Chaos Space marines

heyhey123

New member
Hello I'm a pretty new painter and I am collecting chaos space marines. I would like to know what I could do to make them more than tabletop standard and
look better because I just think they look plain boring. Should I use Vallejo paints or games workshop paints?

Any advice on colours, techniques to use is welcome..

here is a screeny how they look now (I have not painted the daemon prince)

View attachment 13578
 

AndyG

Active member
They look nice, a good clean paint job you obviously have more than a modicum of talent.

Ok you asked for advice.

Paints it's a toss up realy which ever you can get your hands on easily is my advice GW are perfectly acceptable they have good coverage and an excellent range of colours a lot of top flight GD winners use them Jeremie B for one. For me though the Valejo range are slightly better and the bottle dispenser is definitely better than the flip top but hey the difference is very slight.

I'd push your highlites more for sure your contrast needs upping that is what makes your minis pop. Also faces and bases you realy want to push the highlites on the faces as they are the focal point of the mini.

Blending; this needs improving you need to graduate the changes in colours more smoothly so thin thin thin your paints and layer away. Each layer should be translucent so the lower layers showing through so it's smooth.

Spot colours add interest and help break up the overall image and draw attention to areas you want to emphasise ...but don't forget colour harmony which I won't get into here there's loads of articles out there on it.

Free hand and more involved bases help frame the mini and tell a story.

Copy the greats look here on C'MON gallery and blatantly copy what you like.

last and most importantly practice new techniques make sure you push yourself. Even if it doesn't work always aim to try something new.

Hope this helps;)
 

Willdorling

New member
They look nice, a good clean paint job you obviously have more than a modicum of talent.

Ok you asked for advice.

Paints it's a toss up realy which ever you can get your hands on easily is my advice GW are perfectly acceptable they have good coverage and an excellent range of colours a lot of top flight GD winners use them Jeremie B for one. For me though the Valejo range are slightly better and the bottle dispenser is definitely better than the flip top but hey the difference is very slight.

I'd push your highlites more for sure your contrast needs upping that is what makes your minis pop. Also faces and bases you realy want to push the highlites on the faces as they are the focal point of the mini.

Blending; this needs improving you need to graduate the changes in colours more smoothly so thin thin thin your paints and layer away. Each layer should be translucent so the lower layers showing through so it's smooth.

Spot colours add interest and help break up the overall image and draw attention to areas you want to emphasise ...but don't forget colour harmony which I won't get into here there's loads of articles out there on it.

Free hand and more involved bases help frame the mini and tell a story.

Copy the greats look here on C'MON gallery and blatantly copy what you like.

last and most importantly practice new techniques make sure you push yourself. Even if it doesn't work always aim to try something new.

Hope this helps;)

Just what andyg said....
 

heyhey123

New member
thanks for your reply

as for blending.. I really don't get it, I think its wetblending that frustrates me.. it just turns out awful and leaves stains of where the colour was, like a coffeestain on the mini if you get what I mean.. I find it very hard I just wish I knew the technique, lol
Maybe Chaos space marines aren't so blendable after all.. I tried to blend from grey to black but it turned out bad.

Do you have any suggestion of how I should do the highlights? I really dont like "overhighlighted" minis
 

AndyG

Active member
No don't do wet blending layer instead. This is the process of applying successive thinned down layers of paint each time covering slightly less area and also each time your paint mix is slightly lightened with a lighter paint mixed in so you go from dark to light.

Plenty of tutorials on the internet about it. I can't realy do a good wet blend yet either.

It sound like you have have too much paint on your brush too. Make sure to dab off any excess on a paper towel it means you only apply paint to the area you want to and you don't flood the mini with paint obliterating all your hard work and detail.

Practice practice practice and get a vid on painting too so you can see what's going on, have it running while your painting so you can refer directly to it. Also submit your work for criticism ( constructive) on the work in progress forum here on C'MON that way you will get feed back from the people here. Take a seen by seen set of photos and post it on the WIP well see we're your going wrong and were your going right. Ok dude that's about all I can suggest for now;)
 

heyhey123

New member
thanks mate.. I might try layering like you said..

do you have any suggestions on highlighting the black armor of my marines?
 

AndyG

Active member
Blacks a bugger to highlite the best thing to do is subtlety layer up through very similiar layers of ever so slightly lighter dark greys until in very small regions you end up with a light grey. Then give it a wash of thinned badab black to tie everything together.

Dragonsreach is very good at highliting blacks, leave a message for him on his page if he has time he might be able to help you better than me.
 
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heyhey123

New member
so I basically pick up for example a darker grey and a slightly lighter grey then layer the darker grey and put a thinner line inside with ligher grey? or should I blend from black to grey?
 

AndyG

Active member
Sort of black base coat covering all the region then mix a tiny bit of codex grey into the black paint and make sure it's thinned down at leat 2 to 1 water to paint mix then cover say 80% of the region then repeat with a bit more grey added in but only cover 70% so on and so forth each time adding more grey and reducing the area you cover until you end up with grey/white on say 10% of the original area so you go black........dark grey......grey.......light grey.....lighter grey.....whitey grey......grey/white.....almost white......near as damn it white. Then give it a wash of badab black to tie everything together. Make sure you let each layer dry before you add the next one otherwise you will mess it up.patience is key here. Also not too much paint on the brush
 

heyhey123

New member
sounds very advance, I might give it a try, should I repeat the process for all the areas where highlighting is included? like the legs, chest, head etc?
ty for the advice will definately try it
 

AndyG

Active member
Yep but not so much on areas of shadow. Nah not realy that advanced as you've thinned the paint down and removed excess paint it doesn't take a long time to dry and you can rattle through it quite quick
 

AndyG

Active member
Crisp up the crease of the armour were the shoulder pad meets the raised edge and that will help define the section use a thin line of chaos black. You def need better photos for me to see what's going on can't realy tell as its out of focus.
 

Patyrn

New member
here is my attempt at the blending, it turned out a bit grey and took quite some time..
also, is it common that after a wash of Badab black, the model becomes matte? like its dust on it?

You really have to take some better photos. It's hard to tell what's going on. As for making your minis more dramatic, I highly recommend trying out zenithal highlighting. Your minis don't appear to be lit, and zenithal is a really easy way to achieve it. You've clearly got the necessary brush control, so I think some simple techniques would vastly improve the overall result.

Here's a short tutorial talking about zenithal highlighting: http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-to-do-basic-zenithal-highlighting.html

There's also a really nice video on miniaturementor.com on the topic, but it's not free.
 

Dragonsreach

Super Moderator
Staff member
Dragonsreach is very good at highliting blacks, leave a message for him on his page if he has time he might be able to help you better than me.
Jeez Andy set me up for an epic fail mate :claply:.

HeyHey123; Since I've been stiched up here :) I'll try to not let you down. I've painted a lot of Chaos marines and learn't a few things about what not to do.
Patyrn suggests Zenithal lighting (Priming) which for Black will be of little use (brighter colours yep its great). My suggestion is you have a wander around and look at Black automobiles especially the curves which reflect the sky. If you're lucky (and don't live near Manchester) you might see Blue sky reflected in the curve now that is what I'd suggest you could do to mimic the reflectivity of the armour on a Shoulder Pad.
Mix a little dark blue into the black and paint the top curve of the shoulder pad.
Then add more blue and paint a smaller highlight.
Finish with a thin highlight of either Mordian Blue (or whatever its called now) or Ultramarine Blue and if you want to be really spiffy a spot of white as a "flare".

Of course there is an alternative trick I've seen used, paint a pale grey curve on the top of the shoulder pad, place a white dot at the highest point you can and Gloss varnish the whole thing.
 

heyhey123

New member
thanks for the tip dragonsreach and patyrn!!

black seems hard to get a dramatic look with, Ill try that reflecting the sky tip.. if all else fails, I can do dark grey/lighter grey where the light would hit.. >.<
 

Patyrn

New member
Patyrn suggests Zenithal lighting (Priming) which for Black will be of little use (brighter colours yep its great).

You can still use it with black, you just have to use different colors. Perhaps a coal black, purple, or any of the other colors people use to highlight black.
 

RuneBrush

New member
I was reading the other day that one way of painting black is to actually not paint black - paint the core colour an "off black" and then shade with pure black and highlight. It makes sense actually, if I look round on my desk I'm surrounded by things I'd call "black" - computer keyboard, monitor, mouse, cash drawer, epos till (don't ask), telephone, coffee mat, trousers, leather jacket. None of them are actually the same black and none of them super black either (apart from my trousers).

Also different surfaces reflect differently. For example the highlight on my monitor has a beige colour in, my leather jacket is more of a brown/grey. None of them reflect neat grey though.
 

heyhey123

New member
I tryed a few techniques.. also tryed painting it dark grey, and shade it then wash it.. it came out grey, so I went back to chaos black and used some dark grey and a lighter grey inside it at some points.. this because I've heard that the surface has to be 75% black for it to appear black to the eye.. and shading from 75% from black to white is rather tricky or hard for an amateur atleast so I went for the darker grey/lighter grey highlight.. its only a space marine, it would probably work on larger stuff like a dreadnought, tanks etc since you got more space to shade
 
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