Time for the final installement in the I Hate Right Hands series! This time I'll simply show you how to paint the 42nd Badlands color scheme along with stage-by-stage pictures and some tricks regarding painting in general.
Let's start with the general pointers on painting. Just a few basic things I'm sure most of you know already, but it never hurts to repeat those.
- When undercoating remember to stir the can well beforehand. Also remember the weather influences how the paint will behave. Never do it when there's too high (or too low) humidity! Also keep an eye out on atmospheric pressure, as it might also influence it. The last factor is obviously temperature, below zero doesn't really work too well, melting sun doesn't help either. Additionaly make sure models are free from stains. If they're metal it might be a good idea to throw them into solvent liquid to clear off the grease that might've gathered on them.
- Remember to water down your paints. Fancy sites like cmon will tell you that they have to be the consistency of milk. I don't really know when are they so I just take a brushful of water or two and mix it with the paint either on the palette or on the paint lid and it works for me. Keep in mind you probably shouldn't use the water from whatever container you use to clear the brush, especially if you painted with a metallic paint before!
- As for metallic paints I tend to replace water in the jar right away after I finish using them. Professionals speak of having to separate jars, which works as well. I hate getting those tiny metal flakes into other paints by accident!
- Take care of your brushes and they'll serve you for long. Never let the paint get into the area where the fiber are joint. Remember to always wash the brush throughoutly. It's a good idea to use an old brush to move paints from pot onto the mixing palette instead of the good one. Same goes for drybrushing. Apparently washing them in some hair shampoo from time to time is a good thing, but I've only tried it once so far and can't really say what are the results just yet.
Start off by priming the model black
Fatigues.
First start with applying a basecoat of Graveyard Earth. I use several very thin layers of it, to get a good coverage, while at the same time not obscuring the details. Then highlight nearly everything, but the most receeded areas with Desert Yellow. Continue highlighting, leaving some of Desert Yellow, with a 50:50 mix of Desert Yellow and Bleached Bone. I'll remind you of paints being thinned down - if you do that it will look way better. Finally pick up the most outstanding areas with pure Bleached Bone.
Armour
Apply a basecoat of Scorched Brown. The make a mix of 70:30 Scorched Brown and Graveyard Earth and apply highlits to the edges of the armour. You can make that "edge" wider, since the color should be very similar to the basecoat and the next highlight - 30:70 Scorched Brown and Graveyard Earth mix should be thinner than the previous. I also apply these highlights on top of the helm. Afterwards apply the final highlight of Graveyard Earth, myself however I only apply it from one direction, to imitate sunlight.
Brown Leather
Previously this was done after the metallics, but I've learned it's much better in that order, since it's hard not to paint on the tiny metal buttons on the leather items. First paint a basecoat of Bestial Brown. Then wash it with Ogryn Flesh and, once it has dried out, Devlan Mud. Once upon a time I did it with Flesh Wash, sadly it is no longer produced. Both generate slightly different effects, but both look good. Finally, apply highlights of Bestial Brown onto outstanding elements.
"Green"
"Green" covers all green things on the model. On th eregular guardsmen it was just his canteen, but vets also have cloth rugs and grenades. It's easy to paint, start with a basecoat of Catachan Green. Then make a mix of Catachan Green and add very little Rotting Flesh. It will lighten the color up a lot, careful! Highlight with that mix and then add another small ammount of Rotting Flesh to the mix and use that to apply second highlight. The values given at the end might be off, I always do that roughly.
White cloth
And you got me, there's no white cloth on this model and not on any of the 4 vets that are unpainted. But since this mark on the backpack is supposed to be white and it's painted exactly the same... Here it is: Basecoat of Adeptus Battlegrey and highlight of Skull White. Yep, that's it. Be warned though, you will most likely need several layers of Skull White to get a good coverage!
Metal
Another thing made trivial with Citadel Washes. Basecoat with Boltgn Metal, wash with Badab Black and highlight with Chainmail. That's it!
Skin
Now the most detailed part. First apply a few thin coats of Dwarf Flesh to get a good coverage, afterwards wash with Ogryn Flesh. Paint the eye sockets Chaos Black. Then paint on them with Skull White, while at the same time picking up teeth. The paint the pupils with Chaos Black. Once you're done with the eyes, higlight the face with Dwarf Flesh, which you can also use to paint eyelids and cover up any mistakes there. Lastly apply a final highlight of a 70:30 Dwarf Flesh and Elf Flesh mix.
Details
The model is nearly done, now's the time for the fine details. Each one is painted differently as the details are myriad of things including the aquilas everywhere, the squad/Cadian markings, knife handles and also purity seals and glasses (which are absent on that particular model). There isn't really much to it and all the steps are described in the later breakdown part of the article.
The only thing not there is the meltagun muzzle. I painted it drybrushing Bestial Brown onto it, washing with Ogryn Flesh and then drybrushing Chaos Black. Ron over at FtW had a short article on that too, check it out!
Base
Sadly I have no shots on that. The lightning apparead so bad in the shots it just ruined the color completely and the pcitures were rendered unusable. But it's not a hard thing. First read this tutorial on cmon about making the bases. It does include a painting guide as well, though I paint it slightly differently. First a basecoat of Graveyard Earth. Then a wash of Vallejo Smoke INk was supposed to come, but I was unable to find Vallejo paints anywhere... After consulting a bit I made my own wash - it's a mix of Scorched Brown and a little Chaos Black made into ink using this method. After it dries out, drybrush it with Bubonic Brown (Desert Yellow works fine too!) then Bleached Bone and afterwards drybrush the edges of stones with Skull White. Finally, add some foilage and voila! You're done.
Black leather
Basically this is the step where you repaint the areas which you wished to remain black that you accidentaly overpainted in one of the previous steps. This includes primarly boots, as they tend to get messy after drybrushing the base. Additionaly I highlight the boots a little with Adeptus Battlegrey, but nothing too extensive.
And that's it! Here we have a finished mini.
The only thing left is to varnish it. (Well, technically the mini in the pictures is still missing foaliage, I know!)
- Fatigues
Basecoat: Graveyard Earth
Highlights: Desert Yellow, 50:50 Desert Yellow/Bleached Bone, Bleached Bone - Armour
Basecoat: Scorched Brown
Highlights: 70:30 Scorched Brown/Graveyard Earth, 30:70 Scorched Brown/Graveyard Earth, Graveyard Earth - White cloth
Basecoat: Adeptus Battlegrey
Highlights: Skull White - Brown leather
Basecoat: Bestial Brown
Highlights: Ogryn Flesh wash, Devlan Mud wash, Bestial Brown - "Green"
Basecoat: Catachan Green
Highlights: 80:20 Catachan Green/Rotting Flesh, 70:30 Catachan Green/Rotting Flesh - Metal
Basecoat: Boltgun Metal
Highlights: Badab Black wash, Chainmail - Flesh
Basecoat: Dwarf Flesh
Highlights: Ogryn Flesh wash, Dwarf Flesh, 70:30 Dwarf Flesh/Elf Flesh
Eyes: Chaos Black, Skull White, Chaos Black - Details
Aquilas
Colors used: Graveyard Earth, Desert Yellow, Bleached Bone
Knife Handle
Colors used: Catachan Green, Rotting Flesh
Purity Seals - Seal
Colors used: Red Gore, Baal Red wash, Blood Red
Purity Seals - Parchment
Colors used: multiple higlights of Snakebite Leather going into Bleached Bone
Glasses
Colors used: Regal Blue, multiple highlights up til 50:50 Regal Blue\Skull White - Base
Basecoat: Graveyard Earth
Highlights: "Smoke Ink" wash, Bubonic Brown, Desert Yellow, Skull White
Smoke Ink = 80:20 Scorched Brown/Chaos Black - Black leather
Basecoat: Chaos Black
Highlights: Adeptus Battlegrey
And this concludes the IHRH series, thanks for staying with me for its duration and reading! No doubt there will be other tutorials on painting and modelling in the future, written as I get the ideas. I am already considering an additional IHRH article though, part 5.5. I suppose you can guess what it will be about. Also, if you have any requests regarding the series, go ahead and say them, I'll be more than glad to write about the thing you're interested in!
And a quick shot of the next thing to do. And no, it's not the book, I've read it already. I'll probably scribble something about it too, but let me just tell you it is awesome. I loved every bit of it! Also the table building log will continue tomorrow. It was way too hot to work today and only in the later afternoon I bought more glue along with som means to link the parts... but more on that soon!
Read more!