Blood Raven space marines

Paint recipe by cut_the_sprue
Blood Raven space marines

My recipe for grim-dark Blood Ravens to create a weathered armour look. This recipe only uses Vallejo acrylic paints and uses some sponge and stippling techniques to get that weather look.

Base-coating the armour

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1.

First base-coat the mini in whatever matte black spray you have.

Rust-Oleum 2x Ultra Cover Flat Black Spray

2.

Then using a large brush paint all the armour areas in Burnt Umber, leaving areas such as recesses, guns, pouches and the aquila black.

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3.

Stipple on Gory Red using a sponge for large areas and an old brush for the small ones. The red shouldn't cover all the brown base-coat, we want some to show through here and there to help with the weathered effect, especially near the edges.

Weathering the armour

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Next keep using the stippling technique and apply Bloody Red to the middle of the red areas, again not trying to get full coverage. For areas like kneecaps I apply it to the middle or to the top facing the light source.

2.

After that mix in some Wolf Grey and apply only to the areas that would catch the most light / be the most weathered. You can always go back to the previous colours if you add too much.

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3.

Last edge highlight areas such as the kneecaps and top of the head with Black and pure Wolf Grey after.

Shoulder pauldrons

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1.

The final colour of the pauldrons is a mix of Bone White and Dead White, but they both cover pretty poorly so I will usually first base-coat using Stonewall Grey and then pure Bone White.

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4.

After applying decals add some scratches to make them look worn.

5.

Burnt Umber for additional weathering where the pauldrons meet the black trim.

Guns and black details

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First touch up with black if needed.

2.

Add edge highlights and scratches.

3.

Vallejo Air: Gunmetal (71.072)

4.

For some areas I will add watered down Leather Brown to make them look dusty / dirty.

Water

Pouches and straps

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Purity seals

Steps for the wax seal:

Eye lenses

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For the lenses I paint them white first, then apply Dark Green which has horrible coverage but works well as a "wash" for this instance. Then I'll use a tiny bit of white again before applying Scorpy Green to the centre of the lenses.

Final weathering and varnishing

For the final step I water down Leather Brown and apply some to the legs, exhausts and other areas dust might accumulate. You can apply multiple layers till you're happy with the result.

For the varnish step you can use whatever you prefer, it's mainly to get rid of the decal glossiness and to protect the model for tabletop gaming.

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Tamiya TS-80 Flat Clear Spray

Final photos

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C

cut_the_sprue

Joined March 2024

Back in the hobby after 25 years!
Currently working on my blood raven army.