40K: Chaos Marines step-by-step
Recently painted up the 20 Chaos Marines in my army’s colors – completely skipping the pile of models waiting to be done! I decided to take pictures of them step-by-step. Unfortunately I was so enthusiastic about painting them up finally that I completely skipped taking off the mold lines and drilling out the barrels, but since these guys are rank-and-file types I decided ‘what the hell’ and just carried on. So here’s what I ended up with:
And here’s where they started:
This is how they looked before I started – black primer and purple legs and shoulder pads. The weapons were drybrushed silver and some of them had thick globs of red paint meant to look like blood on the chain axes. Ten of the twenty models were based. These were bought used from The Troll Trader, they’re a UK shop that don’t sell new GW miniatures, only new games from other companies and used GW stuff.
Primed entirely in black with the airbrush
Top-primed with grey, to create instant highlights and shadows
The back of the models
Highlight-primed with white to create further highlights
The rear of the models
Since the majority of the color is Vallejo Bloody Red, a red-orange color, the models were all sprayed with that color
The back of the models again
I’d tried spraying the white only on the helmets and shoulder pads, which are going to be yellow, but after spraying the base coat of Bloody Red I had to go over the helmets and pads by hand with white
Helmets & shoulder pads painted with the mustard-yellow of the army (can’t remember the name of the GW color), and horns painted in Vallejo Bone White
Painted the guns black where the base red color had oversprayed and drybrushed Vallejo Boltgun Metal over the weapons. Then I did metal edging in Vallejo Brassy Brass, accents done in Boltgun Metal and holsters & tassels done with Leather Brown. I also mixed Vallejo colors to match the Citadel Armageddon Dust texture paint, and painted over the basing that was done on half the models, and based the models that had no basing at all.
Rear of the models up to this point
Used up the last of my Army Painter Dark Tone wash on all the red areas and the bases
The rear of the models after washing
Used up more of my Army Painter Strong Tone on the yellow parts of the armor
Did another wash of Strong Tone over the eyes and helmet grills, then went over the yellow with the original color again to accentuate the darker edges of the panels. I also painted the grass that was on the original based models, there wasn’t much but it helps make some of the models look a bit different. I also did a light drybrush of Bone White over the horns and some of the weapon tassels. Finally I painted the base edges with Vallejo Beasty Brown to match the latest base edge colors that Games Workshop uses in their promotional pictures.
The finished models, after a couple of layers of Pledge floor wax (a clear acrylic gloss medium) and Testor’s Dullcote (using up the cans I have and will be switching to Vallejo Satin Varnish).
Two finished squads of Chaos Space Marines of the Flaming Spears legion!