With my first batch of marines done I thought I’d post a quick guide on how I painted them because a) I find it useful when other people do this and b) In case I forget what I did when I come to paint my next batch.
Step 1 start with four layers of dry brushed red over a black primer. Each layer of red gets increasingly drier and has more yellow added. the first layer goes all over just leaving a few black recesses and each layer after that tries to pick out more edges.
Step 2 Although it doesn’t look to bad in the photo your miniature might be looking a bit orange at this point so a quick glaze of very thinned down red ink is applied just to tone down the orange.
Step 3 Sponge weathering. Take some make up sponges (I got a bag of 24 for £1 in Poundland) and apply three layers 1. same colour as your last dry brushing stage 2. black 3. gun metal silver. dip the sponge in your chosen paint dab it on a paper towel to get most of the paint off and then dab it on your miniature where you think the armour would get wear and tear. you will get some paint on places you weren’t aiming for but don’t sweat it to much.
Step 4 Block in the rest of the details on model that you don’t want red at this point.
Step 5 Oil wash the miniature. to oil wash i use a mix of black and burnt umber oil paint thinned down to a wash with artists white spirit. cover the whole mini in the wash and then (and this is the important bit) go over the mini with one of your make up sponges with a little white spirit in it and wipe of the wash from the raised areas or pooling. Because it’s oil paint you don’t have to rush to get this bit done if you are batch painting because even dry oil paint can be reactivated and removed with white spirit. I’ll leave the oil wash to dry over night and then you can move on to the next stage.
Step 6 At this point I apply and decals using micro set and micro sol to the miniature. Again ill leave the decals over night to dry properly.
Step 7 Apply a wash of Greenstuff world dark rust. Don’t wash the whole miniature but just pick out spots like knee caps and joints also wash around the helmet to dirty up the white. when that has dried repeat the process with Greenstuff world light rust wash. You will also see I sponge weathered the helmet with some grey paint I was supposed to do that before the oil wash but forgot doh.
Step 8 Touch up the details like painting in the eyes, adding a few highlights to the chest eagles and the helmet and paint in any purity seals.
Step 9 Use some wood filler to make a muddy looking base add battlefield debris as desired.
Step 10 Paint the base with a mixture of sand acrylic gel black and brown paint. Paint in any details on the base. When its dry add a light highlight brushed over the base and paint the edges of the base black. Finally when everything is dry seal with a matt varnish.
Finished one dirty battle worn marine of the far future ready to fight for the god emperor.
25 December 2012, 10:42:35 AM
