How to Paint Legio Custodes

The Custodians of the Heresy are painted gold, but not the same gold as their forty-first-millennium successors. The 40k range is sculpted with deep ornament that rewards bright, high-contrast metallics; Heresy-era Custodian plate is smoother and more martial, and it looks far better burnished down - warm, deep and slightly tarnished, like something that has been polished for three hundred years rather than gilded last week.

Painting the auramite

1. Undercoat Chaos Black. Gold over black is darker and richer than gold over grey, which is exactly what you want here.
2. Basecoat Retributor Armour in two thin coats. Do not skip the second - metallics are transparent and a single coat looks grey in the shadows.
3. Shade twice. Agrax Earthshade over the whole plate for warmth, then Nuln Oil worked into the recesses and the joins only. That second pass is what stops the gold looking like brass.
4. Layer Auric Armour Gold on the raised surfaces, leaving the shade in the recesses.
5. Edge highlight Liberator Gold, then a very few points of Stormhost Silver on the hardest corners and the tips of the plate. Silver at the extremes is what tells the eye this is metal and not yellow paint.

Vallejo Old Gold and Army Painter Bright Gold work through the same sequence if you already own them.

Black, red and steel

Gold on gold is flat. Three supporting colours break it up.

• Underplate and bodyglove in Corvus Black, edged Eshin Grey. Everything the auramite does not cover should be near-black - it makes the gold read as armour bolted over a body rather than a gold statue.
• Cloth, plumes and tabards in a deep red: Khorne Red basecoat, Carroburg Crimson in the folds, Mephiston Red on the raised cloth and a fine Evil Sunz Scarlet edge. Heresy Custodes wear darker, heavier red than the bright crests of 40k.
• Spear hafts, blades and bolter casings in Leadbelcher, shaded Nuln Oil and edged Ironbreaker. Giving the weapons a cool steel against the warm auramite is the single biggest improvement you can make to one of these models.

Leather straps and grips take Rhinox Hide with a Mournfang Brown highlight. Faces, where the helm is off, go Bugman's Glow, Reikland Fleshshade, Cadian Fleshtone, Kislev Flesh.

Freehand and detail

Vexilla banners, tilting plates and shield faces are the place to spend your extra hour. Off-white script over Ushabti Bone with a Seraphim Sepia shade reads as parchment at tabletop distance, and a simple repeated device beats an ambitious one painted badly. Keep it to one banner per unit.

How long it takes

Model counts are low and the plate is large, so a Custodian sits somewhere between a squad model and a character. Expect two to three times the time of a Legion marine and plan around it - and expect resin, because much of the Heresy Custodes range is cast rather than moulded. Wash the parts in warm soapy water, scrape the mould lines and pin the heavy arms before you undercoat.

Tips and common mistakes

• Shade harder than feels right. Under-shaded gold looks like painted plastic; the recesses should be genuinely dark brown.
• Keep the black black. Grey underplate greys down the gold beside it.
• Two metals, not one. Warm gold and cool steel on the same model is the whole trick.
• Resist the second bright gold. Adding a lighter gold everywhere flattens the finish; the highlight belongs on edges only.

When you are happy with the palette, open this scheme in the generator to swap paints between brands or push the gold warmer or cooler.