I've been promising myself for over a year now that I'd start a Dark Angels army. I'm finally about to get the fist two tactical squads done, but I'm not completley happy with the white areas.

I think my problem is just that solid white seems to wash out the details. (Which were so beutifully visible before I applied the white.....) I'm not sure how to go about shading/highlighting the white, though; especially as I don't want to mess up the highlighted areas around them.

Anyone have any advice on how the handle this? Should I, perhaps, try re-painting the areas grey and then dry-burshing with white? (And may the Emperor damn any white drybrushing specks that land on the hull?)

Any other ideas? Thanks for any advice or comments you can offer.

Here are some pictures:






-Allen McCarley

for white, start with a blue-gray or gray and then build up the white on top. Just use pure white for extreme highlights and maybe a light blue for the midtones over the gray.

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-Vaaish

Uhhhg hate to post painting advice after the demi-god of painting has, but what the hell

Another route that works well is Khaki base, Bone White, and edge with pure white for more of a warm parchment-y white. Depends on which effect you're looking for. (A variant that IMO works better on larger intricate surfaces, e.g. vehicles, is Bone, Devlan Mud wash, highlight bone, highlight white)

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He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

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Why are you painted those bits white in the first place? The contrast is distracting and I don't think it looks that good.

You don't have to stick to their schemes but Dark Angels infantry generally have red weapons, with small amounts of bare metal on the barrels and the like. Dark Angels vehicles either have red, dark angels green or metal guns. If you don't have the 40k codex do some google image searches to see them.

have to agree with Glyn here, red guns all the way

I find fortress grey is a good base colour for painting white on top of, maybe with a few spots of blue mixed in

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Just some guy

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oh, come now, I'm not THAT good. It's not like I've won a golden deamon or anything. The version you posted is a good one too, it's pretty close to what I use when painting bone or parchment. I usually try to avoid using khaki though, coats poorly and ends up taking more time than I'd like to get a solid coat. (says the guy whose 40k marine army is primarily khaki) Instead I try to use graveyard earth or similar for undercoat and build up bleached bone to white.

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-Vaaish

Yeah I should note I am referring to VCG who has a khaki that is roxxors. GW, not so much


hahha

Regarding red Weapons: While I agree that's more traditional I actually applaud the more unique scheme he's going for. Nice to see something a little different. Also to note, Red and White look good together (hint hint hint)

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He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

-I HAVE NO POINT
-Penal Legion-Fan list
-Help me make Whitescars not suck!

They look good !

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Sorry but I don't like the white... reminds me of Chiristmas, not a chapter with the word 'Dark' in the name...

A mid grey would work if you don't want to do red (and I'm not saying you should do red), and could have a little bit of white on the highlight.

Legion 4, thanks! And thank you for the comments and the advice, everyone! Even those that don't like it.

I think I'll try out the gray and blue-gray bases, worked up to white, that Vaaish and Kyussinchains suggested.

JimmyZimms, I'd never considered starting with a khaki base, but that sounds interesting. I think I'm going to try that on the Captain's robes when I get to him.

For those that wonder about the white, I had a couple of reasons.

The first is that white is the "other" Dark Angel major color, and I really like the contrast you see in the many images of Dark Angels armour covered with white symbols and wrapped in white robes. I think those images are some of the best art GW has out there. (My opinion, of course.) I don't have the courage to try sculpting all those robes, so I wanted to try adding some white with the weapons instead.

I agree with you that the current contrast is too stark, however, and hopefully some of these suggestions will help that.

The second reason for white weapons is to tell detachments apart. I currently plan to paint my second tactical detachment with red wapons. (Unless once I start that, I decide that multiple weapon colors in the same army looks silly, in which case I'll leave them all white and desperately try to think of someting else.) If I ever decide I need a third tactical detatchment, I'd leave them black with metal highlights like you see in much of the art.



But... but.... red and green are the traditional Christmas colors, not white and green!

-Allen McCarley

I choose to go old school and paint my DAs darker green-gray and weapon, a hvy wpns a tactical green ... but there is nothing wrong with your choice and it is based on new color schemes ... But all my SMs are it tactical/camo colors ... that's the way I do all my models.

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

I used washes, paint them white wash with a black or brown wash and drybrush on white after it drys or paint it on. Here are some examples of mine i have done.




painted on example.




dry brush example.

Blind-

Thanks for the pictures and suggestions, Blind Horizon.

The first batch of Rhinos I started for the Dark Angles (beore I did the ones I posted) got ruined with a bad can of Armoury Primer. (I think I'm forever done with Armoury now. It's cheaper, but ever so often it just turns out garbage. I never have any problems with the disgracefully expensive GW primer) I was going to just dump them in Simple Green, but I think I'll use them as guinea pigs for the suggestions I've received here.

By the way, the jeweling you did on that Shokk Attack gun is outstanding. It looks like you've put real glass jewels in there.

-Allen McCarley