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I didn't get much feedback in the other thread so I thouht I would try again here (I posted my first "showcase" here and got a lot of feedback while my second post was in the showcase section and only got one reply).

Story so far: After being an Ork player and painter for a while I decided I wanted to paint my first space marine army. I've never painted a full army before and my work on orks isn't exsactly clean (as Orks should be messy!). However, I do suffer from very shaky hands that always get in the way of painting so I tried to pick a paint scheme that focuses on messy and dry brushing.

My army: I picked a chapter called Shadow Wolves. They are an official chapter in 40k lore but are mostly extinct and mentioned only like 3 times in the books. This gives me a lot of room to make my own characters and story behind the chapter. So I went with the idea that the chapter uses mostly 30k tecknolgy after scrounging around for years with no home world or reinforcements. They're very dirty (both in looks and tactics) focusing more on the religious side of warfare (as their beliefs have kept them going throughout the ages). This is, therefore, why the leader of the chapter is a chaplain (I'm playing based on lore not competitiveness). In the official lore the chapter was last seen fighting for cadia on cadia so this opened up the idea that the chapter was rewarded with new primaris marines for long need reinforcements.

Colour scheme: I had previous criticism in my last post saying that my army looked too dull because of the simple purple and silver scheme. Although I fully understand what the guy was saying and appreciate the feedback, I am fully devoted to the lore aspects of my army. Therefore, I am sticking to the official colours given to the chapter by the orginal gw writer for his partner. In addition, this is my first army fully painted by me so I don't expect it to be propainted nor amazing but always welcome criticism and advice on how to improve while accounting for my limitations. But please remember I am going for an army that just looks depressed and beaten down (for Emperor's sake, their world was eaten by the tyranids! I'd be pretty down after that XD). As I said earlier my shaky hands results in my constantly redoing lines and mistakes and clogging up my models even eith thinned down paints so this time I went for a technique of mostly layering and drybrushing.

This is what the standard marine will look like. This was the first model I painted months ago so I have changed a lot of what I feel my army should look like.


Here is what my marines will look like now as standard:


Here is my Dreadnought. The bases to my models are meant to represent their home world which I imagine would be nothing but ash and torn up weapons/armour after defence against the endless waves of tyranids:


Here is my chaplain HQ. There isn't much going on here just a HQ who only wants to kill after the yesrs of struggle. His armour is filthy and worn from grime and ash.


Here is my Prime Lt.. this represents the new reinforcements who are clean and haven't seen the horror the older marines have. (I noticed a problem with the paint on his chest i have since fixed).


Here is my Prime Ancient. In the lore the banner was the last thing standing as the marine holding it was keeping it stood up as he was eaten alive by the tyranids swarm. So this new primaris ancient represents new life into a the chapter while holding a dirty worn and faded banner


I couldn't find a model for a Librarian HQ that fit with my idea of a worn out scavenged marine so i dug about in my old collection and had a old OOP Librarian that was a mixture of OOP metal parts. Most of the paint here is the original paint from the 90s with just small touch ups by me.:

Here is a size comparison of the old OOP termi and the new Prim marines:


Finally, I had an old OOP metal Dreadnought from a Dark Angels collection that I absolutely love. It's just stupidly heavy (being fully made of metal) and I needed to include it in my army. I slapped some new paint on it (over the older paint) and gave it a wash and even added a Shadow Wolves backpack. The story is that my Chapter found him along the way and he tagged along. Couldn't think of anything original so maybe some better suggestions might be needed:

The purple isn't bad but could really do with a highlight to make it pop a bit. As is they don't look dirty and weathered so much as just dull.

I'd recommend a little sponge-chipping with a lighter purple - quick and easy, and it would give them that little bit more definition.


In addition, from a lore perspective - where did they get Primaris marines? If these guys are forgotten remnants of an extinct world, who popped over to deliver top-of-the-line new primaris marines?

PossumCraft wrote:
The purple isn't bad but could really do with a highlight to make it pop a bit. As is they don't look dirty and weathered so much as just dull.

I'd recommend a little sponge-chipping with a lighter purple - quick and easy, and it would give them that little bit more definition.


In addition, from a lore perspective - where did they get Primaris marines? If these guys are forgotten remnants of an extinct world, who popped over to deliver top-of-the-line new primaris marines?

On what areas of the armour would you do the chipping?

And they're not fully forgotten. The Black Templars fought alongside them in defence of their home world and mention them fondly few times in the books. I imagine the Templars put in a good word to pappa smurf when they saw them still comming to the defence of cadia even after losing like 90% of their chapter.

 lolman1c wrote:

On what areas of the armour would you do the chipping?

All over, heavier where there are raised and exposed edges that would realistically take more of a beating.

PossumCraft wrote:

 lolman1c wrote:

On what areas of the armour would you do the chipping?

All over, heavier where there are raised and exposed edges that would realistically take more of a beating.

So i just get my highlight colour and dab it on?

 lolman1c wrote:

PossumCraft wrote:

 lolman1c wrote:

On what areas of the armour would you do the chipping?

All over, heavier where there are raised and exposed edges that would realistically take more of a beating.

So i just get my highlight colour and dab it on?

Test it first, I would also use ironbreaker, or any dark silver to make it look like the paint stripped off, don't go to berserk though, get a sponge or foam from blister pack dab in paint dry most of it off then lightly apply.

Less is more with chipping

 lolman1c wrote:


So i just get my highlight colour and dab it on?

As above, good idea to practise on a test model or bit of old plastic etc, and take most of the paint off the sponge onto a tissue before applying but then, yes, essentially 'dab it on' is all there is to it.

Sponge-ing is one of the simplest weathering methods about - quick and easy.