This Black Templar army commission was a whole lot of infantry and all the unique characters. It was also the perfect excuse to give a technique I’d been eyeing for a while a try.

There are always three things to consider when painting a Black Templar army:

• Making the black interesting, not grey, and not bland
• Chose between a beige or a white color, and a proper way to do it over black
• Make sure your Black Templars look unmistakably like Black Templars, and not one of the other mostly black chapter

Once you have those three aspects figured out, it is smooth sailing from there.

The technique I wanted to try is essentially adding successive highlights with a sponge to build a very steep contrast of colors. I also tried mixing that technique with a traditional airbrush highlight. Overall I am pleased with how the models turned out, and will continue to dabble with this technique some more.

One thing I think really helps this scheme is that the last black highlight color is the base color for the white. As silly as it sounds, it keeps the white and black from clashing too much with one another.

I love these kind of projects where my client trust me enough to let me try out new techniques. If you’d like your models to be the next ones I try stuff with, click here to reach out!