Painting "The Feared's" company insignia (the 4th)

[Helias_Tancred]

What I've seen is nearly all Dark Angel players do either the 3rd battle company or the 5th. I've rarely seen armies done using the 4th company, because its company insignia is the hardest to reproduce. Heck even the masters at GW avoided doing the 4th! lol.

Back in 2017 when I started collecting Dark Angels as my official second 40k army (I'm still just DA and BA, proudly), I decided to go 4th company, because as I saw it their insignia was the coolest looking and in the lore Master Korahael was lost at Cadia along with the company, so there was an opening for my captain to step in and for me to create some narrative for them since the company would be reforming.

I recently got back into my DA and shelved my BA for a bit. This time I wimped out. I looked at the challenge of doing the 4th, and talked myself into doing the 3rd instead. I did one member of the 4th a couple years ago, a firstborn company master that I have up under my army thread on here, so knew the challenge of it.

Well I revisited my decision and I'm taking on the challenge of doing the 4th!!! I've always wanted to do the 4th!

So .... the only time I did the 4th, the captain, I used a Micron pen in black ink to do the checkered field. It was still tough. My question is does anyone have any tried and true method that works and might be easier than the one I used?

[bigtrouble]

I do 4th company. I loved the design too much to let it stop me.

 

My technique is I paint the whole thing grey, then paint the bone lower half, then I block in the black squares very carefully with a small brush and light strokes. I do white last because of how chalky the texture is, but also because if I leave it a bit dryer on the brush, it tends to hold better than black, which in my experience can run a bit. Then I clean up the bone with a lighter highlight or layer, and finally a very light grey at the border of black and white.

 

The more I practice it, the easier it gets, but I wouldn’t say it’s easier than a micro pen. I now embrace the challenge, and my last squad I think looks really good. I have a few old marine squads that I am going to be adding it to, now that I have practice.

[WrathOfTheLion]

I paint the top in white, then the bottom in bone and just fill in the checkers.

 

I paint checkers all the time for 30k, so I just end up dealing with it.

[Harleqvin]

Depending upon how well you like using transfers, there's a lot of checker pattern stuff from Ork transfers, iirc.

[Chaplain Raeven]

I do a Rakarth base all over and finish the bottom piece with Ushabti.

The top part I paint with Celestra grey over the Rakart, then I block in the black checkers over the white and fill it in. The Celesta covers well enough to fix slight mishaps.

[Galloway]

4th company successors. Paint bone base, then white upper half, sketch out squares with thin black lines (finest brush tip I can get). Fill in black, then back and forth w/ black and white until I'm content. Will have to give some of these ideas a try.

[Marshal Mittens]

I paint a lot of checkers. I just use a micron pen to draw the blocks, then fill them in with a fine brush. It is more time consuming to paint for sure. But checkers look so good.

[Helias_Tancred]

I accepted the challenge and conquered it! I got this going forward :)

[Helias_Tancred]

What worked for me was once I got the white half and bone half (ushbati) done I drew a vertical line with the Micron 02 pen down the middle of the white half. Then I drew a line on each side of the middle line further dividing each space as evenly as I could.

 

Then I drew a horizontal evenly dividing the white space from side to side. With my squares drawn I just used the pen to color it in. I did have to go back and use some white and black to touch up the best I could ....

 

I'm happy with the results and honestly not that difficult when using the Micron 02 art pen with black ink.

The ink is a little glossy so once it fully dries overnight I'll go back over it with some brush on matte varnish (until weather lets me spray all the models with matte varnish).

[WrathOfTheLion]

I do my main Primaris Dark Angels as 4th Company, it's really not that hard to do once you make the jump and do it, and I think it's a really excellent touch. I think it's the most interesting and the best looking of the company markings.

[Helias_Tancred]

I do my main Primaris Dark Angels as 4th Company, it's really not that hard to do once you make the jump and do it, and I think it's a really excellent touch. I think it's the most interesting and the best looking of the company markings.

 

Definitely agreed! Plus their lore is more malleable given what happened on Cadia to the 4th.

[bigtrouble]

Very nice!

[Galthan Ironsturm]

I'm only played 4th Company to!

And i never user stickers ;)