Launched in 2019, the Contrast range revolutionised miniatures painting. Now, the new colours span the entire spectrum, from eye-searing emeralds and yellows, to fiery reds and bold blues. We’re really spoilt for choice! To give us a hand exploring the new range, we asked Warhammer TV painting presenter Emma Robinson to provide us with ideas for using some of the new colours.

Highlighting follow my usual process. I start with highlighting every armor edge with Scale75 Sky Blue which is a nice vibrant and bright blue. I then hit top-facing edges with Vallejo Model Color Sky Blue, which is a much lighter color despite having the same name. Finally, I hit corners and compound edges with Vallejo Model Color Blue Grey Pale. Step 5: WeatheringClean up the edges of the secondary color if needed (streaks an imperfections will look off at this scale). I haven’t been part of this hobby long when compared to some of the other hobbyists on here, but what time I have spent within it has been devoted almost entirely to painting Ultramarines, so hopefully this article will help you avoid some of the mistakes I made. Over time I have done my best to mimic the ‘eavy Metal style you see on the box art, and I am here to say anyone can do it given the following: practice, steady hands, and good eyesight. No artistic talent required, trust me! The MAD-3R Marauder is my all-time favorite ‘Mech, and I painted it green as an homage to the cover of my all-time favorite Technical Manual, 3025. A common mistake is to start with a pure white here, but if you do that, there’s nowhere to highlight up to! Instead, we’ll start with a lighter off white and highlight up. Ulthuan Grey is a great color that covers well over blue, so we’ll slap that down, thin some Nuln Oil down for a recess shade, then highlight that with Pro Acryl Titanium White. I use this on the 1st company trim and helmets, as well as some heraldry and unit markings. There’s really just one special unit for the Ultramarines who needs his own article, and that’s the Ultramarines’ Primarch, Roboute Guilliman. You can find our article on How to Paint Roboute Guilliman here.

So there you have it, pro-tips from one of our pro-painters! That’s just 10 of the 25 new Contrast paints – we’ve already had ideas for coruscating bolts of energy with Mantis Warrior Green and some filthy underhive terrain with Garaghak’s Sewer. The possibilities are truly endless! This step looks like there’s a lot of work involved, there really isn’t but because of the amount of little bits I’ved bundled them into one step. Mountains: Base coat is Celestra Grey, camo elements are Mechanicus Standard Grey > Nuln Oil pin wash > Ulthuan Grey > White Scar No self-respecting Ultramarine would go to war without the proper iconography. My technique is identical to JD’s. However, we have one more step to go! Step 13. Weathering

Painting Ultramarines

D. Thin Edge Highlight of Fenrisian Grey – Much of a repeat of the previous step but you are covering slightly less of the area than in the previous and the your lines are noticeably thinner, less than half the width the Calgar blue, and covering about 50-75% of the edge area focusing the raised portions. There won’t always be robes on models, so I saved this for last. If you wanted to, I’d probably get this step done before Step 9, as leather details and purity seals are often sitting on top of robes. I was still nailing my technique for robes at the time I painted these guys, but it was a pretty simple base, shade, and layer up. Nowadays I would have blended between the base color and the layer instead of going straight from one to the next without a transition, but you can follow my guide or learn from my mistakes. I would also add a final edge highlight. C. Pinning (keeping your dirty nerd hands from ruining your work): For this you want some paperclips and wine corks. What you then do is drill a VERY SHALLOW hole into a non-visible part of the model like the bottom of a foot, gun barrel, or connection point and then use a small amount of super glue to attach a clipped piece of paper clip to it. You then suspend the assembly upwards by push the other end of the paper clip into the cork. Edge highlight all camo surfaces with the main base coat color’s appropriate highlight. Basically, treat the highlights as if the secondary color didn’t exist.

At the same time, painting mercs sounds like fun, especially getting to experiment with lots of paint schemes, and having an identity for my ‘Mechs will be nice if I ever wind up playing folks other than Lark down the road. So I’m keeping things subtle with a small logo, and painting whatever the hell I feel like. The Long Nights mercenary company These are going to be the same as anybody else’s steps, including my own. Get transfers on these models (or in my case, freehand and moulded pauldrons) then varnish away! Metal models chip super easily, especially if you don’t have a really durable primer on them.Another option when thinking about heraldry is to use an alternative color scheme for a unit or set of units to distinguish them on the battlefield. Fellow Goonhammer author SRM has made great use of this for his Vanguard Marines by painting them in a scheme reminiscent of the Ultramarines Destroyer Scheme from the Horus Heresy. This gives the models a very distinct look while also looking cohesive with the rest of his force, you can learn more about it here. B. Taping: This is done concurrently with sub assembling and is just as important. Use an X-Acto Knife to cut out small pieces of painter’s tape to cover the connection areas of the sub-assemblies. This is important because paint over these areas will make it hard for the glue to hold the final model together, and because GW’s current line of models fit together so perfectly the undercoat can prevent the model from coming together as intended. https://imgur.com/3nmTy9f