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How to Paint Everything – Iron Hands Space Marines

By Liam "Corrode" Royle, Jack Hunter, Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones and head58

This article is part of a larger series on how to paint Space Marines. To return to that series, click here.

In our How to Paint Everything series we look at how to paint, well, everything, with a look at different styles and approaches from different artists. In this article we’re looking at how to paint the Iron Hands Space Marines Chapter.

The Iron Hands are one of the less-explored of the First Founding Chapters. They appeared in the original spread of Space Marine Chapters in the Rogue Trader rulebook, but with little other detail, and they missed out on the 2nd edition run of codexes which fleshed out the Ultramarines, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, and Space Wolves. That’s ok though, the flesh is weak and they don’t need it. It wasn’t until 3rd edition and the Index Astartes articles that they started to gain an identity of their own, as a cold and remorseless Chapter seeking the perfection of logic and machinery over the weakness of the human body – which includes the post-human body of an Astartes. They also gained an upgrade kit of the old “metal bits to attach to plastic Marines” variety, which really helped define their image. 

Over the years, the Iron Hands gained a great deal more depth to their background. Even in the Great Crusade era, they were noted as a pitiless Legion, unmindful of their allies, intolerant of failure or weakness. They became known for direct, head-on combat, always seeking out the most intense area of a conflict and directing their efforts to destroying it utterly. In particular, they were known as armour-breakers, sent into battle to destroy enemy war machines wherever they massed. This led to them developing a much closer relationship with the Mechanicum and Titan Legions than other Legions – a theme which will hold all the way up to the 40k era.

Much of this mentality is owed to their Primarch, Ferrus Manus. Manus, “The Gorgon,” is something of a Hephaestus figure in the pantheon of the Primarchs, known for his skill as a smith and metalworker. During his coming of age on Medusa, Manus fought and killed some kind of robot, long hinted to be a Necron construct, and in doing so ended up with his arms and hands covered in the silvery metal of its necrodermis. As the head of his Legion, he fast gained a reputation for the exact qualities the Iron Hands would later came to embody – bloody-minded ruthlessness, a disdain for any and all obstacles, and a hatred of weakness.

Post-Heresy, the Iron Hands were broken up into a number of separate Chapters instead of the singular Legion, much like the other loyalists. A number of Chapters trace their origins to the Iron Hands, including the Brazen Claws, the Iron Fists, the Iron Lords, and the Red Talons. The Sons of Medusa are also Iron Hands descendants, although in an unusual fashion: In the Moirae Schism, a large number of Iron Hands Marines came to believe in the Moirae Tech-creed, officially a tech-heresy which split the Adeptus Mechanicus. The schism threatened to cause a civil war within the Imperium, and indeed within the Chapter itself. The Iron Hands’ solution was to split in half – the Moirae-believer brothers were split off into the Sons of Medusa, who became a chapter without a founding.

Covered in this Article

  • Techniques for painting the core elements of the Iron Hands, from black armor to cybernetics.
  • Notes on the Heraldry and livery of the Iron Hands, and how to paint marines from each clan.
  • Schemes from different painters for the chapter.

Iron Hands Heraldry - Click to Expand

Painting Iron Hands

Iron Hands are one of the many, many Chapters which are best described as “pretty much all black,” along with their co-releasees the Raven Guard, the Deathwatch, the Ravenwing, and a legion of others. That said, there are some interesting possibilities which present themselves. The Games Workshop studio army features them with blue-white guns, and many painters choose to add metallic details such as, fittingly, iron hands. Each Clan Company has its own symbol too, which features on the right shoulder plate, with the Chapter symbol on the left. Additionally, there’s a number of different ways you an approach “black,” and we have a variety of different approaches demonstrated below.

Jack Hunter's Method - Click to Expand

TheChirurgeon's Method - Click to Expand

RichyP's Method - Click to Expand

Christopher Tatro's Method - Click to Expand

Final Thoughts

That wraps up our look at Iron Hands but there’s more than one way to paint Black Armor. If you’re still looking for more examples and inspiration, why not check out our How to Paint Everything articles on Raven Guard and Deathwatch?

This article is part of a larger series on how to paint Space Marines. To return to that series, click here.

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