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Greetings dakka peeps,

I just ordered a large bunch of Warriors of Chaos and I really want them to give off that "slaves to darkness" feel once finished. I'm thinking about painting them in different shades of black which I'd build up with dark blue and green colours, but I've got no clue on how to do that. The examples of shades I'm thinking of that can be found on GW's website are Chaos Knights' steed skin/fur, that mutated skin stuff on some of the Chaos Knights' shields, Daemon Princes' wing leather and the way Dorghar (the horse) used to be painted while on GW's website.
Any tips'd be tremendous. Cheers!

The skin on the horse looks to be Incubi Darkness with a Nuln Oil wash and then another base coat on the flat surfaces. Then either highlight with Sotek Green or Kabalite Green,

The fur on the hooves could be Mecahincus Standard Grey, also washed with Nuln oil and then highlight with Eshin Grey and then another highlight (or dry brush) with Dawnstone or a similar color dry compound.

Don't forget that a lot of the stuff you see on their Website is wet blended by the best of the best (I think, at least) so there is a lot of technique involved. Hope that helps!

Thanks, this sure does help! I was thinking along some similar lines, but felt more inclined to go after dark reaper on abbadon black and then washing the whole thing, with appropriate highlights afterwards. Will sure try out this method too though!

Maybe I'm not sure which horses you're talking about (can you provide a link?) but none of the Chaos Knight steeds or the old Dorghar look green enough to have been incubi darkness.

I'd suggest they were mostly likely done by basecoating black and then gradually highlighting up to shadow grey, maybe finish off with a wash of Nuln Oil.

The trick with those dark colours is to still highlight up to a reasonably light colour, but focus the highlights more in smaller regions so you avoid making the whole thing look too light.

EDIT: My mistake, must have been looking at the wrong picture. The Chaos Steeds are slightly more greenish than blueish. They are possibly basecoated black, a couple of highlights working up to Incubi Darkness then a couple more highlights mixing white in to Incubi Darkness, I don't think they're Sotek Green or Kabalite Green highlights, they're much more pale than that. Maybe Sybarite Green. Maybe washed black somewhere in the middle, I'd save my black wash to either the very end or just before doing the final highlight.

@AllSeeingSkink, I will definitely try this out too, a lot of horses out there to paint! However, i was thinking about only working with abba black, incubi darknes and various greys (I've got quite a few of them from the old paint range but can't recall the names, it's been quite some time since I've picked up the brush), and, if I'd go the sybarite green route, should I leave it for the final highlight or work it in somewhere in between?

I don't actually own Sybarite Green so I'm not sure, I'd simply mix white in with the incubi darkness because from incubi darkness I'd want it to go more pale, just looking at the colours on the website Sybarite seems to be the most pale of the bunch which is why I mentioned it.

Honestly I'd just go by feel, I'd have black, incubi green and white on my palette and just mix them to get a handful of colours to use for the various levels of highlights.

For the basecoat I wouldn't use pure black, I'd mix in just a touch of incubi to tint it just ever so slightly green. Then the highest edge highlight would be white with just a touch of incubi in it to green it down, then mix the inbetween colours as you need.

The trick is how you distribute the colours, covering most the model in the darker colours and saving the edge highlights for the light colours will make it look dark, covering most the model in the pale colours and saving the dark colours for the deepest recesses will make it look lighter with the exact same colours.

Just bought a bottle of Incubi Darknes, and it looks green enough to do the job, I probably won't be bothering with sybarite green. Cheers!

Do you have an example of what you want to make it look like?

Here is a link:
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Chaos-Knights-2016

If you look at the second pic (the one you can rotate), the legs have a green tinge.

@Mdlbuildr, that's what I was thinking of. Tbh I haven't read the forum rules about posting links yet, hence no links in my previous posts.

Mdlbuildr wrote:
Here is a link:
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Chaos-Knights-2016

If you look at the second pic (the one you can rotate), the legs have a green tinge.

Honestly looks more blue to me. I would try getting furisan (spelling?) gray. It's a bluish gray, looks like he based in black, the glazed in the blueish gray up to the highest point, then highlighted with lighter shade of gray then probably washed in in nullin oil.

That's just a guess though.

What do you want to "convey" with that black?
That little bit of tint decides the literal "tone" you want the model to have and you should start working with a grey.

- Red: demonic (Khorne)
- Green: Rot, ghostly (Nurgle)
- Blue: (lighter) mystical, "energy", unworldly. more "clean" look. (Tzenitch)
- Brown: Old, more "natural" looking (John Blanche kind of palette) remember this color is a mix of orange and blue. (Iron Warriors kinda, though black / yellow trim).
- Purple: Regal. (Slanesh)

So I think it depends on the brand of chaos you wish to represent.