How to Paint Everything: Painting Marble

The example I'm using here is the top of the original Vampire Counts black coach. It's a nice big flat piece begging for some added interest. Thematically I wanted the materials to be wrought iron and marble to give it a victorian cemetery vibe. The ratios of paint I use here are rough estimates, and my process is largely done by feel. Marble has a wide variety of textures and hues, I'm building up a densely textured surface, however for a lighter, smoother marble you could do the final step over a light grey base coat and selectively apply other steps as you see fit.

Materials: Rafael 8404 brush (size 1), Wet Palette, Visual Reference (GIS) A wet palette will make this process easier, allowing shades to be mixed without drying out. If you don't have one check out this guide to easily build a wet palette. I'm using a kolinsky sable brush with a very nice point, which allows for painting fine lines with paint of the right consistency. Paints used: Vallejo Game Colors- Dead White, Stonewall Grey, Black, Vallejo Matt Medium

To begin with, this piece was primed with a mix of Stylnylrez Ebon Flesh, and white, hit with a top down angled burst of pure white. I wouldn't say this is necessary, but a solid grey or white prime would be good. Black would be too dark to start, unless you were doing black marble, in which case you could just inverse the process I have here.

 

Base layer is a mix of Stonewall Grey and Black, mostly a mix of about 2:1. Mix was loose and varied a bit over first layer to add some initial texture.

 

Now the veins are painted in with a mix of grey and black, about a 1:2 ratio. I decided to paint the veins generally going from bottom left to top right. Lightly pull the brush across the surface and add little squiggles. The marble I looked at tended to have a variation in vein sizes, definition, and density. I tried to capture some of that by having more smaller lines in some areas, and the bigger lines will be broken up later on. As the lines were being painted the paint would get thinner, making some of the lines lighter. I washed in a few of the smaller open spaces with this thinned paint before reloading the brush. This all adds some natural variation which will add the the effect.

Next I mixed a tone lighter than the base coat, the exact mix isn't too important at this point. Pure stonewall grey would be close to this. The spaces between the veins are filled in with this lighter grey. The thicker veins can be made thinner  now, and in some spots I just added a small dot or streak of lighter grey to break up the thicker dark grey parts. I tended to focus more of the paint towards the top right corner of the shapes. Again, the paint thinned out some and got more watery as I worked. This is annoying when trying to make a clean solid surface, but in this case it adds to the variation of something derived from natural processes.

For this step I came back with a shade slightly darker than the base layer and lighter than the veins. A mix of grey and black leaning towards black. This was used to blur some of the darker areas and veins. This step also defined some of the texture within the lighter areas by tracing along edges of tonal differences.

Here I came back with a mix of grey and white. Something like a 2:1 ratio.  Lighter areas were hit again and also reduced some of the black lines some more and made some of the light areas bigger. This is mostly by feel at this point, and to match the tone of the rest of the coach. The next few steps continue this process.

The body of the coach already has already been painted a lighter marble, so I want to tone down the dark lines and create some larger white areas. I have worked over most of the surface with stonewall grey mixed with a bit of matt medium, at least a 1:1 ratio. Matt medium is simply paint binder without pigment, added to paint it increases transparency without reducing body. Much of the focus was on making the dark veins thinner and lighter.

In this step stonewall grey was mixed with white and matt medium 1:1:1. It was used to open up and lighten some of the white areas.

Now a mix of stonewall grey and medium mixed about a 1:1 ratio is used to continue smoothing out the contrast between the darker lines and lighter open areas.

To finish the marble texture a mix of 3:1 stonewall to black + a bit of medium was used to redefined parts of the vein structure and tie some of them together. This created little pockets of white that is a common feature of marble.

This method is one I have been using for almost as long as I have been painting my Ultramarines and is great for scenic bases and if you don't have access to an airbrush, which admittedly is the best and quickest way to achieve a marble effect. That being said this method is also rather simple, and easy to learn with a bit of practice. For reference,

I use Dragonforge Design Studio bases, Sanctuary Line, which are perfect for players looking to paint the new Sisters of Battle.

Step  1: First you will want to use a spray to undercoat your bases. I personally use an army painter grey, but honestly anything will do. A lighter color such as mechanicus standard grey or corax white is recommended as we will be using very light grey colors in very thin layers meaning if you start with chaos black you can expect to find yourself adding significantly more layers before you have a strong base color.

Credit: JD Reynolds

Step 2: Apply a base coat of Celestra Grey. As mentioned before this will take several thin coats to fully cover the undercoat. I recommend a minimum of three keeping the layers thin so you don't lose any detail.

Credit: JD Reynolds

Step 3: Apply a coat of Ulthuan Grey. This is a very light grey and once again you will want to apply a minimum of three layers.

Credit: JD Reynolds

Step 4: Apply a shade of Agrax Earthshade to all the recesses. I personally use a glaze brush instead of a standard wash brush to ensure my shade doesn't spill over outside of the recesses on to the flat areas. If you're trying to paint a standard GW base with no further details then you can simply skip this step.

Credit: JD Reynolds

Credit: JD Reynolds

Step 5: Apply a heavy dryrbush of Praxeti White. This is perhaps the most important step as this will really bring out the details on a scenic base, or allow the rough surface on a GW base to actually pop out and be noticed. Remember it is important to not have too much paint on your brush for this phase otherwise you may get the paint on the flat areas covering the Ulthuan grey and obscuring the minor imperfections on the surface entirely.

Credit: JD Reynolds

Step 6: Apply  glaze lines of 50/50 Administratum Grey and Lahmian Medium  moving in roughly the same direction across the surface of the base. These lines should be roughly 1mm in width and very translucent, with some looking slightly thicker than others. Feel free to look at pictures of actual marble for inspiration, but there should be an element of randomness to it. Some lines should only have a single glaze layer, while others might have 3-4 to make them stand out more.

Credit: JD Reynolds

Step 7: Apply glaze lines of 50/50 Dawnstone and Lahmian Medium. These once again need to be a thin glaze, but also thin in the sense that they fit within the previous Administratum Grey lines. Once again an element of randomness needs to be at play, but you're looking to cover something like 60% of the previous lines. At this point you can see that you are trying to create the vein effect that marble is known for. How good this will look ultimately depends on how much time you want to devote to perfecting this technique.

Credit: JD Reynolds

Step 8: Apply glaze lines of 50/50 Mechanicus Standard Grey and Lahmian Medium. These should only be at the center of the thickest lines you have created so far. As before they should be even thinner and less numerous than the previous step.

Credit: JD Reynolds

As you can see the effect is very subtle and I am by no means a master at it, but it is something you can perform quickly on a large number of bases. One final step would be to use a gloss spray to give the marble a nice polished look to it.