Want to paint your Death Guard Plague Marine in a simple scheme that will get your army ready to slug across the battlefield in no time!? This method is for you!
Battle Ready Plague Marine
One of the best thing about Death Guard, besides making fart noises with your mouth when you move them around, is that even with a very simple paint job, they look amazing.
This is great if you are looking to put together an army over the weekend, which is quite easy with this method.
The main idea for this is: one solid base coat on every surface, and then one shade on every surface. Then, some eye poping details and a base, and you are ready for action!
Spray and Pray
Because our goal is to save time, we are starting from an undercoat of Army Green from The Army Painter. Shaker cans are pretty much the ultimate time saver, but if you don’t have a decent space to use them, I would look for a colored airbrush primer like Vallejo USA Olive Drab, that will act as your basecoat.
After the shaker can, come back with that same color, preferably with an airbrush, because again, time saving, to paint over the areas that the spray failed to cover. Don’t skip over this touchup stage, as it’s much faster to do this early.
Base Coats
This method is quite simple, but it relies heavily on the basecoat step. It’s important to get a solid basecoat, that’s opaque and tidy. There is no shortcut here, and if it’s not done properly, the rest of the steps will not make up for it, as it’s sometimes the case for other techniques.
We have the green from the armor covered with the primer, now time for everything else. The color choice here is influenced by two things: First, how well does it cover, and second, how will it look with only shading.
The joints, cables and vents in the armor are painted using Incubi Darkness (because we can’t shade straight black)
The tentacles and zits are painted Bugman’s Glow
The horns, spikes and anything wood are painted Steel Legion Drab
The belts and pouches are painted Doombull Brown
The cloth, robes and hoodies are painted Naggaroth Night
The biggest challenge on Death Guard is in which details you should paint in gold or bronze, and which should be silver.
I find it’s simpler to start with silver, because weapons and chains are obvious. Almost any dark silver will do, most brands are killer for this color. I like Balthasar Gold for the other metallics as it looks like a halfway point between gold and bronze, and it covers insanely well. This is my main issue with bronze, the lack of coverage from most brands.
There is also Ulthuan Grey here and there for some very specific parts, like wrappings on weapons, certain characters helmets and the occasional fly wings.
The only part that’s not done here is everything we want to glow or pop, like the smoke, fumes, oozing weapons and lights. We’ll take care of those at a later time.
Chad-ing Shading
Now that every surface on your Plague Marine is painted in the color it should be, it’s go time with the shading!
When it comes to shading and speed painting, the best way is to start with the largest surface and work your way to the smallest surface.
On our Plague Marine, the largest area is the armor, so that’s where we begin. This specific model, we used Seraphim Sepia on the armor. You can also use Agrax Earthshade or Athonian Camoshade here. You will get a darker finish for the former, or greener for the latter. This layer can be as heavy or light as you chose, but should be the same across the army. This will ensure your force has a cohesive overall look.
Next up are silver, purple and brown, that we shade with Nuln Oil. You can be pretty generous with the Nuln Oil and let it work its magic, specially on the silver.
You could also use Druchii Violet for the purple. Because Nagagroth Night is already pretty dark, the Nuln Oil does better job at shading, even if the final color isn’t quite as vibrant.
For the tentacles, we will whip out our special weapon: Volupus Pink Contrast from Games Workshop. This thing, over our flesh tone is pure magic. It gives a vibrant pink color that stands out on the mostly-green model.
Extra Details
This model being the regular trooper guy doesn’t really have any of the glowy stuff that other Death Guard models have. Still, this color is quite important on the models that do have those details. I like Turquoise very much, as it stands out. Pink and purple would also work great, because they pair well with those colors already on our model.
The basic technique for this is: Basecoat with your ‘main’ glowy color. Highlight with a mix of that color and White (90% white). Shade with a toned down shade on contrast. Money.
This is my own Death Guard army, painted in a similar scheme. The glowy stuff is Sotek Green, White and Tallasar Blue to shade.
The base for this model is dark brown sand. Almost any kind of muted or drab base works really well for Death Guard.
With these steps, you are well on your way to field your fully painted Death Guard army in no time. And one of the best part of this technique is that you can always add more details to it later.
Once everything is playable and ready, nothing stops you from adding an edge highlight to the armor of your Plague Marine, or more definition to the tentacles. It’s practically a paint as you play.