We’re now halfway through my first box of Space Marines of the old school variety. This time around I went with a Dark Angel’s colour scheme. As always, I use Vallejo Paints, not GW ones, so I have to come up with an approximate colour match.

In terms of colour scheme, I think I got the colour values for the highlights and shades to a pretty good place, but as usual the photos really show up my clumsy highlight transitions. As I’m moving into my next models, I’ll be paying a lot of attention to improving on this. The shoulder pads continue to be an issue. I think I’ll switch to a round highlight on the top for this in future, as I don’t think the approach I’ve been taking really works, and that’s particularly apparent on this model.

The black wash I used to darken the recesses are a bit shiny in places, and caught some reflection from my flash in the photos, so there appear to be some white spots in them that aren’t actually there. I might try finishing with a matte varnish in future to prevent this.

I’m particularly happy with the lens on the gun on this one – it worked out particularly nicely, so this approach is one I’ll use from now on. It’s 4 tones, with a white spot, rather than the 3 I usually use, and I think that darker to lighter transition really improves the effect.

So, to the photos!

Finally, the sharper eyed may notice I’ve changed my approach a little on this guy, using metallic metal paint for the first time in the series so far, with the gun barrel and clip painted in it.

As always, if you’ve got any hints or tips for painting Space Marines, or minis in general, please feel free to leave a comment below, or send me a mail via my contact page.

You can find the other parts of this series at these links: Part 1- Ultramarine, Part 2 – Blood Angel, Part 3 – Imperial Fist, Part 4 – Salamander.