Painting Blood Angels should not require you to sacrifice a chicken to get a smooth and vibrant red.  Lucky for us, this step by step guide shows you another, easier way to paint great looking Blood Angels army!

Painting Blood Angels

The key part of painting Blood Angels is picking out great red paint.  It sounds obvious, but a lot of the time, people fail this step, and struggle going forward.  Because great, in this case, is more about use than about shade.

For example, Dragon Red might be my favorite shade for a vibrant red.  However, Mephiston Red is very close, but covers a whole lot better than Dragon Red will.  As such, I’m okay trading the 10% better shade of Dragon Red for the 200% enjoyment I will get out of simplicity and ease of use.

Maybe on a single model, the trade off isn’t worth it, but for a whole army?  Every. Single. Day.

Red

To paint the red, we will use an airbrush and start on a base coat of Rhinox Hide.  Spray Mephiton Red at a 45 degree angle from the top of the model.  This should give you a vibrant red model that gradually fades to brown underneath each part.  Next, we add a a very light highlight of Evil Sunz Scarlet.

Next, you can add Evil Sunz Scarlet  highlights with a brush to make the edges of your Blood Angel crisp and well defined.

Black

The secret trick with black in Blood Angels, is to pick a color that will also fit the Death Company.  That way, you can simply reverse the scheme when it comes to the black rage inclined part of your army, while keeping a cohesive scheme.

We paint the shoulder plates, on knee pad, and we will do all the vents and joints this way, starting with a black base coat.  Pick any black you fancy, I like The Army Painter’s Matt Black.

Next we will highlight with Incubi Darkness, a very dark greenish-blue.

If you find this too off-black, add a shade of Nuln Oil on this.  This step is great on death Company, as it allows you to add much more depth to your black, which is the majority of the model.

Gold

Gold is another important color when it comes to painting Blood Angels.  Not only does it look amazing with the red and black, it’s also the main part of Sanguinary Guards.  Much like black, we want to paint the gold in a way that will fit for entire models down the road.

We start on a base coat of Retributor Gold, that we highlight with Shining Silver.   Then, we will shade this with the greatest shade known to man: Agrax Earthshade.

For large or very detailed areas, you can add Druchii Violet.  Add this only in the very deep recesses or areas you want to add contrast to. Make sure that the Agrax is completely dry before adding the Druchii Violet.

Bone, Scrolls, Hair & Cords

Bones and scroll are painted with a base coat of Zandri Dust, that we highlight with a Bone color (any color with skeleton or bone in the name is probably fine here) By painting the highlights in horizontal lines on the scrolls, we can mimic the look of text without having to spend too much time on it.

Then we shade these with Seraphim Sepia.  I also apply Seraphim Sepia to the red seals, that way they stand out just a little from the red of the armor.

I’m not the biggest fan of yellow blonde hair on my models, so I usually paint the hair with this color.  The yellow from the bone color and sepia from the shade is a decent enough looking blonde color, and you save a lot of time across an entire army doing hair this way.

For some reason, Blood Angels always have little ropes tied around their gear.  I suggest painting those in this bone color most of the time, but a case can be made for black or red, depending on where they are on your model.  Just like black and gold, the same rule applies:  paint it the same red or same black if you do.