Start highlighting the majority of the armour in Citadel Mournfang Brown. This is where the process becomes a bit repetitive and this step is the most time consuming because you’re painting most of the model but being careful about leaving the previous stage showing at the bottom parts of the armour panel. 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. Start the silver areas by painting any of the “machinery” with Vallejo Metal Color Magnesium, and any gun barrels or the metal areas on the lances with Iron Hands Steel. The next step is the real secret sauce. I created a reasonably dilute wash with a mix of Golden High Flow Acrylics Sepia (pretty much a more concentrated Agrax Earthshade), Golden High Flow Acrylics Dioxazine Purple, and the product formerly known as Future Floor Polish (Now Pledge Floor Care Finish, unless they’ve changed it again.) I wash the entire model in this color, removing excess where it pools too much. If you are working with Games Workshop paints, a mix of Druchii Violet, Agrax Earthshade and water/lahmian medium will work just fine. You will, however, be spending a lot more money to wash an entire army of Custodes using this method. At this point the gold is complete. It’s simple, but has a nice rich depth and purplish warmth to it. The wings were further highlighted with Ulthuan Grey (leave some of the previous highlight showing at the base of each feather).

There’s some cool stuff going on with this photo, where the woman is mostly being lit with white light. One of the things I specifically want to point out is the shadows – where the light does and does not reach. Generally speaking, unless there are any mirrored or very reflective surfaces around the subject, the light being cast is going to “stop” (yes I know this isn’t what actually happens but for our purposes it’ll do) when it hits a solid object. The space behind that object will then appear to be a shadow if you’re in a low-light situation. I recommend you paint the first to keep yourself motivated. You can re-attach the face once you’ve painted the top area of the model. The Mephiston series, written by Darius Hinks, starts with Mephiston: Blood of Sanguinius, followed by Mephiston: Revenant Crusade and Mephiston: City of Light– this takes place in the Dark Imperium period, with Mephiston battling in the Imperium Nihilus.

Triad

There is a lot more of this on your jetbikes. Here only the gauntlets are leather. I used VMC Cavalry brown, making sure to avoid the red cloth on the underside of his forearms and the gold detailing. I then washed the leather with Agrax Earthshade. optional] If you want to go brighter, paint/bleed Dorn Yellow into the wet wash, and add a dot of it to the closest areas to the lava (see the skull and underside of the pole on the Darkoath Chieftain for an example). Zandri Dust– A pale white paint that can be used as a drybrush on Baharroth Blue armor and machinery to create a subtle highlight, it creates an analogous color combo that gives a subtle and natural look.

Parchment: VMA Sand (Ivory) washed with Agrax Earthshade, then highlighted again with VMA Sand (Ivory) again. Wash the areas around the glowing sources (in the case the skulls and the hat) in thinned Intermediate Green (Vallejo), any dark green should work. Optional) Paint the armor with Satin Varnish to give it a nice sheen (pure gloss varnish is too shiny)!Don’t worry about the vagueness of the previous example, as further down in this post I’ll have a few step-by-step ways of doing it, but first here’s some more finished examples of the same approach, some blue, some not so blue, all done more or less using the same method. http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/en_US/media/e588d28183cec31ffd6dcee6d3718fc3.cms/equivalencias-rev05.pdf