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I'm running through various ideas for chapter colours before I commit to painting. Two ready made chapters I liked were the Death Strike and Rainbow Warriors (mostly because of their insanely awesome Chapter Badge), but I'm also considering doing my own. I wanted to try a colour that hasn't been used in one of the main chapters, and the one colour I don't see often is purple. Anyone know of any purple chapters?

I tried it out on the painter, along with a dark blue version:




That's a member of the third company, so I can change the shoulder trim if needs be. The white kneepad is also an experimental idea. What do you guys think?

Soul drinkers? also the hawklords apparently.

also the second one looks very crimson fisty

you could probably pull of purple

also orange is significantly underused.

Purple and creme/ivory as a quartered pattern would look freakin' tits.

The light purple is reminiscent of Emperors Children (they were that purple but with gold trim too), the darker one does look a little like Crimson Fists.

One thing that would work nice if you fancied a more challenging scheme would be to paint a white stripe right down the middle of the light purple one, from helm to groin. You rarely see such schemes but that would look pretty cool, breaking up the mono-colour with an eye drawing feature. Or on the same theme, paint a black stripe down the middle and rather than using a flat purple colour use a clear purple (FW do a clear purple) over a grey basecoat with heavy black wash to create a smokey and patchy effect. You should get a sort of shifting smokey purple with multiple shades beneath it. And the stripe to focus your eyes on.

As for other colours, apart from orange I can't think of any other colour that hasn't been used a bunch already across the many chapters. You'd have to go into weird colours, like odd shades of tourquoise or browns or something.

 Elbows wrote:
Purple and creme/ivory as a quartered pattern would look freakin' tits.

You're absolutely right:

Demantiae wrote:
The light purple is reminiscent of Emperors Children (they were that purple but with gold trim too), the darker one does look a little like Crimson Fists.

One thing that would work nice if you fancied a more challenging scheme would be to paint a white stripe right down the middle of the light purple one, from helm to groin. You rarely see such schemes but that would look pretty cool, breaking up the mono-colour with an eye drawing feature. Or on the same theme, paint a black stripe down the middle and rather than using a flat purple colour use a clear purple (FW do a clear purple) over a grey basecoat with heavy black wash to create a smokey and patchy effect. You should get a sort of shifting smokey purple with multiple shades beneath it. And the stripe to focus your eyes on.

As for other colours, apart from orange I can't think of any other colour that hasn't been used a bunch already across the many chapters. You'd have to go into weird colours, like odd shades of tourquoise or browns or something.

Oh ho, now this sounds interesting! So wait, you would use a grey basecoat, then wash it black followed by the purple? Or does the purple come first? And does FW's paint require an airbrush?

This patchy effect sounds perfect. See I'm interested in the idea of camo marines but I can never get away from their philosophy of 'what the enemy sees they learn to fear'. This sounds like the perfect compromise. I play Destiny, and the heavy class (Titans) have some 'camo' armor that's really gaudy colours. I think this sort of thing could work for the marines too.

I've not tried it myself and it's only a theory on how it should work but I think it'd work. You'd have to airbrush the purple (you apply it after the basecoat and wash). you can brush the purple on but it goes much darker and opaque that way. When you airbrush clear paint over metallic you get a metallic effect on the clear top layer. So I'm using the principle of pre-shading and the effects it creates to do something similar.

That quartered ivory/purple looks swank as fook! not diggin the green trim though, you might try going off codex for company colours or going with a different way to ID them on the battlefield.

Yeah I think with the creme/purple you'd be better off with bronze/copper/brass trim? Either way I do think it looks pretty baller

(confession: LOVE quartered marine looks, lol)

I've never used an airbrush on a miniature before. Maybe it's time I did. Do the forge world ones work in the GW airbrush or have they got their own?

And this quartered pattern is growing on me I have to admit. It seems tricky to do though. Any suggestions on making the process easier? Would you still recommend doing to smokey effect on the quartered pattern? And yeah, the green is awful on it. Metallic all the way!

Oh, and another thing; space marine vehicles. I've never really liked them being painted up in chapter colours. I know this is stupid but to me it just seemed...stupid. . Has anyone ever seen or done them differently? I remember once seeing a razorback in WD painted in a city grey, only carrying the chapter colours on the door. What do you guys think of something like that?

A neutral colour on the vehicles would be fine - just toss on a chapter logo or a matching door or something. Very common, particularly back in Rogue Trader days when (gasp) Space Marines etc. actually painted their machines and armour in camouflage to blend into an environment.

When I did some quartered marines I went with a spray of the light colour and brushed on the darker colour - so make sure you find a good paint with solid coverage etc. It's not terribly hard. You could also try to mask with tape and airbrush both colours but that may even be harder?

 Future War Cultist wrote:
I've never used an airbrush on a miniature before. Maybe it's time I did. Do the forge world ones work in the GW airbrush or have they got their own?

And this quartered pattern is growing on me I have to admit. It seems tricky to do though. Any suggestions on making the process easier? Would you still recommend doing to smokey effect on the quartered pattern? And yeah, the green is awful on it. Metallic all the way!

Oh, and another thing; space marine vehicles. I've never really liked them being painted up in chapter colours. I know this is stupid but to me it just seemed...stupid. . Has anyone ever seen or done them differently? I remember once seeing a razorback in WD painted in a city grey, only carrying the chapter colours on the door. What do you guys think of something like that?

I remember seeing a Dark Angels army in a White Dwarf (probably) that had some Rhinos painted with a kind of honeycomb pattern in a bronze-y brown colour. It was quite striking, and I've often considered painting some vehicles in their own unique scheme.

I really like that quartered colour layout.

 Elbows wrote:
A neutral colour on the vehicles would be fine - just toss on a chapter logo or a matching door or something. Very common, particularly back in Rogue Trader days when (gasp) Space Marines etc. actually painted their machines and armour in camouflage to blend into an environment.

When I did some quartered marines I went with a spray of the light colour and brushed on the darker colour - so make sure you find a good paint with solid coverage etc. It's not terribly hard. You could also try to mask with tape and airbrush both colours but that may even be harder?

They had more sense back then.

I think marine tanks would look good in realistic schemes. You see how IG tanks tend to have their company stripes on the turret or hull? I think I could do the same here but with chapter colours instead.
And in the case of the marines, I guess I'd spray them the ivory colour and paint on the purple?

craggy wrote:
I remember seeing a Dark Angels army in a White Dwarf (probably) that had some Rhinos painted with a kind of honeycomb pattern in a bronze-y brown colour. It was quite striking, and I've often considered painting some vehicles in their own unique scheme.

I really like that quartered colour layout.

Sounds cool. I think I may have seen that actually, as it seems vaguely familiar. Either way, I think Marine tanks look better in realistic colours. It's strange but whilst I think colourful power armor is great, on tanks the same effects look silly. At least to me.

The quartered pattern is really growing on me too, but the purple is proving controversial with some I know.