Hey folks, I am Bailey and I welcome you back to How to PAINT! This time, I am going over my process for painting Dark Angels Robes. I recently wrote an article on how I paint Dark Angels Green Armor that nicely compliments this one. You can read it here. Today’s model is an old pewter Ezekiel, the Chief Librarian of the Dark Angels. I recently purchased the model off eBay and it came assembled and primed black.
I like priming in black even on models that possess lots of brighter colors on the final layers because if I miss a spot the black creates a natural shadow effect. When painting Dark Angels models, I always do the armor first and work around it. This is why you can see that the model is already started.
Now, I don’t want to put my lighter colors directly onto the black so I base coat my cloth robe with Games Workshop Bestial Brown. Any other light brown will do.
From here on out, I can go one of two ways. I can either dry brush carefully, which is not as easy as it sounds. Or, I can edge highlight using smaller and smaller brushes with thicker paint. Sometimes, I use both. I dry brush in the larger, less cluttered areas like the back of the robe and the edge highlighting on the more confined and crowded parts of the model such as the chest.
No matter which method I choose, I pick Games Workshop’s Karak Stone. If I am dry brushing I try to cover as much area as possible intentionally leaving the depressions alone. If I am edge highlighting, I use the side of my brush and run it as parallel to the model as possible. I run over the high points, the slopes, and edges. I leave the brown showing in tiny streams near the base of the raised areas.
If I am edge highlighting, I always try to cover more area than I think I need with a layer because the next layer will cover up much the color of the layer beneath it. If you feel like you put just a little too much on than you probably did put on just enough. You will feel better once the next layer is on. I have regretted painting just right only to cover it all up with the next layer and ruin it too many times to count.
I repeat this same process with Games Workshop’s Ushabti Bone but I try to cover just the raised areas and edges with the dry brush and the edge highlighting.
With the layer work done, I apply Agrax Earthshade Wash to the whole robe. The wash will naturally blend all the colors and add a transition of dark to light from the recesses and depressions to the extreme edges. Make sure you shake your Agrax and use a new bottle for this kind of detail work. Older bottles that are almost empty cause problems because the medium separates from the pigment and dries as a white powder in the recesses. This defeats the whole purpose of the process by putting a bright color in the recesses. This is fixed by adding more medium to the powder and pulling it away with a clean brush. The preventative way to avoid this issue is to monitor the drying of the wash and pulling out excess wash from the recesses and depressions with a clean brush.
With the drying of the wash, I am done with the Dark Angels Robe.
I’ll continue to work on various parts of Ezekiel as time goes on and if it’s an interesting bit of painting you can be sure to see how I did it here on How to PAINT! While you wait, please check out the rest of our blog and our Youtube channel for more hobby tips as well as tactical tidbits. If you are a Dark Angels player, don’t forget to listen to our new podcast, the Path to Redemption! Until then,
Keep it dank,
Bailey
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