Halloween Special - Painting the Legion of the Damned

Hi! Warrior here for a spooky special! Halloween is fast approaching so I thought I would take a break from the Minotaurs and paint up the creepiest unit I could find. After spotting a bargain, here is my new Legion of the Damned...

Ooogaboooga!

Not content with the canon Legion colours, I decided to use a rather cool technique I saw on a forum and paint them like something out of Scooby Doos worst nightmare.

This is an incredibly simple method to paint the ghost effect, and gives great results! I also figured with the new rules, a squad of deep striking, cover ignoring, invulnerable marines with meltaguns would be handy (damn you pesky Waveserpents!) So without further ado here is how I did them.

First up I constructed the model. As these were Finecast I only pinned the major joints , but if it was metal then I would pin all but the most minor attachments. I then basecoated the model. Ideally this would be in black, but in this case but I only had green! It doesn't matter too much here as it will have a green tint at the end anyway.

Next up paint the bottom 2 thirds in black. These next steps are to build up the direction of the light in progressively lighter shades from the top.

Paint the top third in Dawnstone Grey. I also painted the larger highlighted areas including the flames and the top third of the bolter.

Drybrush the grey to blend it in to the black to make the gradient transition as smooth as possible.

Paint the top 1/5 in Pallid Wych Flesh and drybrush it in to the grey. Be sure to pick out the details. Then paint the very top surfaces of the model in Skull White and drybrush. This picks out the surfaces where the light would be brightest.

Then wash the whole model in a liberal coat of Biel-Tan Green. The lighter the coat underneath the lighter the green wash, which gives a great ghostly glow! Not far off now.

Next I highlighted the edges in Pallid Wych Flesh on the top third, and warpstone glow on the bottom 2 thirds to really pick out the dramatic lighting. This stage is more of a personal preference as I like to emphasise my models highlights to really make them stand out.

Next I gave the highlights a really thinned wash of Biel-Tan Green just to blend them in. Now all that is left is to do the remaining bits, including the eyes and base.

The final touch was to drybrush some Warpstone Glow on to the usual basing scheme I give my Marines, to make it appear as though they were materialising from the warp itself! Ready to bring some pain for Halloween...

If you have any comments, questions or tips feel free to leave them below.