Bone armour (Dark Angels)

For the bone armour, I'm using an airbrush for the layering and the filter, but you can off course replace this by a brush or sponge or any other technique you feel comfortable with. My goal for this recipe is to have a warm, saturated bone colour, which is why I use a very thinned down ink to bring back some saturation after having put in the gradients.

Apply black primer and then take pictures front and back to see where and how the light hits the model. The armour itself is quite matte as opposed to shining metals, so I'm not focusing on high contrasts between shadow and light in the armour. It will be very useful though when working on metallic and other reflective parts.

For the base coat, I use a very rich dark red (Hull Red) as I want to have a warm armour in the end. I make sure to hold the airbrush in all angles, especially the parts that are facing downwards and inwards, like the inside of the legs or the armour behind the jetpack, as they will not receive any further layers, at least not willingly.

I know start building up the layers. First with skrag brown, still a very rich and saturated brown. I don't go below parallel with the airbrush to cover only those parts of the armour that are directly exposed to the light. I use a 2:1 thinner:paint ratio, but will gradually thin more as the layers progress.

Next layer is Morghast Bone in a 3:1 dilution. Here, I dont go below a 45° angle, only hitting the surfaces that are facing upwards, but I still go all the way down to the feet. Examples of where the paint does not hit the model : downward facing parts of the front armour, downward facing parts of the shoulder pads, downward facing parts of the jet pack, front of the left leg, back of the right leg.

Next up is Bone White, same 3:1 dilution, and only spraying downwards on the model. I am now lowering PSI to 1.2 (from 1.6 before) so that I can hold my airbrush closer to the model and have more control over where the paint lands. Also aim for the arms and feet, as they have surfaces that are facing straight upward. The colors are getting very desaturated now.

The final color I spray is Off White. I thin further down to a 4:1 ratio and I now very specifically aim at the parts of the upper body where the light hits directly. This is where I come back to the picture I took in the beginning of the primed mini to see where and how the light hits the armour.

To increase the readibility of the armour, I thin down Dark Umber Pin Wash in a 1:1 ratio (use white spirit!) so that it flows very easily without losing too much color saturation. Use a brush with a solid belly and a thin point, load the brush, and then touch every crack and crevisse in the armour so that ink flows into it. You should see the ink flow into the crack. If you don't, thin down further. Repeat this where needed until you have clear dark lines around every part of the armour. (I have read that applying a coat of gloss varnish would improve the flow into the cracks, but I haven't tried that yet.)
The reason I prefer an enamel for this step over an acrylic ink or wash, is that you can reactivate the enamel. I used a make-up sponge dipped in white spirit (tap on a kitchen towel to remove the excess) to rib over the miniature and clean up the wash. I only took a picture of the "dirty stage", but you can see the difference compared to the next pictures.

This is the part where I bring back saturation to the model. I thin the Raw Umber Ink in a 5:1 ratio in my airbrush (and could even have gone for 6:1 in hindsight) and start very gently covering the entire armour from a distance. Do this slowly and gradually, it is better to do 2 or 3 passes than try to have the final result in a single pass. Doing more passes will allow you to add a bit less saturation on the lightest parts and a bit more on the darker parts. If you don't have inks, an acrylic wash like Citadel's Reikland Fleshshade would work too, but less diluted. Just make sure it is a warm brown.

Final step is edge highlighting. First with Morghast bone on all edges, even the ones facing downward. Second with Bone White on the upward facing edges, and finally with off white on the edges facing my light source (the initial picture might come in handy here).

To prepare the other parts for painting, I cover them in black again, ready for their own basecoats and layers.

For my future reference and perhaps for your benefit, here's what I wish had done differently on the model :
- use a browner enamel wash. Dark Umber from AK Interactive is very close to black, I would have prefered it to go more towards red.
- clean up the darklining better. I have missed some spots and cracks, leaving a bit dirty stains on the armour (e.g. upper left leg, front of left shoulder pad, mouth cover of the helmet)
- make my edge highlights smoother by (1) thinnng down the paint more and do a couple of passes and (2) add a light glaze to soften the transition (not too late for that I realize now...)