For the ridged sections between any carapace plates, basecoat with Xereus Purple and shade with Druchii Violet Wash pink parts with a thin mix of Contrast Magus Purple/Contrast Medium, wash the blue parts with a thin mix of Contrast Akhelian Green, both focusing on the recesses. Both the Chaplain and the Judiciar had their skeleton ribs painted the same as the skeleton on the Ancient’s banner, Rakarth Flesh and then Flayed One Flesh. I ended up using thinned 2:1 Guilliman Blue glaze:flow improver and glazed the lower 2/3rds of the face. Then I painted small veins with the thinned Guilliman Blue (which got covered with thinned Pallid Wych Flesh, unfortunately) to look like veins showing through the pallid skin. I also used thinned Drakehof Nightshade to shade under the eyes.

For the characters, I kept the same elements but reconfigured. The Primus is obviously quite similar to the Cultists, but the Magus trades some of the blue for his rich purple robes. Chaos Space Marine Rhino: The Chaos Space Marine Rhino is a staple of the Chaos Space Marine army, and its rugged, battle-worn appearance makes it an ideal candidate for Druchii Violet. Adding this color to the Rhino would give it a darker and more sinister appearance, perfect for a Chaos Space Marine army.Orks can have green skin and bleed red because the green pigment in their skin would absorb the red, leaving none to reflect off the underlying vasculature. It helps to paint your heads separately no matter what you do, but this is especially important for your skin, because you don’t want to get flesh tones on your nice finished armor color. For the flesh tones, I wanted something a bit greyer and more inhuman than your standard Cadian Fleshtone. I go into more detail in the HTPE: Human Skin article, but for Caracalla, the skin is VGA Dwarf Skin mixed with a mid/slightly dark grey. To highlight, I mixed in more of the dwarf skin, though the entire color range I used has a good proportion of grey in it. Instead of a flesh wash, I used diluted nuln oil to wash the skin. Lay down a thin layer of Vallejo Model Air Light Gull Gray on the bone bits – you want this to be thin and ever so slightly inconsistent to give the effect of weathered and bleached bone Then for once procrastination paid off, as what did we get later that year? Contrast paints, and with that I was sloshing away like a mad ham.

What might be confusing here is the uniform, where I start with Nuln to darken and desaturate it a bit before Druchii gets colour right. Highlights – Making the gribblies pop There’s more to painting the Adeptus Custodes than just spraying your models down with Retributor Armor spray – though that’s certainly an option if you want to save time. We’ll look at several different methods for painting them here. Crab-Stuffed Mushroom’s Method The armor plates get edge highligting with Sotek Green, completing the classic Drukhari look, albeit with a more blue tint.I airbrush Citadel Mephiston Red as a highlight. You can do this with a brush but this is why you buy an airbrush because it’s so much simpler with one. Spot Highlight the armor (gold and leadbelcher parts) with Stormhost Silver (try to ‘dot’ the edges of the armor only – less is more)! And here we are! Deamonettes attached to the mirror and some mud on the base to match my army. Before someone goes pointing out that I mis-assembled part of the front left coil of the mirror, yes, I’m aware. It just goes to show that you should always take your time with assembly and clean up because you never know what level of effort you’re going to put in. Better to be safe than sorry.