How To: The Raven Guard Chaplain - Part 1

A glorious Raven Guard Chaplain ready for battle!

Here it is, Part 1 of the promised How to-Article. I teased the Raven Guard Chaplain last week, in one of it's early stages. But before I start out with all the details about how he was painted, I'd like to give a little background. 

The mini was supposed to be a birthday present for a friend - he had recently gotten back into the hobby and decided to play Raven Guard. I've always loved the Jump Pack Chappy, so off I went to do some research on the mini.
It's basically my first step in approaching major projects - see, what others might have done with a mini - thematically, colour-wise, basing-wise etc. In addition to this I checked for black power armour and the variations people use to paint black.

Once I was done researching and had settled on a general feel for the miniature, I went to work. Raven Guard are very grey-scale looking marines, at least to me. I decided to go for a more desaturated look, so the black would be highlighted with grey and most other parts of the mini would use cold blue and grey hues as well. There were supposed to be only very few colour splashes. The mini was slightly modified, it's left arm replaced with the Forgeworld character upgrade set. Because what a grizzled chaplain needs is more grit. obviously. So now he sports a bionic left arm and an older mark of the bolt pistol. Everything else stayed the same. The base was going to be plain and urban, only retaining the already sculpted part of the miniature's base. 

In case you need to check colours and names, look here for a conversion chart from old GW colours to new ones, and here for a list of all the P3 colours. All my colours are mixed and thinned with water. For Basecoats and Highlights

1. Black Primer

Games Workshop's (GW) Chaos Black primer

2. Basecoating

My next step is to give a mini an overall basecoat, which means that I will block in all the basic colours to get a better feel for how the mini will look in the end.

• black armour: GW Chaos Black + Adeptus Battlegrey in a 60/40 ratio. You end up a with a really dark grey that you are still able to shade and give the mini more depth.
• tabard and bone faceplate: a mix of P3 Hammerfall Khaki, P3 Ironhull Grey and P3 Jack Bone 
• seals: Skorne Red
• grey and white areas/shoulder guards and crozius heft: a mix of P3 Trollblood base mixed with P3 Greatcoat Grey
• metals: GW Boltgun Metal 
• Rosarius: GW Dwarfen Bronze mixed with P3 Umbral Umber in a ratio of 70/30

3. Shading

Once you have all the colours blocked in, it's time to give the mini some depth by shading it. Always shade from top to bottom, as the mini is darker on the bottom half, at least as long as you choose to go for a zenithal light source. Also keep in mind to let the mini dry before applying the next course of shading. Most shades in this case were applied about 3 times.

• black armour: GW Chaos Black mixed with P3 armour wash, 60/40 ratio
• tabard and skull: A mix of GW Devlan Mud and P3 Bootstrap Leather, followed by another coat of GW Devlan mud and P3 Battelfield Brown and a final step of just P3 Ironhull Grey mixed with a lot of water to desaturate tej colours were applied.
• seals: P3 Sanguine Base mixed with GW Chaos Black
• greay areas: Only the heft of the Crozius was shaded with a mix of P3 Coal Black and P3 Greatcoat Grey.
• metals: mix of P3 Armour Wash and P3 Exile Blue, followed by a thinned down wash of GW Chaos Black
• Rosarius: Same as the silver metals, followed by a thinned down coat of P3 Thornwood Green

Then you end up with the Chaplain looking like this:

The Chaplain after shading was done

In my next "How To:" I will detail the process of highlighting the mini and which colours I used. If you have any questions or comments about the painting process, techniques used or just about anything else, drop me a comment below.

Cheers,

Kenza