The mystics of the Grey Knights are the Imperium’s premier Daemonhunters, and as such, they’re likely to be covered in purity seals and parchment imbued with prayers to protect them from the depredations of the Empyrean. Painting these is pretty straightforward, but can be daunting since painting good purity seals means creating small lines to suggest the presence of writing. The good news is there’s an easy way to make this effect stand out.

While Purity Seals are lighter in color, they’re usually going to be attached to a model you want to prime black. Either way, I start by painting them with a couple of thin coats of Rakarth Flesh. Once that’s dry, I wash the whole thing with Agrax Earthshade.

Next I go back and highlight that with Rakarth Flesh again and then highlight a second time – including the edges – with Reaper Polished Bone (Wraithbone in GW paints, give or take). This is also when I paint the wax seal – it’s Mephiston Red, and I’ll wash that with Carroburg Crimson and then highlight it with Evil Sunz Scarlet.

Now it’s time for the lettering. The “correct” way to do this is to use a very fine pointed brush and and paint lines with a dark brown. But if you want to go faster and have an easier time with it, I’ll let you in on a secret: Micron pens. The .005 pen gives you a very small point and is perfect for drawing the lines that work on something like this.

Using the pen start marking small lines (squiggles if you’re feeling brave), leaving the occasional space, your wording should have an “F-shaped” patter more or less, as that’s just how people read in English.

One Last Tip: Watch out if you paint over the micron ink. Water can reactivate it, causing problems like smearing.

Grey Knights first drew my attention for Kill Team. A single Strike Squad box gives you all the models you need to build a ten model roster which can be deployed as several different 100 or 125 point teams, which makes them one of the cheaper factions to build a competitive list for. Additionally, their psychic abilities in Kill Team can be devastating, especially with Kill Team: Elites.

For my squad, I wanted to give them a bluish steel look what makes their armor pop. I always paint Space Marines in three subassemblies: the body, the head, and the backpack. Though my photos only cover the body and head, the exact same techniques were used on the backpack. All paints are Games Workshop brand, and should be easy to find at a local hobby store.

After some experimentation, I settled on the following steps.

Step 1:

Prime with Leadbelcher. Games Workshop sells this in rattlecans, but if you don’t want to buy one, you can simply prime with a color of your choice and paint Leadbelcher on with a brush.

Step 2:

Paint with Grey Knights Steel. It just feels right using the namesake Grey Knight paint for this. I used the standard Grey Knight Steel base loaded into an airbrush (not the airbrush version of the paint), with a little bit of airbrush medium. However, if you don’t have access to an airbrush, you can brush it on with thin layers. I masked off some of the areas I wanted to remain lead-colored.

Step 3:

Wash with Drakenhof Nightshade. This creates the deep blue steel color we are looking for.

Step 4:

Paint details. There are a bunch going on in this step, so let’s break them down:

• Brass Scorpion for all the brass details and lettering.
• Khorne Red for the Storm Bolter and pauldron details.
• Wraithbone for the cloak.
• Leadbelcher for the sword, leg buckle, pauldron details, and Storm Bolter.

Step 5:

Wash everything in Nuln Oil. This will give everything a dirty, used look. Be careful not to let wash form pools on flatter areas, otherwise you’ll wind up with ugly coffee stains. I frequently have this happen to me, so do as I say, not as I do.

Step 6:

Edge highlight with Grey Knights Steel and Khorne Red. Go back to the Grey Knights Steel and hit every edge and hard line on the armor, including the pauldron edges and helmet visor. Using Khorne Red, trace thin lines on the corner of the Storm Bolter.

Step 7:

Final touches and assembly. There are loads of small details on here:

• Eyes: Paint the half of the eye facing the front with Teclis Blue, then the front quarter of the eyes with Baharroth Blue, and finally put a tiny amount of White Scar right at the front of the eyes.
• Belts: Contrast Wyldwood or leave bare.
• Purity Seals: Paint the paper with Ushabti Bone and the wax with Screamer Pink. Then using a very thin brush, draw some scribbles with thinned down Rhinox Hide. Once dry, wash the entire seal in Agrax Earthshade. After that, put a little bit of Pink Horror around the edges of the wax and a little in the center (leave it disconnected and don’t paint a perfect circle of Screamer Pink. It’ll look like the wax is uneven and sticking up in places).

Lungboy opted for more of a classic take, using the grey armor the faction was originally associated with over the silver/metallic armor they’d come to sport later on.

Prime

I have always sprayed black first, using Halfords matt black car primer. However, I’d be tempted to try a grey spray can nowadays, or run some Stylenrez grey through an airbrush.

Basecoat

I use Adeptus Battlegrey as my base colour, it has fantastic coverage and is a great colour to work up from. It can be bought from a 3rd party that makes GW Foundations colours. Current GW equivalent would be Mechanicus Standard Grey, which can be bought as a spray can which would cut this step out entirely.

Wash

I used Asurmen Blue on a lot of my GK as I painted them a long time ago. I now use Drakenhof Nightshade which is quite a bit darker than Asurmen was, but it’s still decent. I wash the entire model in this to try and get an even colour, although you can just wash the recesses if you want. This is to add the blueish tint that GK are known for.

Layer

I used to use Codex Grey for this step, but that’s since been replaced by Dawnstone which is very close in colour and is very good to work with. Original GK fluff had something about them having unpainted armour, and unpainted ceramite from a Forgeworld was codex grey, which is why I went the grey rather than silver route. I think this has since been retconned but I’m not sure. I make sure to leave some of the blue tinted base colour in all of the recesses while doing this step.

Grey Knights Land Raider Credit: Lungboy

Highlight

I still have a pot of Fortress Grey that I use for this step, but once that’s gone I’ll switch to Administratum Grey, as it’s almost identical. I edge highlight most things although I have a feeling the Land Raider might have been drybrushed. For a final highlight I simply add a touch of Reaper HD White to the grey to lighten it further, and only use it on corners or apex of curves.

Red weapons

I base coat these in Mephiston Red, wash with Agrax, re-layer with Mephiston, highlight with Trollslayer Orange, then wash the whole thing with Baal Red. My Baal is just about to run out though, so I’ll be trying Carroburg Crimson for the wash although I fear it’s a considerably different colour. Perhaps a substantially thinned Blood Angels Red Contrast might work.

Metallics

I don’t actually know what colour my metallic are done, as it was a pot I got from a store birthday way back that was a mis-formulated run and didn’t match the colour it was supposed to be. It also had no label on. I’d guess it was supposed to be Beaten Copper or Dwarf Bronze or similar. Current paint I’d suggest would be Hashut Copper. I then wash it Agrax, highlight it with the original colour again, and a final, sparing highlight of Runefang.

Bases

I base all my armies in the same way, with a neutral colour that works for most armies over some beach sand and small gravel that I collect and then oven dry before gluing to the base with PVA. I basecoat in Dheneb Stone, and I’m lucky to have a lot of it still in stock. As with Adeptus Battlegrey, there is a 3rd party company that sells a Dheneb copy, although I haven’t used them. I’d use Rakarth Flesh now as a current alternative. I then wash it with Agrax, then heavy drybrush with Dheneb, followed by a light drybrush with Vallejo Silver Grey, which despite its name is actually an off white and is an amazing paint. I then add various tufts of static grass, usually an autumnal colour as it pops really well against the neutral base.