Commission Painting – Ultramarines Praetor
Focus Keyword: miniature commission painting + Ultramarines
This commission project was for an Ultramarines Praetor for the Horus Heresy, painted to a high tabletop standard. The goal was to deliver a well painted leader with a darker blue than normal for a unique tabletop-ready force.
The Brief
- Game/System: Horus Heresy
- Faction/Army: Ultramarines
- Scale: 32mm
- Model Count: 1
- Painting Standard: High Tabletop
- Special Requests: Darker blue than normal!
Pre-Paint Preparation
Games Workshop Chaos Black. The miniature is being painted in four separate pieces: body, head, cape and backpack. Something you might want to look at this point is how the backpack interfaces with the cape. You will need to insert it at an angle and then rotate it, which might require a bit of force.
Bear this in mind if you are painting in sub-assemblies and do consider test fitting – you wouldn’t want to ruin your painting!
Painting Process
Base Colors & Blocking In
I will deal with the armour below, but a lot of the colours are going to be various iterations of what I do normally.
The gun casing I painted a flat black to be a standard flat colour. Obviously, you will notice in the image below that I haven’t quite gotten around to the black gun casing!
For the golds, I use a Games Workshop Retributor Armour base, and steel-type colours I use Iron Hands Steel as a starting point.
Ultramarines Armour Painting
I know that we are going to be using a lot of the regular Ultramarines armour colours that I normally use, but I will be adding more shadows.
I started off the armour with a Games Workshop Midnight Blue base colour, which is one of my favourite old blues. Consequently, because I like it so much, it is out of production now!
The next layer up was going to be quite a wide layer of Games Workshop Ultramarines Blue, and blending that into the base coat with some glazing. Following on from this, I did a highlight of Games Workshop Calgar Blue to lighten things upo a bit. Glazing between this colour and the previous helped smooth things out.
Finally, using something like Vallejo Imperial Purple and glazing that into the deep shadows helped darken things. Keep this colour around, as we will be using it again on the cape!
Layering & Highlights
Weapon Casing
Let me start with the gun casing, and for that, I begin with a nice chunky highlight of Games Workshop Incubi Darkness. I followed this up with finer edge highlights of Games Workshop Dark Reaper & Thunderhawk Blue. Normally, I would stop here for line troops, however, I did a final highlight of Games Workshop Fenrisian Grey.
Cape
This cape was a joy for me to paint, and honestly, I can’t wait to paint my own version of this mini for my Imperial Fists! I shall attempt to record painting that for a future video on my YouTube channel. I did end up spending a bit too much time on this, and whilst not massively complicated, I could have done it a bit simpler!
Beginning with some ProAcryl Burnt Red, and then I used ProAcryl Bold Pyrole Red to rough in the highlights. Using these colours, I glazed up and down to smooth out the blends.
I mixed Vallejo Imperial Purple into the Burnt Red and used that as shade colour, glazing in some Imperial Purple into the darkest parts.
You could leave it at this point once everything is nice and smooth – or, in my case, I added in some Tau Light Ochre to the red and added some scratchy textures.
A smooth white is never easy, but I used AK Interactive paints, Dark Grey, Neutral Grey and then White. The Dark Grey was just so I could start with a nice, flat even coloured surface, which could also be left in the darkest recesses. So the main base colour is the Neutral Grey, in to which I added progressively more White, glazing away until I ended using pure white for edge highlights.
The black edging of the cape was done using the same colours as the weapon casing. So I started off with black, before doing a fat highlight of Incubi Darkness, then Dark Reaper. Carrying on from that, I made a fine highlight of Thunderhawk Blue and then a final highlight of Fenrisian Grey. Making some interim mixes to help smooth the blends, and of course, inevitable glazing helped quite a bit.
Details & Effects
The leathers are my standard red and brown leather recipes that I use on most projects! Hopefully, I can do a more in-depth post on those in the future and link to it.
I painted the lenses in the normal manner for green lenses, as you can see in the short video below!
Basing & Final Touches
An urban decay of greys was asked for – this was basically acheived with some cement texture paint, some Nuln oil and various shades of grey!
I also used a grey pigment over the base and I made sure to drag it over the boots and made sure to get the lower parts of the leg armour to bed it into the surface. I like to use a mixture of these and usually enamels for a final way to make it look like the miniature belongs on the base!
Praetor Final Showcase
Here’s the completed commission, that I photographed in both a scenic setting and a neutral lightbox.
Delivery & Client Feedback
The completed miniature were safely packaged and shipped to the client! Their feedback is below:
Interested in a Commission?
This project is now part of our Miniature Painting Portfolio. If you’d like to have your army painted, visit our Commission Services page for pricing and availability.
