislike red-ish(martian) bases for red units, since your model gets lost in it. I actually enjoy gray (think concrete or dried out asphalt), if you go dark it just needs to differentiate from black so as to not let the weapons/shoulder trim get lost in it. I also suggest doing one 'test' base where you put just a bit of it on the base(I was debating between brown, gray, white, and green for mine, so I put each color on one quarter of the base to see which I liked best). That may help, may not, but it did for me.

As a Blood Angels player, I can also tell you that I think yellow works better on a red body than blue does, but that's just my preference. Take a look at the Assault Marines and Devastators from the BA to see an example of each. White could look good (to me, not everyone's preference), there is a BA offshoot chapter that has white helmets.

Very nice indeed!
I think he'd look good on the new Sector Imperialis bases GW put out, and they're pretty economical.

Thanks for the kind words guys.

If there's any advice you can think of to improve my general painting that'd be really helpful. I'll start with the fact I really do struggle getting a good highlight on black. I think I might over do the 2nd highlight.

After some thinking, for the base I am leaning towards something like this https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/600x620/99120101157_SCBloodAngels01.jpg

as opposed to this http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2013/1/14/452594_md-Blood%20Angels,%20Cataphracti,%20Drednought,%20Heresy,%20Praetor,%20Terminator%20Armor.jpg

I find the darker base makes the model itself stand out more, but then they look separate and dont come together to form a better whole.

@ Buttery: the imperialis bases might look nice with some rubble and bricks. I just wonder what urban colours would compliment them as Im not sure about grey. The darker browns and bronzes might look good. I think Ill have to do some experimenting.

@Troa: I agree about the blue. Though I've found some images where theyve gone for a lighter blue which looks nice like here http://www.pixelgod.net/fotos/warhammer/bloodangels/devastor.jpg Though he may have eased it using the green OSL. I plan to use white for my veterans so that's out the window

Bronzes and dulled golds and sparingly applied mud and weathering would work well with the molded bases, I think.
You could cut down grass tufts and have desert coloured grass poking out of gaps.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Bronzes and dulled golds and sparingly applied mud and weathering would work well with the molded bases, I think.
You could cut down grass tufts and have desert coloured grass poking out of gaps.

Sounds like a good idea. Looks like Ill have to do some test runs with empty bases and compare how they look with the model. Luckily I got some spare from my kroot box

So a little update: I tried grey and darker bases but also tried a light brown sandy/muddy base. I felt it compliments the scheme best. I might expand the theme a little where its a ruined settlement thats been slightly reclaimed by nature. Anyways heres the base now:



I started with sand and pva, base coated with steel legion drab, washed with agrax earthshade and highlighted with ushabti bone. Oh and the rim is rinox hide.

 AEIOUMadden wrote:
So a little update: I tried grey and darker bases but also tried a light brown sandy/muddy base. I felt it compliments the scheme best. I might expand the theme a little where its a ruined settlement thats been slightly reclaimed by nature. Anyways heres the base now:



I started with sand and pva, base coated with steel legion drab, washed with agrax earthshade and highlighted with ushabti bone. Oh and the rim is rinox hide.

Have you considered changing the rhinox hide on the base to a green? Green seems to work really well with red BUT i know that "goblin green" bases are old news and they are not liked by everyone -- still I would give it a shot to see if it makes the red pop even more than it already does. Might even make those eyes pop even more too.

I have also had success complimenting red with gold but that tends to work better with darker reds (such as the dark red of the low light/shadows on your mini).

My two cents, model looks killer, keep up the good work.

That looks very well polished, congrats.

Very nice mate! I've just seen this and as I was reading the comments I was thinking grass for the traditional red/green contrast. It all works really well.

Are you going for an army of them? First dibs on a game when they are done

He's looking really nice, man! I really like the colour you chose for the gun, it works well with that red.

As for highlighting black, don't forget you can use other colours than just grey, too. Whatever colour you use, I find it also helps to have three shades of it, too - darker, mid, lighter. It helps build up the gradient more subtly, and you can also finish up with white if you want it to end up with some really bright points/corners. You can also use, say, orange and yellow to highlight red edges, or yellow on green, etc.

I did this guy just as a stupid fun wind-down thing to mess around with edge highlighting a little while ago, hopefully it'll show you what I mean.

My first thought was simply to take the way you've done the casing for the boltgun and apply it to the trim on the shoulder pads. You've got two greys almost right next to each other with no "echoes" in the rest of the colour choices. Changing the edging to be the same blue grey should tie it all together a bit better.

Love the eyes, a darker base than usual really gives it a lovely depth.

Skits - that is a fantastic model. Really good practice too!

If you want more examples of edge highlighting colours, the Dark Eldar schemes are pretty much all that, if you can find the How To's from their release, they're spectacular.

@LadyCassandra: Hee, thank you! I had a lot of fun with that guy - it was nice to mess around with something casual and stupid that I didn't need to put too much thought into! XD

And that's a really good point about the two different greys, too - I agree that making the pauldron trim the same grey as the gun would really tie things in better!

Again, thanks for the compliments

Ricimdi wrote:
Have you considered changing the rhinox hide on the base to a green?

I used to do the rims in green back in the day but Im not sure I want to go back to it . I'm really happy with the dark wood look the rinox hide has.

JamesY wrote:Very nice mate! I've just seen this and as I was reading the comments I was thinking grass for the traditional red/green contrast. It all works really well.
Are you going for an army of them? First dibs on a game when they are done

Yea that's the plan and Id definitely be up a game. Could we have our own feast of blades, on a slightly larger scale?

Skits wrote:He's looking really nice, man! I really like the colour you chose for the gun, it works well with that red.

As for highlighting black, don't forget you can use other colours than just grey, too.

LadyCassandra wrote:My first thought was simply to take the way you've done the casing for the boltgun and apply it to the trim on the shoulder pads. You've got two greys almost right next to each other with no "echoes" in the rest of the colour choices. Changing the edging to be the same blue grey should tie it all together a bit better.

Love the eyes, a darker base than usual really gives it a lovely depth.

Skits that model looks great. Gets me thinking of a jazzed up Tron haha.

As for the pauldrons, I might be being a bit anal about it but I was thinking of making this chapter a codex one. Black being the 5th company and I always wanted to combine black and red since my early ideas on the scheme and the grey was added to further break up the red and show up one of my early emblem designs. Although, I was considering of going for red or even gold as an alternative trims to black for the 2nd and 3rd companies. Even so I could try using more blue greys to highlight the black to set them apart. Could I go for russ grey/fenrissian grey? Would the difference be enough to distinguish them you reckon? I guess I could always leave out the extreme highlight with the lighter grey and just stick to the much darker eshin grey. Or is it not the highlighting of the black next to the grey of the inner pauldron not the problem but he fact I have 2 distinct greys (the light grey and gun casing) close together and nowhere else on the scheme?

Just in case you wanted to know, the casing is stegadon scale green, washed all over it with nuln oil. I then went straight to highlighting with russ grey and fenrissian grey.

LadyCassandra Thanks, I really enjoyed doing the eyes. I started with dark angels green -> warpstone glow -> yriel yellow. I was considering making them lighter and starting at warpstone glow but it might be a tad bit bright.

Ahh fair point about the pauldron trim, especially if it's gonna be different colours for other squads. In that case then, maybe do some other area of the model the same grey as the bolter? Perhaps some parts of the backpack, like the round vents or the central area that curves over the top. Just something to help tie the bolter's colour in with the armour's colours!

Im considering going back to black or a dark grey for the casing. Thing is I planned on using yellow for sergeant helmets and I think with too many different colours knocking around its gonna get ridiculous. Alternatively i could use the dark turqiouse as the sergeant head instead but its s bit too dark and doesnt stand out enough. Still im gonna make up some pilots to show.

Not a wasted exercise though as I plan on using the same colour with slightly different highlights alongside red in a Tau scheme Im cooking up.