No airbrush- no problem! Jumping aboard the Blood Angels hype train, here’s Kenny’s how to paint Blood Angels tutorial with just a brush and a dream!
Kenny, from Next Level Painting, has painted thousands of models over the years. And with Blood Angels getting a new supplement, we thought it might be good to see how Kenny paints his Blood Angels. Trimming the fat and fluff, here’s the barebones breakdown on how he gets his models moving. This tutorial focuses on how to get all the highlighting down and take a mini from tabletop quality to amazing.
So if you need to learn the initial coats, check out this tutorial first. Let’s see how to take it to the next level.
How to Paint Blood Angels: Next Level Painting Tutorial
Here’s the result we are going for! Let’s see how to achieve it. Also if you don’t have an airbrush, check out our Top Five Airbrushes For Painting Miniatures!
Step 1
We start with Khador Red, and this paint is really good. We’re using it to hit the edges as the start of our highlight. We used this color during the air-brushing process as well, however, we washed it down a bit so it’s muted.
Ancient Technique: We want to do a lot of thin lines and we don’t want to go thick on the paint. Keep it thin, do multiple passes. Small streaks.
Step 2
Troll Slayer Orange, one of the best oranges in the business. We’re going to mix this in with the Khador and water WAY down. We’re going to use it to create center point highlights.
Basically, highlight a smaller area of what you just highlighted.
Note: We COULD keep going with the Orange and make these highlights really pop. I, however, will be stopping here because I wanted to keep it a little more 3rd edition.
Step 3
Now, we’re going to go with a brown wash and do a pin wash the line between the two borders. Next, mix Tire Black and Blue-Green together as a glaze. We’re making it very thin to make a smooth transition. It’s going to be very subtle. Wash, rinse, repeat using less water and less blue each time.
Step 4
Now we add a bit of white and go old school. You can see the right shoulder, storm bolter, and tabard all have some nice white highlight. We’re also going to add it to the robe as well. Use a fine detail brush and pick out the raised surfaces of the cloth.
Step 5
Whenever you’re highlighting edges on the minis- Take Your Time! For the metal, we’ll take Aluminum, and rapid-fire edge highlight on the silver. You can see how much brighter the bolter looks from the previous picture.
Step 6
We’re also going to use Aluminum again on the chains and all the silver bits. By using the wash and this highlight across various bits on the model we’ve created a lot of great contrast. Then the Thunder Hammer is going to get some aluminum silver dry brush. As well as a fine highlight on the hard edges.
Step 7
With Abaddon Black, use a detail brush and draw on some scratches and comic book-style effects. (You can leave this part out if you prefer a cleaner look). There’s not a lot of detail in his hair; a lot of Space Marines are like this. We’re going to have to manufacture some detail. For that, we’re going to take this Uriel Yellow and just begin to use very thin streaks up from the base of the hairline up to the upper portions of the head.
Step 8
Using Yellow Rust, we’re going to thin it down and use it as a glaze. It’s going to take more than a few passes to get that yellow to blend back in and we don’t want it to look like crazy lines.
Step 9
Now that we’ve blended it back in, we’re going to go back in with the Uriel yellow and get the tips. After that, take Sunny Skintone and P3 Skintone, we mix them together and create a nice blend and we’re going to hit the raised areas of the face like the nose, chin, etc…
Lastly, takeArcana Blue to blend the blue back into those gems to make it pop.
Once it’s all done, you should have taken your time on different detailing techniques on your Blood Angels and he should be more than ready for the tabletop! And that, my friends, is how you take your Blood Angel to the Next Level.
That does it for this one! If you want to get an even better look at how to pull this off, check out Kenny’s full video! If you liked this tutorial, you can also support Kenny on his Patreon page, and stock up on all the great Chaos gear over on his Heretic Swag store.
How long have you been painting Blood Angels? Do you prefer to hand-paint or do some serious leg-work with an airbrush?
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Socials: @paschbass
About Travis Pasch: Travis has been a Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the 1990s, playing the game since Third Edition. Through extensive traveling, he’s seen a lot of the miniatures hobby from across the world, giving him a unique perspective on the latest gaming topics and trends.
Travis’s brother even owns a commission painting studio, where he’s picked up a lot of good advice and techniques for painting Warhammer and tabletop miniatures over the years, as well. Travis joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his 40k Adeptus Mechanicus models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
