Delaque are a gang of about ten models, which changes how you should paint them. There is no batch-painting argument here and no reason to compromise: you can afford to spend an evening on one fighter. The scheme rewards that, because it is built almost entirely on value - a pale coat, a black underlayer, and a bloodless face - with almost no colour to hide behind.
The signature look
A long, pale grey trenchcoat over a matt black bodyglove, worn by a completely hairless figure with grey-white skin and blank, staring eyes. The coat should read as light and slightly cold, not white; the bodyglove should read as genuinely dark, not grey. That separation between the two is the whole scheme. Everything else - a knife, a pistol, a respirator - is small metal detail.
Resist the temptation to warm anything up. Delaque live in the deep levels where nothing has seen a sun lamp in decades.
The pale grey coat
Undercoat black, then zenithal a light grey or Grey Seer from above. That undercoat does half the shading for you on a garment this large and this flat.
- Basecoat Dawnstone, two thin coats. Straight from the pot it looks too dark for the finished coat - it should, because you are building upwards from here.
- Shade the folds with thinned Nuln Oil, keeping it in the recesses. If you want the shadows to stay cool rather than sooty, use Drakenhof Nightshade instead; it suits Delaque better than it suits almost anything else.
- Layer Administratum Grey over the raised cloth, leaving the shade colour in the creases and along the hem.
- Highlight the top edges and fold peaks with Ulthuan Grey.
- On the sharpest points only - collar corners, shoulder ridges, the front edge of the coat - a fine line of White Scar. Two or three per model, no more.
Vallejo painters can run the same ramp as German Grey, Cold Grey, Stonewall Grey, Ghost Grey and Dead White. Army Painter Fanatic gives you Uniform Grey, Castle Grey and Ash Grey for the middle of it.
The fast route
Undercoat Grey Seer, then glaze Basilicanum Grey into the recesses of the coat only - not over the whole panel. Wipe the brush and pull the contrast down into the folds so the raised cloth keeps the pale undercoat. One highlight of Ulthuan Grey on top and the coat is finished in about ten minutes.
For a cooler, more blue-grey coat, Space Wolves Grey does the same job in one coat and looks striking against black. This is also the sensible route if you are painting a second gang or a pile of hangers-on.
Bodygloves, leather and metal
The bodyglove has to stay dark or the coat stops reading as pale. Basecoat Abaddon Black, then edge-highlight with Eshin Grey and stop there. If you want a hint of sheen on the tighter panels, add a very thin Dawnstone catch on the knees and shoulders. Do not drybrush the bodyglove - the coat is the light source in this scheme.
Straps, holsters and boots: Rhinox Hide shaded Agrax Earthshade and edged Mournfang Brown. Blades and pistols in Leadbelcher, shaded Nuln Oil, with a Runefang Steel edge on the cutting surface. Delaque weapons are silenced, exotic and usually small, so keep the metals dark and cool rather than bright.
Heads, eyes and skin
The bald pallid head is what makes a Delaque model unmistakable, and it takes five minutes.
Basecoat Rakarth Flesh, shade with Druchii Violet rather than a brown wash - the purple keeps the skin looking bloodless and sunless. Layer Pallid Wych Flesh across the crown, cheekbones and nose, then a final touch of Screaming Skull on the brow and the top of the skull.
The eyes are the trick. Delaque eyes read as blank white discs, not as normal pupilled eyes. Fill the whole socket with Abaddon Black, then paint a solid oval of Corax White or White Scar over it, leaving a thin black border all round. No pupil, no iris. Getting both eyes the same size matters far more than getting them small.
Tips and common mistakes
- Do not paint the coat white. The finished garment should sit around a mid-to-light grey with white only on the sharpest edges. A white coat loses every fold.
- Keep the shadows cool. Brown or sepia anywhere on the cloth immediately makes Delaque look like scruffy Van Saar.
- Black stays black. The commonest failure is highlighting the bodyglove until it is the same value as the coat, at which point the silhouette collapses.
- One warm accent, deliberately placed. A red lens, a brass buckle or a single ganger's rust-brown glove gives the eye somewhere to land on an otherwise monochrome model.
- Thin your greys hard. Pale greys are chalky and streaky at pot consistency, and streaks show badly across a coat this large.
When the palette is where you want it, open this scheme in the generator to swap paints between brands or push the coat cooler.