Painting Raven Guard (Black Scheme)

[lancealot005]

Hey everyone...thanks for reading this post...

I'm doing a Raven Guard space marine army and I need some opinions on a good way to paint a mostly black color scheme. I was thinking of base coating in white, then dark gray or blue followed by black. I figured i could leave the edges that I want to be highlighted exposed and cover the rest with black. I am in no way a professional painter and this idea is just something that I put together from looking at different blogs and such. Thanks to all of you who respond!!

~Lancealot005

[Skipper]

A more easy way would be: priming with black and highlighting all edges with fortress grey

[Izzinatah]

One would assume that black primer would be pretty much essential for a black colour scheme unless you have a LOT of spare time.

[Wraith]

Originally Posted by Skipper

A more easy way would be: priming with black and highlighting all edges with fortress grey

True, though you really should paint a thin coat of black on top again, the primer looks pretty crude without a thinned coat of black to even it out a bit. Either way, prime black - SOOOOO much easier!

Greys work fine for highlights, try some white for extreme pointy spots and such... And Shadow Grey - the blue-ish tone to it really makes it look like a real glint off the edge of the armour.

[Tsele]

As everyone said. Black primer. Then black ink... then to the edges Codex Grey and final highlight with Fortress Grey...

It sound awfully painful and long taking but it isn't actually! Once you get the hang of it...

[NaOH]

I can see why you want to take the long way round, black can look VERY cool if done with care. If you want the easy way round do what these guys are saying. However your way should turn out pretty good looking, all be it time consuming.

Try playing around with blues too, since black is (apparently) only an extremly dark shade of another colour.

[lancealot005]

sweet...any other opinions would work too...like i said im a painting nooby so yea...

[Lost Nemesis]

Check out minus_t's Black Dragon blog, he may have some tips thrown in there: http://www.librarium-online.com/foru...army-blog.html

[minus_t]

Warning: The above blog is a SPAM heavy zone.
Enter at your own risk.

There are probably some helpful tips and/or hints in there somewhere, but there is also a lot of gumpf.
As a quick and easy solution, here is a pic of one of my finished marines:



The method is thus:
Paint (almost) everything that isn't black first. I tend to do it in this order: Base, metalics, white/stone.
Then clean up all and any mistakes you may have made with plain ol' black (I use Vallejo Model Colour black, as it is a little more 'matte' than the GW Chaos Black).
Then, splosh some black onto a pallette and mix in a teeny tiny bit of Codex Grey. I mean, teeny. The paint should be almost indistinguishable from black. Apply this to the top 2/3rds of every armour section, leaving a fine line of pure black right at the top. Then mix in more grey, and repeat, leaving a little of the previous layer showing at the bottom.
Rinse and repeat until you have about 50/50 black/grey.
Finally, mix up a little more paint at about 1/3 grey/black, so significantly lighter than the previous highlighting, but much darker than pure Codex Grey.
Use this mix to add a final 'edge' highlight to any particulaly sharp edges, or areas that need a little definition.

It might sound long-winded, but I think the results are worth it.

-t.