Four Dads Q&As - Paint It Black

We have had a couple of questions via Twitter this week and as Twitter doesn't really allow for a full answer I am responding to them here:

The first is from .... who wanted some advice on painting black. It is good timing as I have been giving this some significant thought recently and am about to embark on painting 10 Dark Furies and a Ravenguard HQ.

Ok there are a couple of options for painting black and making it 'pop':

Option A is to paint your marine very very dark grey, the wash it with Nuln oil. This will give the armour panels some character and prevent everything looking too flat.

Option B is to spray black and then pick out the edges with a light grey, maybe by gently dry brushing them.
Or you could go all out and do a combination of these!

The most important thing to do though is to break up the black as much as possible with White, grey, bronze and Leadbelcher type colours. This will allow the black to 'frame' these areas and complement them.

Having a lot of black on the model means that those areas that are not need to look awesome, when you have a lot of white that gives you the chance to show off some weathering skills. There is lots you can do here but a simple suggestion is to make some damage marks in black and then put a dab of leadbelcher on them - its a super-easy way to add a little battle damage, less is more though on an infantry model. You are going to need to paint faces well too, and the bases. I remember reading a WD article when I was a kid called 'faces, bases and shields' which was basically a pro-painters tips to get a painting award. I think the same applies here especially to Ravenguard - give them awesome bases - maybe lightly painted so it contrasts with them, an urban scene with lots of light grey for instance. 

And last but not least, make sure your Raven guard look like their legion, the should look like they are bursting into ambush from the shadows about to rip into the traitors! Dynamic poses will go a long way to helping with the overall look. I am about to embark on some Raven Guard too, so keep checking in on the blog for the recipe I settle on.