How to Paint Black Legion Terminators – Armour

The new Chaos Space Marine Terminator box which came out a couple of months ago improved what were already some pretty decent miniatures. The details on the new miniatures is a lot crisper than the previous incarnation, and they look a lot more intimidating. After painting up the Terminator Champion for a video, I thought it’d be a good time to paint up the rest of the terminators as a post.

Armour Trim

The trim on the terminator armour has been improved a lot since the previous terminator miniatures and looks a lot more baroque. Thankfully, it’s easy to give it a great look. There’s a video over on our channel which shows a slow time tutorial on how to paint the trim.

To start with, the trim is given a base coat of Citadel Liberator Gold, which is then shaded using Citadel Agrax Earthshade followed by Citadel Nuln Oil. Liberator gold is then reapplied, leaving the shades in the recesses, and anywhere the light wouldn’t catch. Finally, a mix of Vallejo Model Air Chrome and Liberator Gold were applied to the edges of the trim to give the impression of light catching them.

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The armour is given a very basic paint job, consisting of a carefully applied layer of Vallejo Black. using Vallejo German Grey, I highlight all the areas that would catch the light if it were shining from directly above the miniature. The final colour is Citadel Mechanicus Standard Grey to add a highlight to some of the edges that would catch the light.

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The lenses for the terminators are a slightly different shape to the normal space marine lenses, but the method of painting them is much the same.

The lens is initially painted with Citadel Mephiston Red, shaded with Citadel Druchii Violet, and Mephiston Red is re-applied.

Next we mix some White with the Mephiston Red and highlight the rearmost half f the lens. We then add more White to the previous mix, and add that to the rear quarter of the lens. We add a little more white to the previous mix and add one final highlight before using pure White to put a thin white line at the back of the lens, and a small dot at the front.

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The last parts of the armour to paint up are the chapter badge, and also the small Eye of Horus that the Black Legion seem to wear with frequency. 

In both cases, the initial colour is White, and this is used to colour the Eye of Horus and to paint the chapter badge. The shades are used exactly the same way in both cases. Citadel Cassandora Yellow is used to colour the whole Eye/badge, followed by Citadel Fuegan Orange, which is used to colour the bottom 50% of the Eye/badge. Citadel Carroburg Crimson is used to do the bottom 25%. The only thing left to paint after that, is a vertical iris on the Eye.

N.b. You can save the effort of painting on the chapter badge by using decals, but what fun would that be? 

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With that, the terminator’s armour is finished. Next time we’ll have more from the Chaos Space Marine Terminators.

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