Alpha Legion: Painting 1 - Legion Indigo

Let's talk Alpha Legion armor color. 

This old Index Astartes article shows two different ones: the purple and green scheme and the blue and green scheme. Seems like GW has gone for the blue and green scheme as the official Alpha Legion scheme in the CSM Codex. The old purple one doesn't seem to be very popular in general, but I see the blue and green around all the time.

Index Astartes figure showing pre- and post-Heresy schemes.

The official GW Alpha Legion CSM scheme.

The other really popular paint scheme comes from Forge World and their metallic-blue and silver during-heresy Alpha Legion scheme.

Forge World Alpha Legion color scheme.

I do really like the metallic, almost shimmering blue of the Forge World scheme as a symbol of their ever-shifting nature, but it is a little too shiny for my taste. I found a couple others online though, that I very much like. The first one below I like for the impression that their forms are just barely shifting out of the shadows. It must take a mountain of patience to do that kind of highlighting, but it looks excellent.

The final reference scheme is the one I have taken the most inspiration from. It looks slightly iridescent, but much darker than the Forge World scheme, and still incorporates the green of the GW scheme but in a much more subdued manner. 

So, after trying quite a few different schemes on test models, I decided to paint the armor of my Legionnaires mostly copying the final reference scheme, but with a little more metallic mixed in. The base layer is a mix of Kantor Blue, Stegadon Green, Sotek Green, Guilliman Glaze, and Ironbreaker (silver) in a 1:2:2:1:1 ratio. 

The second step was to paint over the base with straight Guilliman Glaze to emphasize the blue, which is the first time I have used a glaze, and I am pleased with the result. 

The final step was to shade everything (even flat spaces) with Drakenhof Nightshade to darken everything up. Unfortunately, I don't think the final effect is really captured here, but it has just a bit of shimmer to it, underneath all the blue.

Unfortunately, this process takes a while. Everything needs to be painted at the same time as the base layer because having to correct a mistake once the Guilliman Glaze and Drakenhof Nightshade are already layered on means going all the way back to the base color and repeating the three steps. It also makes the scheme look a little less consistent. So they key will be to go nice and slow, and be patient, which isn't easy when you have a bunch of models to paint.

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