Raven Guard Painting Tutorial

Introduction
During the process of blogging the creation of my Raven Guard army Shadow
Force Dragomir on the Bolter & Chainsword Ive had a few of requests for a
tutorial on how I paint my Marines.
As a result Ive created this tutorial for those interested in how I paint my Raven
Guard. The aim for Shadow Force Dragomir has been to paint a playable army
within a year so our mantra is 'play, not display!' and our goal is a high quality
tabletop miniature to game with.
Now, being lazy and an aficionado of good painting/modelling tutorials I'll link you
to the B&C Moderator OwlandMoonGuy's excellent pre-painting primer article
posted to the Librarium there -Cleaning, Preparing (& Converting) Models instead
of taking photos of my preparation and building phases. My prep/assembly
process is essentially the same as OMG's so follow his guide and you'll have a good
base to work from. If you're new to modelling/painting also take a look at
OMG's Common Issues for New Modeller's thread, there are some great tips for
beginners in there.

Paint, Mediums & Brushes

Before painting begins Ill run you through the basic colour recipes Ill be using and
the paints, brushes and mediums that will be involved in the process.
Brushes:

Fig.1 Brushes

A Privateer Work Brush and a Kappel size 0 Kolinsky sable brush will take care of
our brush needs for this mini. For the base I usually just grab a beaten and
battered old brush for drybrushing the rubble and sand etc.
At the end of each painting session I wash my brushes thoroughly, change my
water and then use The Masters Brush Cleaner to make sure that the brushes are
kept in tip-top condition.

Mediums:
I use a range of mediums to help me with my painting process. The acrylic thinner
is used for thinning obviously, if you havent got acrylic thinners then distilled
water or even tap water will do much the same job. The retarder helps slow the
drying process and is great for doing really simple wet-blending whilst the flow
medium helps keep the consistency at the right level and helps the paints flow
smoothly from brush to mini.
Any good art store will have retarder and flow aid available and they should also
be able to provide some form of brush soap as well.
In addition to mixing these mediums with paint on the palette I often add them
straight to paint containers to thin them out and make them a little more usable
straight from the pot.

Paints:
Below is a list of the main paints Ill be using during this tutorial:
Black

White

Yellow

Green

Basing

Citadel Chaos Black

Citadel Badab Black Wash
Citadel Black Wash
Citadel Foundation Adeptus Battle Grey
Citadel Foundation Astronomicon Grey
Vallejo Pale Grey Wash
Reaper Dragon White
Citadel Foundation Calthan Brown
Citadel Foundation Tausept Ochre
Citadel Foundation Iyanden Darksun
Vallejo Game Colour Gold Yellow
Vallejo Game Colour Sunblast Yellow
Vallejo Model Colour 915 Deep yellow
Citadel Foundation Orkhide Shade
Vallejo Game Colour Dark Green
Citadel Snot Green
Citadel Scorpion Green
Citadel Foundation Charadon Granite
Citadel Foundation Khemri Brown
MiG Weathering Powder Industrial City Dirt
Citadel Foundation Dheneb Stone
MiG Weathering Powder Industrial City Dirt
MiG Weathering Powder Standard Rust

Custom Colours & Micron Pens

I also use two colours that Ive mixed up myself:
Raven Guard Black - approx. 1 part VMC German Grey to 3 parts Chaos
black with just a touch of Foundation Adeptus Battlegrey to tie it to the
highlights
Gunmetal Blue approx 7 parts Boltgun Metal to 1 part Blue Ink
I also use a 0.5mm Black Micron Pen

Fig. 2 Mediums

Pre-Painting Assembly
Normally I simply glue the legs and torso of a model together to the base but for
this model Ive also glued the helmet in place so that I can line up the arms &
bolter properly when I get around to gluing them on. I've done this so that the
overall pose of the model (carefully posed to look like he's stepped up to the
concrete bar in the foreground when in fact it's a pair of plain old regular Marine
legs) maintains the watchful, wary feeling I'm aiming for with the combat squad
hell be part of. The direction he's looking in is and the angle of the helm are key to
that so I've glued it in place right from the start to make sure I carry it through.
Having done my prep and glued the head, legs and torso onto the base I've then
primed the mini with Citadel Chaos Black spray. The picture to the right shows the
undercoated miniature with the arms/bolter tacked. They'll be painted separately
along with the shoulder pads and backpack. You can also see here that I've
included my basing as part of this prep work; I do this regardless of whether or not
the base is key to the pose (as it is here) simply so I can hit it with the black spray
undercoat so I can work up from there.

Fig. 3 Primed mini

Tidy up the primer

Having primed the mini and let the primer cure thoroughly my next step is to tidy
up any areas the basecoat missed, like the joins and the underside of the mini (See
right) with Chaos Black and Badab Black wash.
That done I'll wait for everything to dry before moving to the next stage - the first
highlight.

Black Armour Recipe

The black armour is painted with 6 main steps:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Broad highlights of 'RG Black' Badab Black Wash

Fine highlight of 50/50 RG Black/ Adeptus Battlegrey
Final highlight of ABG
Black lining with Micron pen and/or Black Ink
Black wash as required to tone down anything too bright
Touch up highlights as required

That might seem like a lot of steps for a tabletop quality mini but they can all be
accomplished fairly quickly if youre neat and even if, like me, your hands arent as
steady as they used to be its nice and easy to tidy up mistakes with the previous
step or just start over with Chaos Black if its that bad.

Fig.4 Tidying up the primer

Body Step 1
For our highlights well imagine a very bright light overhead is striking the mini.
This will allow you to just put the mini on the desk and place your painting light, or
even a torch, directly above it to figure out where to put your highlights. The first
stage in painting the armour is broad highlights of Raven Guard Black (RBG) on
those areas catching the light under your lamp or torch.
As you can see, when I say 'broad' I mean it. I find it easier to 'backfill' with black
than I do to paint the initial highlights to be honest - it just seems easier to judge
where those initial highlights should be once everything is highlighted.
Ive also taken the opportunity to begin blocking in the base colour for the eyes
here - thinned Calthan Brown. It will need another thin coat to get a nice even
coverage.
The next step will be a thinned wash of Badab Black to tone these broad strokes
down a touch. When the wash has dried Ill touch up the broad strokes anywhere
they seem too dark or not quite broad enough. As with deciding where to place
the highlights this is much art as science, most painters get better with practice
and can eyeball these kind of decisions where you need to decide where needs to
be brighter and where darker.

Fig.5 Body Step 1

Body Step 2
Figure 6 shows the black armour after its been washed, this has toned down
those first highlights nicely. I've touched up a few areas, the tops of the knees and
helmet for example, with the RBG mix and then given the eyes a second coat of
Calthan Brown and then one of Tausept Ochre.
The cables on the ankles have been done in VMC Cadmium Maroon Red and the
first stage of the metals, using my custom gunmetal blue, has been laid down too.
Finally an initial layer Astronomicon Grey has been painted on the Aquila. You can
see this is a little untidy at this stage, there's some white on the armour and the
parts of the Aquila needs at least one more layer to provide a nice smooth base to
highlight up from.

Fig.6 Body Step 2

Body Step 3
You can see here that I've laid down the second layer of highlights on the armour.
Note that in general this is a 50/50 mix of RBG/but in some places I've added an
extra dab of one colour or the other to my mix to give the highest points higher
highlights and left the less obvious places with less highlighting. This is most
obvious on the back of the left leg in Figure 7B - the flared area above the heel has
a brighter highlight whilst the area behind the left knee isn't as obviously
highlighted.
All the work so far has been done with the Privateer brush, it's about a size 1, so I
have good control but plenty of paint so I'm not constantly going back to
pot/palette for more. That means I can work relatively quickly and keep the paint
moist (with the help of the retarder medium) so I can adjust the highlights as I go.
You can also see why I prefer to go back and fill in the black areas, my hands need
a lot of rest to be steady enough to do fine detail so I work the highlights quickly
and relatively roughly while my hands are OK but wait 'til my hands are good
before going back in with the Kappel brush for the teeny-tiny stuff.

Fig. 7A Body Step 3

So far I'm at about 75 minutes of painting for this guy and the main body of the
figure is now coming in to focus. He'll be left to fully dry overnight - the retarder
medium adds to drying times - and I'll come back to him tomorrow.
Once dry I'll lay down the fine highlights and then backfill the areas that need to
be darker/tidier. That'll help make sure that my black looks black instead of the
dark grey it appears to be now in some places. It's a balancing act but, provided
you have good light, one that isn't too hard at all.
The red cables have had a thinned coat of Red Gore painted over the base coat.
Fig. 7B Body Step 3

Body Step 4
Here we're at the final basic step of highlighting - Adeptus Battle Grey is added to
the highest points in a very fine line. Here you can see very fine lines of ABG on the
tops of the knees, the helmet ridge and the feet.

Again, this is a matter of personal taste and practice but its worth noting that for
this miniature were aiming for quite a subdued feel so Ive been conservative with
this final highlight.

Fig. 8 Body Step 4

Shading Step 1
Shading a black mini sounds counter-intuitive but Figures 9A and 9B will show
what a difference some shading can make even to a black mini.
I've used both my Micron pen and Black Ink here. The pen has been used to
darken the panel lines; you can see the difference on the thigh panels quite well in
9A. I've also inked in some of the areas I'd over painted with my original broad
highlights, looking at the thigh panels again you can see how I've used the ink to
darken the panels but leave the highlights intact around the edges so they stand
out more.
From the back you can see the slight sheen left by the inking, that'll get killed by
the Dull Cote that is the last stage of the painting process. I've also tidied up the
whites, red and yellows at this stage, they're now at their base levels. They'll be
highlighted next and then we'll move on to the arms and backpack.

Fig.9A Shading Step 1

Detail Stage 1
Moving on to the first detailing steps the eyes have had some Iyanden Darksun
added to the front 2/5ths or so and the back 2/5ths has had two washes of Devlan
Mud.

The cables have had two coats of very thin Gore Red applied to the upper halves
and the metals have had Boltgun metal as a highlight. The Aquila has also been
very simply highlighted, Dragon White has been added to the tips of the feathers
and the upper half of the eagle body. I then used the Kappel brush to carefully
dark line the recesses between feathers with straight Black Ink.

Fig.9B Shading Step 2

You can also just see the blue and red detailing on the right leg and underneath
the helmet targeter respectively. The recipe there is simple, prepare your base,
mid and high tones on your palette, only a tiny amount is needed, be sure to add a
little retarder to each. The base colour is then applied all over the detail in
question. Without cleaning the brush add some mid colour from your palette and
paint on the top half of an imaginary 45 degree line across the detail. Finally, still
without washing the brush, add the highlight colour on the top edge of that top
half.
Total painting time so far is approximately 2 hours to this point.

Fig. 10A Detail Stage 1

If you work quickly over these small areas the paint will essentially wet blend itself
and give you nice simple details, here's a close up of the blue on the leg, you can
also see the metal highlights well.
This photo also shows that I need to straighten that panel highlight a bit too. I find
photos to be pretty useful for spotting this kind of thing I have to admit, it's easy
when you're painting a model to simply not see issues like this but when on-screen
they really stand out. Flash lines and areas of missed base coat also stand out in
digital photography for some reason, perhaps because the images are so much
larger than real life.

Fig. 10B Highlights

The recipes I used for these spot details were:

Blue
Mordian Blue
Ultramarine Blue
VGC Magic Blue (Enchanted Blue works just as well)
Red
VMC Cadmium Maroon Red
Red Gore
Macharius Solar Orange

Basing Stage 1
The base begins with Charadon Granite all over, following I paint the beam and
building rubble Adeptus Battle Grey whilst the sand/rocks/earth were painted with
Khemri Brown then given a light drybrush of Dheneb Stone.
The whole base is then washed with thinned Badab Black and straight Devlan Mud
to take the whitish edge of the Dheneb and make it look worn and dirty.
The final step for the base will be weathering powder and highlighting the building
rubble and beam.

Fig. 11 Basing Stage 1

Arms
The arms are a microcosm of the black armour. Same steps, same result
(hopefully), thus giving a uniform finish to the armour of the Marine. Cabling is red
to match that on the legs and the metallics are facsimiles of the leg joints.
Next up will be the backpack and bolter, followed by shoulder pads and markings.
The arms were done in 25 minutes including 5 minutes for the stage by stage
snapshots so all up we're just passing 2.5 hours now.

Fig. 12 Arms

Arms & Bolter

Once dry the arms are ready to be added to the Marine. The joins for the arms
were lightly scored with some sandpaper before being glued in place and left to
dry.
With the arms done I moved onto the bolter - the first step is to tack it to a bottle
lid so I can paint it without touching it with my fingers and then to touch up any
missing areas of primer. I'm aiming to keep my RG deliberately dark so I've opted
for a black case for the bolter, painted the same way as the armour, with muted
metallics. The bolter is spiced up a little with a white RG symbol and some bright
cartridges in the magazine
From side on you can also see the very basic lens I've done for the sight, as I've
said before lenses aren't a strong point of mine despite years of trying to follow
GW's recipe and any other I can lay my hands on. For this lens I've kept things
simple and followed the same method as for painting the blue spot details listed
earlier.

Fig. 13 Bolter & Arms

Backpack
OK, we're at the last stages of painting now, just the pads and pack to go. The
backpack receives the same highlighting as the rest of the armour.
Again, I've added just a touch of colour by painting the panel inset on the pack, it's
nothing overwhelming but helps make sure the mini isn't too dark and drab.
Painting the inset took just a few minutes and it's one of those things that fellow
modellers will notice you've taken the time to do, even for a tabletop force, and
will appreciate.

Fig. 14 Backpack Inset

Shoulder Pads
I paint the basic details onto the pads before I add them to the arms simply so that
I don't end up splattering paint everywhere trying to reach those hard to reach
places that crop up once you put the pack and pads on a mini:

Fig. 15A Shoulder Pads 1

One pad is black so gets the standard treatment - my RG Black mix is the first
highlight. Again to save my hands I'm fairly liberal with this first highlight, we'll
come back and tidy it up later. The right shoulder pad gets a green rim to mark the
Marine as belonging to a Tactical Squad. This is achieved with two thin coats of
Foundation Orkhide Shade; this gives a nice dark green base to work from as you
can see in Figure 15A.
The second highlights were applied to the pads before they were attached to the
mini along with the backpack. I add the pack at the same time as the pads so I can
see where it would obscure the pads from our imaginary lightsource and make
sure I don't highlight those areas beyond the basic highlights.
You can see in Figure 15B that I've used thinned Snot Green over the entire green
rim not hidden by the backpack to brighten the colour up and help it stand out
more from the black pad without getting too bright and taking away from our
subdued look. The black pad has been hit with the 50/50 RBG/ABG highlight at this
stage as well.
Fig. 15B Shoulder Pads 2

Final Highlight, Shading & Basing

In Figure 16 the pads have received their final, very fine highlight - straight ABG for
the black pad and a 50/50 mix of Snot and Scorpion Green for the green trim. Note
that these are applied only to the upper edges and those that would catch the
light the most.
After that I've shaded the black by using a Micron pen to ink in any panel lines and
to give some definition to the area where the pad meets the trim. I've then used
some Black Ink to tidy up the black trim on the left shoulder and some Badab Black
wash to tone down that first highlight on the main areas of the pad. The green has
been shaded by carefully painting two thinned coats of Baal Red wash down the
centre of the trim, the red darkens the green without making it muddy or dirty like
a black wash would.
Finally I've added a very light dusting of MiG weathering powders to the base to
give it some depth. A touch of Light Rust has been used on the beam, focusing on
the bolts and Industrial Earth has been used more liberally on the rest of the base,
including over the beam itself, to represent dust, detritus and debris swirling
across the broken planet and settling on the little that remains of the city.

Fig.16 Final Details

This represents the completion of the paint job for our Raven Guard, only decals
remain.

Decals
I use Forge Worlds excellent Raven Guard decals for Chapter and Squad markings
on my Raven Guard. First step is to brush on a gloss varnish over the area(s) to be
decald, let it dry thoroughly and it will provide plenty of purchase for the decal to
be placed there.
I strategically cut my decals to help them conform to shapes like shoulder pads.
For the RG that means using a fresh scalpel blade to slice between the head and
wings on each side and also between the two 'outside' feathers of the wings and
finally between the claws and tail feathers. I also trim any excess film from the
decal where possible to help with the final fit.
Next I soak the decal in plain old tap water for about 20 seconds. While that's
soaking I use plenty of Micro-Set to wet the area the decal will sit on. Next I
transfer the decal to the mini, use a piece of tissue to blot up the worst of the
excess Micro-Set and get the decal in the proper place before a final blot to lock it
down. If the decal isn't quite flat I use a scalpel to 'pop' any bubbles or folds and a
nice soft brush dampened with Aero-Set to smooth the wrinkles out. Repeat as
necessary to obtain a smooth finish.
I then paint over the RG markings themselves with a few coats of thin VGC Skull
White or Reaper Dragon White to keep them really nice and clean and ensure the
best contrast with the black (which helps the black look really black as an added
bonus). I also make sure to paint over any remaining transparent areas of decal
with black, again, it's all to max out the contrast and make black black and white
white.
Finally I seal by hand with gloss varnish once more and when that's dry I hit it with
the Dull Cote matte spray varnish that gives my RG their 'stealth' coating.

Fig. 17 Decals

The Finished Product

And here we have the finished product, decals, Dull Cote and all. Hopefully youve
found this tutorial of some use and dont forget to drop by the B&C to show us the
results!

The Bolter & Chainsword would like to state that this tutorial is completely unofficial and in no way endorsed by Games Workshop Limited.
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