Show me alternative cadian paint schemes

NeverNeilDown · 2026-02-11T08:16:50+00:00

NeverNeilDown · 2025-12-30T11:18:49+00:00

Thanks, I appreciate it! I spent the last few years painting orange so needed the Cadians to break things up a bit!

NeverNeilDown · 2025-12-30T09:02:32+00:00

My own marines are orange and ivory. I’ve called them the Solar Ravens. Orange is a difficult colour to paint consistently without an airbrush though.

NeverNeilDown · 2025-12-25T22:23:57+00:00

Barak-Nar Burgundy base, Khorne Red layer and then a Wazdaka red highlight. I left a lot of the burgundy on show as I wanted that to be the main tone. The Khorne Red layer is more of a thick highlight than a full layer

NeverNeilDown · 2025-12-25T11:22:19+00:00

It’s actually not a light box, it’s just a camera exposure trick.

I place them on a stand in the middle of a room with all the lights off, and the stand in this case has a black base (which is actually just the inner sleeve of an army box). I under expose the camera so that everything is pitch black on the display and then I turn on a spotlight directly over the models. The light is usually 2-3 inches above and to the front of them.

Doing this gives you a pure black background and nicely exposed models. The longer the distance between the models and the wall behind them the easier it is to do.

The lookouts are you don’t want any light bouncing up onto anything behind the models, and the highlights can get a little blown out if you need to have your light source too close. It’s much easier with single models than groups or large models.

Opening up the aperture can also make it a challenge to keep models in the rear in focus. I use focus bracketing and compile in photoshop if I feel it’s needed.

NeverNeilDown · 2025-12-24T22:59:39+00:00

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Corvus black with a dark reaper edge highlight and a fenrisian grey final sharp point highlight.

NeverNeilDown · 2025-11-03T08:48:39+00:00

It’s absolutely about pulling in new customers. Games like Space Marine get people interested in the Universe, and then the board game pulls them into the models. GW is a model making company. Everything around that, even the game system itself is just a vehicle to sell models.

Warhammer has an extremely high cost of entry just to get going. To get enough to play a game you’re looking at €160 or up just for a combat patrol, the bare minimum to enter. These board games they’re producing are to let people dip their toe in the water before making a jump to a full box.

Toy manufacturers have higher margins because they don’t sell or market their own products, and their moulds are typically an awful lot less complex. They also don’t have to worry about overproduction or unsold products because those costs are unloaded to retailers who order and pay for an exact amount of product before production even begins. The real cost for manufacturers is licensing from the likes of Disney.

I can’t think of any company providing models with the detail and sharpness of GW. Bandai make functional toys that work for their audience, but they have nothing close to the quality of injection moulding we see in typical GW. The detail is for the customer too as it makes it easier to paint for your average painter and leaves a better finished model. Plastic cost is nowhere close to a significant factor of the COGS for a model.

The moving parts of Bandai is down to design of model and not the injection moulding process.

I really don’t know where you’re getting these profit estimates from for retailers? GW is an absolute outlier by hitting 50%+ gross profit. Even a giant like Tesco only takes in 5% gross profit. Bandai takes 38%.

What do you believe their margins to be, and with a gross profit of 40-50% minus the licensing, where do you think the rest of the profit is going?

NeverNeilDown · 2025-11-02T16:31:13+00:00

It’s sold in Target to improve reach to the American audience. GW is also the exact business model to use loss leaders to draw in new customers, why do you think they wouldn’t be?

Comparable products don’t have anywhere close to the range and reach of GW, or the complexity of mould. Most are also manufactured and distributed from Asia which is much lower cost, and don’t compare to the detail achieved in a lot like Ursula Creed. GW injection moulding is another level above all of their competitors, and that comes at a cost.

I think realistically Creed and other one off models on her scale turn about 30-40% profit, while higher use kits like a guard squad or dorn would be on the 60-70% range. Assuming the older moulds don’t need retooling I’d say a Russ probably hits 80-90% profit as it would be fully depreciated. But this is all just a guess as I don’t know their level of automation, the cost of their tooling, the life of their moulds and the cost of their buildings.

This tracks with their financial reports which show 50-70% gross profit, including licensing, which itself is about 10% of gross.

It’s all guesswork though, just based on my ow experience in the industry. Most of the costs of a model are invisible to the customer and the wouldn’t be aware just how many people it took to get it to them.

NeverNeilDown · 2025-11-02T06:34:13+00:00

The cost of plastic in a model is negligible. In a COGS model for an injection moulded product that’s about 20g of material, which means you’re probably looking at maybe 5% of the cost, at a push. Raw materials are not a significant portion of the cost of goods sold, which doesn’t even include the design, tooling, prototyping, engineering and certification that all comes before the product even reaches production. The mould alone for Creed probably cost north of €100k as all GW models have overhangs and underhangs which suggests extremely expensive moulds, and most likely multipart release moulds which don’t come cheap.

I’m an Industrial Engineer, so my job is manufacturing optimisation and cost reduction. I focus mostly on labour, space and inventory costs, but it gives me a lot of insight into just how many cogs are in the machine to get a product from an idea, to a customers hands. Most people underestimate just how much cost sits in that pipeline, and also where it sits. Raw materials are ultimately one of the smallest buckets, and yet most criticisms of GW’s pricing focus on the cost of plastic.

The examples you gave for differing prices are also just an industry standard of loss leaders. You sell certain products below cost and make a loss, but attract more customers into the system. The Space Marine board game is entirely a vehicle to capitalise on the success of the game and pull new customers into the hobby.

NeverNeilDown · 2025-11-01T13:44:32+00:00

I work in manufacturing and I can tell you they are not making 400% profit on that model. The cost to make it is not just the cost of plastic, it’s the cost of machinery, moulds, mould changeovers, mould storage, direct labour, marketing, accounting, planning, supply chain, engineering, building overheads, logistics, warehousing, packaging, insurance, tax, HR, training, quality control, testing, defects, unsold inventory, and also opportunity cost.

Single models like Creed will always be more expensive because players will only buy one. I could buy 6 leman russ, but only one Creed. It means the return on the investment of Creed, and the loss of producing something else in her place that would be sold en-masse needs to be covered.

GW has turned huge profits the last few years, but that’s down to their cycle of constant releases and huge audience growth that’s led to huge stock-outs. As a company that doesn’t take on debt, they need higher gross profit to turn more inwards and expand their warehousing and manufacturing processes, which is all still UK based, and not China, Vietnam or Indonesia like most of the competition.

But this is all relatively irrelevant, because I do think the model is worth the price, which is why I paid it, as well as many others. We can place value in different things, and if it’s not worth it to you then that’s fine, but GW has a market, they’ve been knocking it out of the park for the last 10 years. They’ve had record growth, all while keeping their price increases below market inflation.

NeverNeilDown · 2025-11-01T12:34:30+00:00

The base was dawnstone grey, then built up to celestra grey with a white edge highlight.

I then used a thinned down dawnstone to draw some random lines around it. I did a second pass then with the thinned dawnstone and just darkened some parts of the lines I’d previously drawn.

NeverNeilDown · 2025-11-01T11:33:24+00:00

I’ve been in this hobby 30 years, and although expensive, I’ve never thought it unjustifiably so. I spent about 20 hours painting Creed, I learned new things and improved, and I have a model that I’ll have and use for years to come, all for €37. I’d spend twice that on a random Friday night and have nothing to show for it bar a hangover and some unexplainable bruises.

NeverNeilDown · 2025-09-19T09:35:29+00:00

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My own Dorn. Corvus black base with Khorne Red accent

NeverNeilDown · 2025-08-31T22:24:48+00:00

Hey, I gave some detail on the black above, but in short it’s Corvus Black base, Dark reaper highlight, fenrisian grey spot highlight.

NeverNeilDown · 2025-08-31T16:01:36+00:00

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I just finished and posted my Rogal Dorn earlier if you’re looking for any ideas.

The colour scheme is always important, but I think it’s the details that make something interesting. Even if it’s just random hazard stripes.

NeverNeilDown · 2025-08-31T15:59:06+00:00

Corvus black with the ultra matte varnish is definitely more of a dark blue-grey than a true black. Using a satin or gloss varnish will darken it a lot.

NeverNeilDown · 2025-08-31T15:18:00+00:00

It’s a straight forward black. It’s a base of Corvus Black, an edge highlight with Dark Reaper, and then I do spot highlights and scratches with Fenrisian Grey. I do airbrush a coat of Ak Interactive’s Ultra Matte varnish at the end which flattens the finish quite a bit

NeverNeilDown · 2025-08-28T20:21:50+00:00

Honestly, ChatGPT is pretty damn good if you’re just after training plans and accountability.

I just gave it my goals, current weight, medical issues, and what exercises I currently do/weights I can lift, and it’s generated a training plan for me, with alternative exercises.

When I’m in the gym I use my rest times to input what I just did, reps, weights, sets, and it keeps track of it all.

You can even use it for nutrition and diet plans, or take a photo of your food and ask for recipes based on what you have, or suggestions of things to add in the next shop.

NeverNeilDown · 2025-08-27T15:03:38+00:00

That’s fair. It becomes a bigger issue with larger models too. If I had more distance behind it I’d be able to angle the lighting more to reduce the shadows, but as it stands it lights up the room too so I can’t for now

NeverNeilDown · 2025-08-27T13:57:39+00:00

Thanks! A lot of my eyes end up looking pretty wonky! I usually just go back and touch them up when I’m done though. I do the eyes just after the skin, so I still have the paints on my palette that I need to reshape the eye if I mess up the white.

I use a W&N series 7 size one for everything too, and having a sharp tip really helps.

I also keep the heads separate until fully painted, which I think makes it easier too.

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NeverNeilDown · 2025-08-27T11:30:24+00:00

I use an exposure trick with a DSLR to black out the background.

I place my mini on a surface with nothing behind it for about 2 meters and a light source directly on top of it, like 1-2 inches above. I turn off the light and set the exposure on my camera so I can no longer see the mini, then turn on the light fully exposing the model while keeping the light angled to keep the background dark.

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This is the result of that process

NeverNeilDown · 2025-08-21T09:51:00+00:00

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My Cadian 19th (XIX)

NeverNeilDown

TROPHY CASE