The Painting Bunker

Hello everyone!

Its been a while since my last post as I’ve been busy with study, life and just well, I needed to take a bit of a break to recharge my painting mojo…  it came back pretty strong on Wednesday morning and I cracked open the bunker and went on a mini painting bender and smashed out two test models for my up and coming 30k World Eaters.  This is something that I’ve been thinking of for quite some time however for some reason I couldn’t decide in my mind exactly what I wanted to do in terms of how I was going to paint them.  I had a few different ideas for the white actually, and I was torn as to which method I’d ultimately use.

So I just decided to paint one model with each method and compare and contrast the results.  So sit back and I’ll take you though what I did and how I did it blow-by-blow.  Hope you enjoy it.  By the way, if you follow my Facebook page you’ll already have seen the end results, and if you don’t follow my Facebook page, go do it now….  I was actually so pleased with how both models turned out that I posted the pictures up on my Facebook page to show them off.

So here we go….

Let me begin by giving you some idea on where my head was at before I commenced painting these two models.  White is a tricky (tint, its not a colour) to paint and the colour that is under it has a very strong influence on how we perceive it.  The look that I want to achieve with my World Eaters is one that gives the viewer the impression that they have been in, or are in combat.  So lots of grime, dints, dust and grittiness.  However I don’t want them to look like they’ve just been thrown in a washing machine with a couple of bricks either.  Lets face it, Marines would get shot at a lot, firstly because they are generally numerically inferior to their opponent and secondly, it would take a lot of fire power to drop an Astartes.  Achieving this balance is a major technical and aesthetic challenge with white.

This is why I’ve gone for experimenting with two different base colours for the models.  One has a very light grey base colour, and the other has a very light brown base colour.  The light grey model ultimately had its panel lines cut it with a black oil wash, while the light brown model had its panel lines cut in with a dark brown oil wash.  So lets take a look at the stages and I’ll walk you through it.

As some of you who’ve followed my painting updates perviously will know, I’m really big on preparation and batch painting.  I like to create a system and document it when I paint an army so that if and when I revisit it I can reproduce it, and also its a devision of labor idea, where I attempt the use my time when painting an army as economically as possible.  However I like to keep in mind the end result and in painting models fast, I don’t like to compromise the finish either…  So I spend a bit of time preparing models before painting them, so that when I paint I can achieve a standard which I consider slightly above table top standard for my rank and file models.

So here we have stage one.  The body of the marine built, with its head, arms, backpack, shoulder armour and weapons attached or mounted on tooth picks which are held in place with polystyrene foam.  When I say mounted on what I mean is for items like the arms, backpack, head and weapon I actually drill a 2mm hole in them and just force the tooth pick into the hole.  This saves time glueing them onto the tooth pick and if I bump them and they fall off, I can just re-attach them.  Everything is cleaned up, barrels are drilled and the paint is ready.  I’ve got a clear picture in my mind of what I want the finished model to look like.

Black undercoat.  Nothing really revolutionary here. 

Once the black undercoat is applied I take the pieces that will be getting different treatments and fix them to separate foam plinths.  Here the bolters have been painted with Citadel Leadbelcher.    

Just like the bolters I’ve segregated the shoulder armour and back packs.  One thing that isn’t shown in this picture is that they were actually all aligned to face the same direction they would when on the marine.  This will assist later when it comes time to shading them.  The base for the blue is Citadel Kantor Blue.  Once that had dried, I gave each piece a small highlight with Citadel  Caledor Sky, and then finally a even smaller highlight with 70% Caledor Sky and 30% White Scar.

The first marine is given his black undercoat a base coat of Citadel Dawnstone.  I didn’t go over board with coverage, as I want the black to remain in recesses etc to add to the  pre-shading of the white when it eventually goes over the top.  

As per the stage above except with Citadel Baneblade Brown.

The first coat of white.  I created a mix of 90% Citadel White Scar and 10% Citadel Dawnstone.  This stage you want to make sure that you apply the colour with a “top down” notion in mind.  Remember that most of the time the source or light (the sun) is above the marine, so we expect to see shadows in areas where shadows would normally be created in natural light.  So lightly dust this mixture on ensuring that you keep the model pointing up as you are painting it.  Don’t go over the top either, just like the Dawnstone, you want to make sure that the coverage isn’t complete, you want some Dawnstone, and if you’ve done the job right, some of the black to still be showing through.

Once that was done, I gave the model a very light coat of just straight White Scar to make the raised areas really pop.  You need to be very delicate with the paint application at this stage otherwise you run the risk of making the white too bright and ruining the effect you were trying to achieve by using the black and grey undercoat.

As above except with Citadel Baneblade brown.

I then added chipping with a small sponge, painted in the detail and gave the models a coat of gloss varnish in preparation for oil washes.  

I really like this picture for many reasons.  Mainly because it clearly demonstrates the distinct difference between the brown and grey undercoat.  I deliberately chose to use brown and black oil paint respectively on each model to further accentuate the undercoat colour coming through the white and thus further emphasise the two “looks” I was going for.  I actually think the one on the right would be a great base for a Death Guard….

Once i’d finished painting the bases, finishing up the detail etc, I gave each part a good coat of matt varnish, assembled each marine, hit it with some weathering powders and then gave it another hit with matt varnish.  Below are the pictures of the finished models.

I’m really please with the results and very really anxious to get started on the army proper now.  I’ve decided to go with the grey undercoat after all that as I think it give a more authentic white and is in line with how I’d imagine the XII Legion to look.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks for dropping in, comments as always are very welcome.

John Sutton, Brisbane, Qld