Games Workshop Citadel Colour - Layer: Baharroth Blue (12ml)

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Mephiston was not always known by his more famous name – in his former life he was Calistarius, a simple Librarian of the Blood Angels (as much as a wizard space Renaissance vampire can be described as ‘simple,’ anyway). In this form he is best known as the Librarian who accompanied the Blood Angels’ assault on the Space Hulk Sin of Damnation. When I took on Custodes I was happy that the person who I painted them for wanted something other than the classic gold. As much as I love a really nice rich gold colour, I find it pretty overwhelming on the Custodes models. Instead, I went for a striking red-dominated scheme, with darker bronze metallics. Optional: After varnishing the model, you can apply a gloss highlight of ‘Ardcoat to give the jewels some shine.

I start by brushing on Citadel Khorne Red. If there’s any browns left I try to leave these showing in the recesses. Next up I painted some of the Aethermatic Blue on parts of the model that are close to the weapons to give a reflected light effect. On the faces and cloth only apply small amounts, whereas on the metal areas you can go overboard and add a couple layers. Step 4: Highlights and Shadows Note that Aethermatic Blue and Baharroth Blue work extremely well for this. Other colors – especially reds – are much stronger and using Blood Angels red may give you too much tint. Consider looking at shades/washes or thinning your contrast paints before you use them in this step if you’re working with reds. Try some different stuff generally, though. Glazes also work very well for this. Step 3: Highlights I wanted to do my Custodes in NMM (Non metallic metal) but also wanted something I could replicate across a whole army without losing the will to live. After many hours of watching people wet blend / glaze etc I came up with this. It’s not the most realistic gold but I think it looks good and most importantly doesn’t take too long. People have described it as “cell shaded” which I like. The process is the same for vehicles or infantry, I just use an airbrush on the vehicles (but exactly the same colours and steps). The steps are quite repetitive and it looks a mess almost right until the end so keep persevering with it GoldsApply over Averland Sunset for a neutral yellow, or use as a highlight for Averland Sunset, or an Orange colour.

There’s more to painting the Adeptus Custodes than just spraying your models down with Retributor Armor spray – though that’s certainly an option if you want to save time. We’ll look at several different methods for painting them here. Crab-Stuffed Mushroom’s Method For this I’m going ot paint this as though there’s a light source coming in from his left side, right about hip level. That means light’s gonna go up and down from there, and a bit across his chest and waist. Step 1: DrybrushingTry to keep the highlights limited to the “bottom-right” of the jewel. The “top-left” should remain Caliban Green: I airbrush Citadel Mephiston Red as a highlight. You can do this with a brush but this is why you buy an airbrush because it’s so much simpler with one. Right Hand: Mephiston’s right hand (the one without the gun) may require some bending or manipulation during assembly to ensure it lines up closer to his mouth. Try playing with it before gluing in place permanently. The Imperial Fists – One of the original First Founding Space Marine Legions, the Imperial Fists are known for their use of yellow and blue in their color schemes. Baharroth Blue is often used to paint their armor and machinery, making them a perfect army to paint with this color.

However most of the time we do OSL we’re doing a colored light source against a model that’s generally in regular lighting (white light). In those cases, only the part lit by the source will be tinted, and the rest will appear lit normally by whatever other source. Cover the eyes and the reflected areas in Blood Angels Red, for green I’d use Warp Lightning, and blue Arkhelian Green (I know). Step 2 It helps to paint your heads separately no matter what you do, but this is especially important for your skin, because you don’t want to get flesh tones on your nice finished armor color. For the flesh tones, I wanted something a bit greyer and more inhuman than your standard Cadian Fleshtone. I go into more detail in the HTPE: Human Skin article, but for Caracalla, the skin is VGA Dwarf Skin mixed with a mid/slightly dark grey. To highlight, I mixed in more of the dwarf skin, though the entire color range I used has a good proportion of grey in it. Instead of a flesh wash, I used diluted nuln oil to wash the skin. You can do this with any color, though blue is by far the easiest I’ve found. That said, you can do this with red and other colors. Reds tend to be much stronger, and a little goes a long way. This one was done with Mephiston Red, Evil Sunz Scarlet, and Carroburg Crimson. Another way to do this process is to build up layers from darkest to lightest. Start with your deep blue and keep adding a little bit of white with each layer, making finer lines as you get lighter. The ‘owl in the room’ here is in step one with painting the lightning streaks. It may just take a little practice to figure out. Avoid doing straight lines, and look at some pictures on the internet- both of real lightning and electrical arcs and at other peoples power weapons. This same process can be done with other colors too using the dark/medium/white scheme. Another cool effect is to build from dark purple into reds and oranges to yellow. Credit: Skails

Tints and Shades

I painted the whole saber with fluorescent blue, and gave the side closest to his face a couple of extra layers. Then I oriented the model so that I was looking straight on at Obi-Wan’s chest, and gave the saber an edge highlight only on that side. While the Carroburg Crimson is still wet on the base, drop some Flash Gitz Yellow in to the edges so that it bleeds into the wash giving you a cheap gradient. There’s just one last thing to show you for this scheme, the power lance blade. You could use this for any of the power weapons custodes wield. The only colour we haven’t used yet is Ulthuan Grey, let’s rectify that. Repeat the last step but ONLY apply it to the light source and maybe on the tiniest part of the shiniest surfaces (shoulder pad and the very centre of the edges of the gun metal bits). Don’t over do this bit, the more you use, the LESS light the glow will look.