How to Paint Raven Guard

Raven Guard are black power armour - one of the fastest schemes to basecoat and one of the easiest to get wrong, because flat black reads as a featureless silhouette rather than a suit of ceramite. Everything that makes the chapter look good happens in the last ten per cent of the model: the edges, the white markings, the pale skin and the lenses.

The good news is that this is a genuinely quick army once the recipe is settled. There is no colour blocking to plan, no faction pattern to freehand across a whole squad, and a Raven Guard marine can be finished to a good tabletop standard in the time an Ultramarine takes to basecoat.

The signature look

Sleek, near-black armour with cool grey-blue edge highlights. White shoulder trim and chapter iconography. Chalk-pale skin with dark eyes - the Raven Guard gene-seed leaves them that way, and it is the detail most people miss. Red or green lenses for the one warm point of colour on an otherwise cold model.

The whole scheme is a contrast trick: a very dark body, two or three small areas of near-white, and one saturated accent. Get those three tiers right and the black takes care of itself.

The black

Black over a black undercoat shows nothing. The recipe that works:

1. Undercoat Chaos Black, then mist Mechanicus Standard Grey from directly above so the form is already suggested before you pick up a brush.
2. Basecoat Abaddon Black over everything except the very top surfaces, leaving a hint of the zenithal showing.
3. Edge highlight Eshin Grey on every panel edge - a full, slightly generous line.
4. Come back with a finer, shorter Dawnstone line on the outer half of each edge only, and on the corners.
5. Optional final point: a tiny flick of Administratum Grey on the sharpest corners of pauldrons, helmet crests and knee plates.

Keep the highlights cool. Thunderhawk Blue in place of the Eshin Grey step gives a colder, more blue-black armour that photographs beautifully; Fenrisian Grey or Russ Grey work as the second step if you want the blue to read clearly. What you must not do is highlight black with anything warm - a brown or beige-grey edge makes ceramite look dusty rather than dark.

Speed route. Undercoat Grey Seer, one coat of Black Templar contrast, then drybrush Dawnstone lightly across the raised plates and knock it back with a thinned glaze of Black Legion. Two steps and a glaze, and it holds up at arm's length across a whole squad.

Batch route. Abaddon Black basecoat, heavy drybrush of Dawnstone from above, then Nuln Oil over the lot to pull it back together. Faster than edge highlighting and much better than leaving the black flat.

Other ranges: Vallejo painters can run German Grey into Cold Grey into Sky Grey; Army Painter Fanatic gives Matt Black into Uniform Grey into Ash Grey, with Wolf Grey as the cool final edge.

Chalk-white skin and black eyes

Raven Guard heads are the quickest win on the model and the thing that marks the chapter out from every other black-armoured force.

1. Basecoat Pallid Wych Flesh.
2. Shade the recesses with thinned Druchii Violet - purple, not brown. A warm shade turns the skin ordinary.
3. Layer Pallid Wych Flesh back over the raised areas, then highlight the brow, nose and cheekbones with White Scar.
4. Paint the eyes solid Abaddon Black, corner to corner, with no white and no dot. It takes seconds and it is unsettling in exactly the right way.

Rakarth Flesh shaded with Basilicanum Grey is the greyer, colder alternative if you want the skin further from pink.

White markings

The white is what stops the model reading as a shadow, so it is worth doing properly rather than dabbing on White Scar and hoping.

1. Basecoat Grey Seer - it covers over black in one or two coats where white never will.
2. Layer Ulthuan Grey, leaving the previous coat showing in the recesses.
3. Highlight White Scar on the raised centre of the panel only.

The one-coat version is Apothecary White contrast over a Wraithbone or Grey Seer undercoat, which is genuinely good on shoulder trim and squad markings.

Traditionally the left pauldron carries the chapter badge and the right carries squad markings, but the chapter fields a great many small strike forces and there is no wrong answer here. Keep whatever you choose identical across the unit; consistency reads as intent.

Lenses

Two schools, both correct:

• Red - Khorne Red, layer Evil Sunz Scarlet across all but the deepest corner, Wild Rider Red on the lower half, then a dot of Troll Slayer Orange and finally an off-centre pinprick of White Scar.
• Green - Caliban Green, Warpstone Glow, Moot Green, with the same white dot.

Whichever you pick, glaze a little of the lens colour onto the helmet around the eye so it appears to cast light, and keep the accent off the rest of the model. Two lenses and a power-weapon glow are plenty; a Raven Guard force with six bright things on each model is no longer a stealth chapter.

Metal and weapons

Leadbelcher, Nuln Oil, then Ironbreaker on the edges of bolter casings, barrels and blades, with Stormhost Silver on the very sharpest corners. Keep Raven Guard metal fairly dark and matte - bright chrome fights the whole scheme.

Bolt casings, grenades and pouches are the place to hide a second colour if the model is starting to look monotonous. A Zandri Dust into Ushabti Bone pouch, or a Khorne Red purity seal, breaks up the black without breaking the palette.

Bases

Urban rubble and ash suit the chapter and, more usefully, they are light. A dark model on a dark base disappears.

Astrogranite Debris straight from the pot, drybrushed Longbeard Grey, then a rim of Abaddon Black, gives a pale cracked-ferrocrete base in two steps. Armageddon Dust with a Skavenblight Dinge drybrush is the dustier, warmer version, and Martian Ironearth is the one to reach for if you want cracked earth rather than city.

The Legion, in the Heresy

The XIX Legion wear the same black in the Horus Heresy, usually in Mark VI plate - the beaked helmet the chapter is associated with to this day - with heavier white on the helm and shoulder for legion and company markings. The recipe above works unchanged; if you are painting a Legion force rather than a chapter one, our Legiones Astartes guide covers the markings and the plate marks.

Tips and common mistakes

• Never leave black flat. Edge highlights are non-negotiable on a black scheme. A flat-black army looks unfinished at any distance under two feet.
• Highlight cool, not warm. Blue-grey edges read as armour; brown-grey reads as dust.
• Two lines, not one heavy one. A crisp Eshin Grey edge with a finer Dawnstone inside it beats a single thick grey line every time.
• Do not skip the pale skin. It is four minutes a model and it is the chapter's signature.
• Light the base. A pale base is the single easiest thing you can do to stop a black model reading as a hole in the table.
• Ration the accent. One lens colour, used sparingly, across the whole army.

Every Raven Guard kit and box we can price - including the Combat Patrol, Kayvaan Shrike and Aethon Shaan - sits on the Raven Guard army page, and most of the chapter's line troops come out of the shared Space Marines range. When the palette is where you want it, open this scheme in the generator to swap paints between brands or push the black warmer or colder.