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So, I've got one of my two newly acquired Knights ready to be painted, and the skeleton is assembled and painted. Now I have the carapace and armour plating to go, but I've hit a snag. I have no idea how to paint it.

I've said that I don't want a pre-made House, and I want it to be an Imperial house, rather than Mechanicus or Freeblade. I already collect Ultramarines, Deathwatch, Grey Knights and Cadians, and I don't exactly want my Knight to be painted too much like one of them (less so the Deathwatch or Grey Knights).

From what I can see, the back halves of the two shoulder pads are coloured red, if it's an Imperial House, with the front right being for personal heraldry. (Side question - which right is it? Is it the Knight's right, or the right as I'm looking at it?

As far as ideas go, I was thinking of calling the house House Smith. I have a rough idea of fluff for them (holding a strategic location around Ultramar, which saw action in both the Heresy and now in the 41st Millenium), with their sigil being an anvil. An idea of their iconography was a painted chain, with a new link added to each Knight for either every pilot, or every century the Knight had served the Imperium since discovery.

So, with the theme of smithing and some ties to Ultramar, what do you reckon the paint schemes should be?

From what I can see, the back halves of the two shoulder pads are coloured red,

Where ?

The Shoulder pads are supplied with 2 different Imperial Aquila Decals, a Black and a White. Who says you can't use whatever color would work with Black or White Decals ?

Ties to Ultramar may point to some Blue as part of the paint-scheme. Doesn't have to be the main colour.
You have blue, black,silver and green armies.....yellow or white for the knights if you want to make them stand out.?

Imperial Knights are like knights in space. So maybe a few Inspirations from Heraldry? UK should have such a thing still going...



Created a host of Knights ,crusading along my Black Templars. Gave them a Black & White paint-scheme, plus some red. The ones tied to the Mechanicum just got more red mixed in. Each of them got his own pattern and this seemed to fit well IMHO. Because I wanted them to look like a part of a greater assembly of forces and have some Black armies. And green and red.

 1hadhq wrote:

From what I can see, the back halves of the two shoulder pads are coloured red,

Where ?

The Shoulder pads are supplied with 2 different Imperial Aquila Decals, a Black and a White. Who says you can't use whatever color would work with Black or White Decals ?

Apparently Imperial houses have red pads, but AdMech houses have black? Not sure where I've seen that though.

Ties to Ultramar may point to some Blue as part of the paint-scheme. Doesn't have to be the main colour.
You have blue, black,silver and green armies.....yellow or white for the knights if you want to make them stand out.?

Imperial Knights are like knights in space. So maybe a few Inspirations from Heraldry? UK should have such a thing still going...

As far as I've seen for Smith heraldry, the main colours of tincture are black, red and blue (sable, gules and azure), with heraldic devices being the anvil, fleur-de-lis, cross pattée fitchée, mullet (five pointed star) and martlett (blackbird). I'd prefer to focus on the anvil, and perhaps the cross or martlett.

Really, I'm concerned about what the primary colour should be for the carapace, which I put the heraldic devices over.

GW's own paint schemes ( imperials ) in C:IK are split in 50% red pads and 50% black pads. I don't remember anything saying you have to use either red or black, so maybe the decision is yours?

Ad Mech always prefer Red, the colour of Mars. Black would be weird for their main symbol usually in Black&White wouldn't it ?


A red & blue scheme with a nice split ( because the knights armor supports this nicely ) and either black pads with white aquilas or blue pads with white aquilas ( more Ultramar'ish ) or black aquilas to keep the three colour system. ?

 1hadhq wrote:
GW's own paint schemes ( imperials ) in C:IK are split in 50% red pads and 50% black pads. I don't remember anything saying you have to use either red or black, so maybe the decision is yours?

Fair enough - red fits the tincture anyway!

A red & blue scheme with a nice split ( because the knights armor supports this nicely ) and either black pads with white aquilas or blue pads with white aquilas ( more Ultramar'ish ) or black aquilas to keep the three colour system. ?

With the red/blue split, would black be used as a colour to divide them? Or should I just use the splits on the carapace as my two halves?

House Smith sounds terribly...terribly boring. That's all I can say.

 Elbows wrote:
House Smith sounds terribly...terribly boring. That's all I can say.

That's fair enough!

I personally quite like the more "normal" sounding names, and the shorter, monosyllabic names create a more grounded and, I guess, impactful sound. Things like House Stark, for example - a short, blunt name. I guess that's kind of the thing I was going for with Smith, a more subdued and blunt name than "Terryn" or "Hawkshroud". After all, there really aren't that many Knight Houses I've seen with names like that. We have plenty of those more elegant and romanticised European Knight houses, with the French or Italian roots: I felt by having a more "common" name, it might break that mould. Plus, Smith allows for plenty of anvil and forge related imagery to boot.

Again, that's just my opinion, and if you think that's boring, you're more than welcome to it!