Dark Angel color test

[Jericho]

Hello everybody,

I picked up the new Dark Angels army box (technically I traded in some old \"investments\" I made when working at GW and had a discount ) and I was looking at moving beyond my Deathwing pipe dream a bit. Now that you can mix Deathwing, Ravenwing, and regular Marines pretty much however the hell you want, I need to reevaluate my paint schemes

I\'ve always envisioned the Dark Angels as being much more dark and brooding than the official color scheme (and old Citadel paint range) used to allow. With that in mind I whipped up the following test fig out of a half-painted and scavenged for parts old Ravenguard mini

The guy works fine as a test fig (maybe 1.5 hours of work in there), but the real ones would probably be a little bit more carefully blended.

The armor is based around a 50/50 Catachan and Dark Angels Green mixture. Shaded heavily with black, and hilighted up to a 2/3 Codex Grey level.

The 50/50 Catachan and Dark Angels is the little edge hilight on the back of the knee if you\'re curious.

The other colors on the guys will be much more muted than traditional Dark Angels. The reds being Blood Red shaded with a Scorched Brown/Black mixture (works great), bone being based around Graveyard Earth instead of something more bright and shiny, and the robes will probably be more grey than bone.

I really want to paint up the LE captain that came in the box, and was looking for a little feedback on the shade of green I\'ve come up with before I get started on him. Thanks in advance

 

[electrolito 77]

Yeah dude Dark Angels rule!!!! Now, the scheme works for me man. I am doing the same thing but I am re-painting my Army slowly as you can see on my WIP thread . I thought about using a really dark scheme but I decided to go for an easy quick way out (hence the almost neon colors ). I like yours very much though. I just dont want to be painting my guys for 3 years before I can play with a fully painted Army again. I want an Army box so bad but I still have a gazziliion bikes and speedrs to paint... and the Deathwing Army is next so... yeah I hate you and NO you cant have my Chaplain on Bike

 

[Jericho]

Hahah I just had to try though

I really want to build one for myself, but you can\'t use the bloody thing in the new army. That\'s my biggest problem with the new book, you can\'t take anything other than Master of the Ravenwing on a bike.

Anyway I\'m thinking about weathering these guys up a bit as well... not a huge amount of paint chips and scratches but maybe a few of them and some stains/dust and whatnot around the boots. I think I\'m gonna have fun with this army... until I blow my brains out

I now have like 4-5 armies on the go again. Ravenguard that need finishing, Tau that barely got off the ground, Wood Elves that are really starting to get close, Dogs of War which are permanently WIP, and now these guys. Wow! I seem to remember swearing to myself I wouldn\'t do that anymore

Oh yeah, and Warmachine. Can\'t forget Khador

 

[JakeSh]

I really like it! That is a great tone.

 

[Phesmic]

I hate you dan, So much! Now lets add Dark Angels on to my list of possible conflict projects...

Looks slick.

 

[Ghaffasa]

I spot some rough areas where the blending could be better. Mainly on the back of the miniature. Although it seems you are already aware of this.
I think the colour scheme is AWESOME! Great work! :beer:

 

[Jericho]

The back I didn\'t really worry about because on a normal model it would be covered by arms/shoulder pads/backpacks... and this particular model had that area crudely hacked up with an Xacto knife in an attempt to force fit a warped metal lascannon

Yeah the guy was in pretty rough shape when I started and I didn\'t give him 100% of my care and attention when slapping paint, but I\'m certainly glad you approve of the color

 

[lono]

It\'s far too light a green for a Dark Angel in my opinion. This would be good on a Salamander, but I think Dark Angels should be dark! It is just my opinion though, and I still kinda wish Dark Angels were black like they used to be so I may not be the best judge.

If you are happy with the tone then no probs, but fluff wise I think he is a bit bright.

 

[Jericho]

Isn\'t he quite a bit darker than standard DA though?

He\'s an absolute ton darker than Salamanders, I have about 1200 points worth of them to compare him to

There are a few spots on the model that have less shading than I would\'ve liked, maybe that\'s what you mean.

 

[Gilvan Blight]

I agree with Iono, I grew up with Dark Angels being black. This seems very light to me. I couldn\'t tell you how it matches the fluff though, as I can\'t keep up with the ever changing Warhammer background.

 

[lono]

For me a standard Dark Angel is predominantly Dark Angels Green. The easy way to do this is sharp edge highlights with a lighter colour and leaving almost all the rest DAG.

I can see you are going for something a bit more realistic here though, so that won\'t work.

I think the problem for me is that the highlight colour (well OK, the base colour what with you working the darker tones in with shading) has become too prominent. For this sort of effect I think you need to start with a DAG and Chaos Black mix, take it up to DAG, with lighter mixes only coming in at the very edges.

 

[Jericho]

That\'s a good point. I haven\'t painted Marines this dark before so I think I did use a bit too much of the midtone. More than I meant to anyway. I\'ll try to keep that in mind as I move on to more serious Marines. They will be a bit darker than this.

Thanks for the help, I understand your point better now and I agree