"Black is the Colour" - Assault Intercessors - Part 2 - The Paintening

With a zealous cry, 

the Black Templars press forward towards victory.

- Space Marine Codex

Welcome back fellow Templars, friends of the Caesura and anyone else who might have stumbled across this little corner of the internet. 

We've got quite a bit to cover today so let's pick right up where we left off last week. 

Today we're talking about my painting process for my Black Templars in general. I have further streamlined it from Marshal Grymm and the Sword Brother that I painted previously. I didn't mind lavishing loads of time on those two, but needed to have a process to get the rest of the army painted that wouldn't take a million years. 

Armour:

1) From a Chaos Black spray, I touched up the main armour areas with Abaddon Black. I then coated the whole model in Stormshield (a satin varnish which will help with the next step.

2) I then glazed Doombull Brown and then Skrag Brown into the crevices to give the appearance of dust and breath some warmth into the black armour. 

3) With the brown glazed in, I drybrushed Abaddon Black onto the areas where the brown got a little out of control (the surfaces of the armour plates). This takes us to the image above. 

4) Next came Stegadon Scale Green. This is a really fun step. I work really fast, hitting many of the upward-facing surfaces. Don't worry if it's looking a little cartoony at this stage. 

5) To pull things back towards neutral, I use Skavenblight Dinge next. With this step, I start to add in the scratches and dings in the armour which will be further accentuated later. 

6) After Skavenblight Dinge, I use quite a light neutral grey: Dawnstone - again only on smaller and smaller areas of the upward surfaces. 

7) Again, don't worry if it's getting a bit too grey at this stage, because for the next step I glazed on Abaddon Black to blend the layers together and bring the whole thing back towards black rather than grey or blue. 

8) As you can see in the image above and below, the final highlight is with Grey Seer, and I reserve that for the sharpest edges that would catch light from above. 

Pauldrons:

Starting from Steel Legion Drab, I dabbed on diluted Rakarth Flesh, followed by a stippling of Grey Seer (which was done after the decals were applied).

Red:

For the pauldron trim of the Assault Intercessors, as well as the weapon casings I wanted to saturate my red much more than I had on my Sword Brother. I started with Mephiston Red, coated it with Contrast Flesh Tearers Red, then highlighted with Evil Sunz Scarlet with more and more Yriel Yellow added.

Base:

After texturing the bases with sand, I painted them with Ushabti Bone then Contrast Skeleton Horde, followed by a drybrush of Wraithbone.

And that's the bulk of it! I'm really happy with how these guys have turned out and I'm happy that I can accomplish this standard in not an infinite amount of time. 

Tune in next week for more!

Listening: Heron Blue - Sun Kil Moon

Next Week:

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