Dark Angels Space Marines are easy and fast to paint. Follow this tutorial to add bodies to your green wing in no time!
While they are often overshadowed by their Deathwing and Ravenwing counter parts, the ‘green wing’ portion of the Dark Angels army is nothing to sneeze at, both in terms of game power and awesome looks.
Painting Dark Angels Space Marines
We have two main goals when it comes to painting Dark Angels.
First to find a scheme that is quick enough to do so you can have a fully painted army in no time. Second is to make them distinctly Dark Angels; ain’t nobody mistaking our models for other green marines like Salamanders!
Green
Much of the scheme revolves around the green armor, so this is where we want to allocate the most time. We want to make it striking while staying dark enough.
Over a black under coat, we airbrush Caliban Green. At this point, it’s alright to leave some of the back showing in the recesses and deepest parts of the miniature.
Next, we highlight with Warpstone Glow. Do not go too heavy handed here, make sure plenty of the Caliban Green is showing through.
Set aside the airbrush, and shade your model with Nuln Oil. I prefer a thin and even coat, but if your Warpstone Glow highlight is a little too strong, apply more of the shade to tone it down.
Lastly, once the shade is dry, we do one final very light highlight with Warpstone Glow. If you not comfortable enough with your airbrush for light coats, you can instead do edge highlights with a brush here.
Details
Because this is meant to be a quick gaming piece, the additional details on the miniature are all done in a very straightforward way: Two color + one wash.
The only exception to this rule would be if our model was sporting a cloak, on which we would spend more time and effort.
The following are shaded with Nuln Oil:
- Any dark silver (Gun Metal/Leadbelcher with a shining silver highlight)
- Pouches & Belts (Rhinox Hide with a Doombull Brown highlight)
- Armor Joints (Black, with Incubi Darkness highlight)
Red is painted with Mephiston Red and highlighted with Evil Sunz Scarlet. This color is shaded with Agrax Earthshade to keep some of the brightness in it. If you want to paint an arrow like the one on our model, you can check out this step by step.
Next, paint the purity seal with Steel Legion Drab and highlight with Morghast Bone. Lastly, shade with Seraphim Sepia. This would also be the base colors for Deathwing and robes in our army, to keep everything uniform.
Base
Except for a green grass base, the Dark Angels scheme allows you a wide variety of bases that will look great. This reddish-brown one is my favorite. It works well with the bone color and Deathwing and the black of Ravenwing.
Start with Rhinox Hide, then airbrush with Doombull Brown. After that, we dry brush Tau Sept Ochre and shade the whole thing with Agrax Earthshade.