Ultramarines are the reference scheme for the whole hobby, which cuts both ways. Everyone knows what they should look like, so a rushed one is obvious - but the recipe is also the most documented in miniature painting, and it is genuinely simple. Blue armour, gold trim, white markings, red lenses. Four decisions, then repeat.
They are a middling-speed army. Faster than any chapter with freehand heraldry, slower than a black chapter, and very well suited to batch painting because every model is identical.
The signature look
Deep, slightly warm blue power armour with a hard edge highlight, gold trim on characters and sergeants, white or bone shoulder markings, and red lenses. The armour should look clean - Ultramarines are a well-supplied chapter and heavy weathering fights the identity.
The blue armour
Undercoat black or Macragge Blue spray if you have it.
- Basecoat Macragge Blue, two thin coats. It covers well but the first coat will look patchy - trust the second.
- Shade the recesses with Nuln Oil, or Drakenhof Nightshade if you want the shadows to stay blue rather than going grey.
- Layer Calgar Blue across the raised armour, leaving the base colour in the joins.
- Edge-highlight Fenrisian Grey along the top edges of each plate. On characters, add a final thin catch of Etherium Blue on the sharpest corners.
The fast route, and it is a good one: undercoat Grey Seer, then a single coat of Ultramarines Blue contrast. Edge it with Calgar Blue and you have a tabletop-ready marine in two steps. For a whole company this saves days.
Gold, white and lenses
Trim, aquilas and purity seal fittings: Retributor Armour, shade Agrax Earthshade, layer Auric Armour Gold. Sergeants and characters get considerably more of it than line marines.
Shoulder markings and squad numbers in White Scar over a Grey Seer basecoat. Transfers work well on Ultramarines because the pauldrons are flat - gloss the panel first, apply the transfer, then matt varnish.
Lenses: Khorne Red in the recess, Evil Sunz Scarlet across the middle, Wild Rider Red at the lower edge, a White Scar dot at the top corner, then gloss. Bolters in Leadbelcher shaded Nuln Oil with Runefang Steel edges.
Parchment and seals in Zandri Dust, Agrax Earthshade, Ushabti Bone, Screaming Skull - the same recipe as every other Imperial force, and worth learning once.
Successor chapters
The Ultramarines have more successors than anyone, and most reuse the recipe with one substitution:
- Novamarines - Abaddon Black and White Scar halved armour with blue detailing.
- Genesis Chapter - Averland Sunset into Yriel Yellow over a bone undercoat.
- Aurora Chapter - Castellan Green into Elysian Green, with white markings.
- Praetors of Orpheus - Kantor Blue with Mephiston Red shoulders.
- Doom Eagles - Mechanicus Standard Grey into Dawnstone, one of the fastest marine schemes going.
Tips and common mistakes
- Two thin coats of blue, not one thick one. Macragge Blue is opaque enough that people rush it and end up with brush marks in the recesses.
- Keep the shadows blue. A black wash everywhere makes the armour look grey; use it only in the deepest recesses.
- Do not weather them heavily. A little boot dust is plenty.
- Batch in stages of ten. Basecoat ten, shade ten, layer ten. The scheme has no per-model variation, so there is no reason to work one at a time.