Pre-Heresy Deathguard Plague Marine

To break up the repetition of painting so many rats over the past while (yes there are more on the way, pictures coming soon), I decided to work a little more on the deathguard army after a inspiration hit to paint Plague Marines that still retained a semblance of their former legion colours.  Of course the armour would be caked in dust and filth, but under all that i wanted there to be a connection to the days when they were once among the emperor's finest.  Here is the result!

This model is from the Havok Plague Marine boxed set, which i believe is currently unavailable, although i'm not 100% sure on that one.  The base colours used on the model were Astronomicon Grey and Knarloc Green, and an assortment of various browns, oranges, greens and yellows.  If there is any interest I'll post a tutorial on how to achieve this look relatively simply, believe me it's a great deal easier than you think!

Chaos Space Marines: Deathguard Plague Marine Painting Tutorial

After some searching for a colour scheme and not being too happy with what I’ve found on the net, I’ve decided to create a tutorial on how to paint death guard my way.  It isn’t the only way to paint these models of coarse, the myriad of detail on these models allow for endless possibility when choosing a sickly pallet suitable for these abominations.  As always, all mixes are approximate in this tutorial, and you should feel free to adjust amounts and substitute colours where you wish.

As usual, any picture within the tutorial can be clicked on to bring up a larger version of the same picture.  Questions and Comments are more than welcome as are suggestions on how to make these tutorials better in any way.  For the most part I’m going to cover not just the painting of the model but also some tips that I find useful when painting these models and a few things that ran through my mind during the process.  Enjoy!

Paints You Will Need

Chardonite Granite

Knarloc Green

Rotting Flesh

Skull white

Bleached Bone

Scorched Brown

Mythril Silver or Chainmail

Laviathan Purple Wash

Baal Red Wash

Devlan Mud Wash

Bedab Black Wash

Warlock purple

 Step One: After cleaning and assembling the model prime the model black with short controlled bursts to the front, back, sides and top of the model, allowing each coat to dry before applying another.  This allows for better coverage of the model opposed to trying to prime the model in a single attempt.  After the model has completely dried, I’ve gone over its entirety in Chardonite Granite with a large brush.  I’ve found that if you slightly water down the paint at this stage it allows for greater flow into all the crevices that you might miss otherwise.  One part water to every four parts paint should be enough to achieve this.

 Step Two: After the Chardonite Granite Basecoat has completely dried, apply knarloc Green to the entire model leaving the Chardonite Granite visible in only the deepest recesses.  At this stage your model will look as if it were a sculpted green with shadows in deeper areas such as the folds in the flesh, bullet holes, eye sockets, etc.

 Step Three: Over the following steps we’re going to apply highlights to the general surface area of the model, this applies to anywhere you would like to appear green on the finished models.  To get the best results, use the flat side of your brush and stroke perpendicular to the bristles along the detail of the model.  The first highlight consists of three parts Knarloc Green, to one part Rotting Flesh.  This first highlight will cover the majority of the surface area on the model, paying particular attention to any areas of exposed flesh, which will be highlighted to a near white over this process.

Step Four: Now with a mix of two parts Gnarloc Green to one part Rotting Flesh, pick out the surface areas that are most likely to receive light on the model. Once again use the same brushing technique as described in step three to ensure smooth coverage.  Continue  to over highlight the fleshy areas and skin on the head as these areas will receive one further highlight from the rest of the armour.

 Step Five: With a more selective highlight paint the raised areas and edges from Step four with a mix of one part Gnarloc Green to One part Rotting Flesh.

Step Six: Pick out hard detail and raised edges with a mix of on part Gnarloc Green to Two parts Rotting flesh.  At this point the majority of the highlights have been completed

 Step Seven: With a mix of one part rotting flesh and one part skull white pick out the final detail of the fleshy areas and  head, giving them an almost white hue.

 Step Eight: Using Laviathan Purple trace the recesses in the armour making sure to have a controlled flow from your brush preventing accidental coverage or pooling.  This is one of the steps that allows for more artistic freedom in the painting of the model so experiment with various amounts of wash in different areas, you can even try using weathering techniques to “bruise” the armour a bit.  The purple will really contrast with the green so use this to give a visual break between the various plates of armour.

Step Nine: After the purple wash has been allowed to completely dry, paint all the trim on the armour, any metallic parts and any wooden parts with Scorched Brown.  This will further add contrast to the model “framing” the light green that makes up the majority of the model’s colour.

 Step Ten: Paint any Tubing or hosing in Fenris Grey.  This may look at little out of place at the moment, it will receive a coat of Bedab Black wash later in the tutorial shading it amply.

Step Eleven: Lightly drybrush all metallic parts of the model with Chainmail or Mythril Silver.  Focus on areas of the model that would see a lot of wear such as the edges of the knees and hard edges of the shoulder pads.

 Step Twelve: Paint all areas of bone Bleached Bone,  in this case I’ve also painted the raisted edges of the gunstock with bleached bone as well to accentuate the wood grain.

 Step Thirteen: Give an liberal wash of Devlin Mud to all areas of bone, wood and metal.  This will take the bright edge off the metal and deepen the shadows in the bone and wood.

Step Fourteen: Sparingly apply Baal Red Wash to the model in the recesses of fleshy areas on the model. Use this wash to make areas look swollen and blistered, over use of this wash will detract from the overall scheme.

Step Fifteen: After allowing the Devlin Mud Wash to dry completely Go over all areas of Metal and Tubing with Bedab Black Wash.  This will further shade and reduce the lustre of the metalilic paint.

 Step Sixteen: Details! Brighten up the metal a bit by applying Mythril Silver to studs and sharp edges on the model.  The eye was then painted by applying a dot of warlock purple then highlighted up towards the center to a near white.

And there you have it another Plague Marine ready for the Tabletop!

I've caught the Plague Marine Plague!

Yet again, another Plague Marine, the second for today, i'm on a roll!  It's painted the same as the other i painted today.  This particular model features some new aspects that i didn't get to explore with the other however.  for example a great deal more visible surface due to the pose of the model, a rusted broken sword peice and some bare flesh, or what seems to be bare flesh.  (if you look closely at it's left eye it seems to have melted a little, almost reminds me of leather face).  I tried to do more with shading and highlighting on this model, i think it shows.  Also check out the cool wooden gunstock, i painted this incredibly quickly, utilizing a base coat of scorched brown, followed by bleached bone, and a devlin mud wash, and voila, rotten wooden stock for the bolter.

Still Plagued by Yellow Paint!!!

After four days of steadily working on more involving painting and sculpting projects, i decided to take a quick break and paint something up for the blog.  Yes the Ork Dreads are still being worked on, however there is only so much yellow one person can take, and after an unfortunate accident where a yellow coloured primer decided to start to desolve one of my killa kans i became a little dishearted with the whole deal.  (the killa kan has been fixed with a new replacement faceplate care of the Stompa Kit).  On the sculpting table are nine space marines, currently receiving robes made of green stuff, so that they fit the theme of my robed dark angels army.  If you scroll down you can see the prototype of the converted and painted dark angels marine, it's going to take some time, but it will definitely be worth it.

Now i know this model isn't going to win me any golden demons, and it isn't the most striking looking model ever, but it was incredibly fun to paint none the less.  After being generally dissatisfied with all the internet tutorials on how to paint death guard i decided to give a go at the rotting minty green armour that is typical of the death guard.  I was actually suprised at how simple it really was.  I started with priming the model black, and then applying a general base coat of Chardonite Granite to the entire model (this was done some time prior to the actual painting of the mini).  following this the model was then given a general base coat of knarloc green covering all but the deepest of recesses.   After debating on a highlighting colour for quite awhile, and several seemingly useless dried up pots of rotting flesh later, i decided to use dehneb stone mixes 1:1 with some white just to get the mix closer to the off white of the rotting flesh colour.  With this mix i then ran a test gradation  on my wet pallet running from gnarloc green all the way to the mixed dehneb stone, needless to say i was instantly happy with the results and used the gradation to then highlight the model.  The recesses of the armour and pockmarks were then given a treatment of a controlled laviathan purple wash to achieve the bruised recesses on the model, the portions joining the armour plates were also treated in this manner.  The trim was then painted entirely in a dark brown (something around a scorched brown, bestial would work as well) and drybrushed mythril silver after the brown had dried.  To tone down the brightness of the metal parts they were washed in devlin mud, followed by bedab black.  The few hoses and tubes on the model were painted fenris grey and washed black.  To paint the eyes i started with some warlock purple leaving a ring of black around the outside of the eye, and highlighted almost to white towards the center of each.  The last step was to pick out the rivets on the model with some mithril silver to brighten things up a bit, and there you have it, a finished Death Guard Plague Marine!