An Unsolicited Tutorial on Painting My Space Marines

Anytime I go to the coffee shop, or grocery store, or nail salon, it’s almost a guarantee that I’ll overhear a conversation about how drab the Dark Angels (DA) army can be. Dark green doesn’t leave a lot of room for details or shadow, unless you want to lighten up the green – but eldar already exist, so we don't need another army that looks gay. (ZING!!) Even in junior high, I recognized this was a problem and embraced the [silly] predisposition that space marines have toward bright red guns. Not only were my guns red, but my shoulder and knee pads too. This was a fine secondary color, I felt, until someone conjured up some yuletide insults. I pondered this for a little while (10 years) and have decided to go in a new direction.
















Intrigued by the inclusion of bleached bone for deathwing terminators (exclusive to the DA chapter) but never quite able to make it work in the past, I have now decided to incorporate that end of the palette, save red for a blood angels army some day, and tackle the european renaissance-esque split color paint scheme for my modern tactical marines and a “newly” purchased dreadnought. I feel this successfully maintains the DA namesake color, introduces the tans that I avoided in my youth, and stands to give the army a more mature appearance too.

For consideration and critique, I’ve included a rudimentary rundown of my updated tactical marine painting process below.

Stage 1 – Miniature prep and priming. Using standard nail clippers with a file, I trim excess material and file convexities down to a satisfactory level. I’m not much for puddying or modification yet, so sometimes I have little pits where the plastic tore away with the sprue etc. I’ll generally try to fill these concavities in using a little extra paint later on. (Microsoft word has just confirmed for me that convexities and concavities ARE both words.)

Once the mini is smooth, it’s time to prime – sorry for the rhyme… again. I haven’t always used primer, but in recent years I’ve grown to appreciate it for its dry humor and aid in applying brush-delivered paint more evenly - raw plastic and pewter will sometimes absorb or otherwise weird-out some paint, and the primer gives you a consistently cooperative foundation.

I’m a big fan of gray primer because it allows for the tones that I grew used to from painting plastic directly rather than brightening (white) the colors or adding shadow (black). If the entire mini were going to be the same color, I’d probably just prime it DA green. Lastly, I prime very lightly, because there is nothing more frustrating than losing detail before you’ve even laid brush to space murderer. I apply just a dash so that I can see the detail and muck it up on my own later.


Stage 2 – Base coats. This stage involves a bit less talking but a steadier hand. As can be seen here, I’ve decided to split the marines down the middle and alternate their shoulder pads. I recommend visualising your middle line and using whatever method allows a steadier hand to sketch a boundary to one side of that imaginary midline. Once my green boundary is there, I’ll carefully fill in near it and then fill in the rest of that surface with general recklessness. Adding the second color WILL disturb your boundary, but as long as you have a straight line near the middle, it’s best not to stress over it - touch it up a bit and move on. I’m using two citadel foundation colors that are actually darker than the classic citadel bleached bone and dark angels green (I start with Devlan Mud and Orkhide Shade). Citadel’s Foundation line of paints is meant for base coating and goes on strong in one coat with minimal fuss. They are awesome.


Stage 3 – Uhh, Main stage? This is sort of like the “Standard Action” of painting. The Dark Angels Green and Bleached bone go on to lighten the foundation colors, adding some depth, and I add warlock purple to the eye lenses, black trim, and some manner of gold for the Aquila (its latin for eagle, read a book). The bulk of satisfaction comes here, as the mini really takes shape. In the spirit of self-advocacy, I’ll point out that I love the black “crest” on the top of the helmet and how it breaks up the division of tan and green. Something about that region of the mini really does it for me in what might be described as an artistic way if I had any artistic credentials whatsoever.


Stage 4 – Finishing touches. Some black and brown washes find their way onto the green and tan surfaces, respectively, and it turns out space marines want hands and a gun, so I’d better whip those up too!

Newsflash: guns are black.

For fun, and to give some detail distinction, I’ll drybrush silver over the gun edges and hit up some of the bolts. I’m sort of boring with my bases, so no flock or rocks, et cetera, just some green paint, and I haven’t finished a backpack for him yet because I sort of hate painting these backpacks.

In case you forgot the four stages already.

And lastly, a look at my old scheme and new scheme flanking my fancypants scheme for veteran DA marines.