The All-New Citadel How to Paint Guide

Hey all,

I've been meaning to put together a post about the new Citadel How to Paint guide for a while now, so here it is... before I go too much further I want to stress that all imagery contained in this post was originated by and remains the property of Games Workshop.

The new painting guide was released several months back alongside the new range of paints (logical...) and, to be fair, I was pretty sceptical at first, given the price tag and the fact that it's predecessor was a little uninspiring. Whilst it did have variation in the techniques and approaches demonstrated within, the quality of the figures on the front cover was not replicated within the pages of the book. A bit of a let down. However, the new version is in a different league. Having only read the first couple of pages of the copy I borrowed from Dan over at Hobby Before I Die, I was browsing the net looking for the best price on a copy for myself.

Straight away, you notice that this version has been well-considered. The format and binding, along with the thicker-card expandable backing, means that you can stand the book up at your work space, so you can easily reference the guide as you work, without having to hold it open with your elbow or weigh the pages down with other things.

The feel of the examples is definitely more accessible, and whilst I don't consider myself a complete novice, it's nice to go back to basics and take a different look at things. You'll also note that the style within the book is consistent with the painting guides that are currently appearing in White Dwarf, so great consistency there too.

Furthermore, you also get a DVD bundled with the book and again, although I don't see myself as a total beginner, it's good to see the examples in the book actually being demonstrated. Some of the content is really basic, but it's great that newbies to the hobby are being catered for. I found that starting out collecting and painting at the tail-end of the '90s (jeees I feel old...) was a bit of a struggle and asking for advice in GW stores always came with a knowing look of "duh, don't you know!"

For illustration purposes, I've taken a few a screen grabs...

Evidently, Duncan (the demo guy) doesn't have to contend with the challenges of painting on the home dining table, including the insurgent cats and inquisitive minors (love 'em!)...

Liking the demo on the Marauder, although I'm not sure I'd apply the lightest layer (Kislev Flesh)... that being said, I've picked up a pot to try it out. The base colour is Bugmans Glow and working up through Cadian Fleshtone. 

I've also picked up some of the demo colours that are used on the robes in the Dark Angels example as I'm anticipating painting some of the DA models I recovered from the attic a couple of months back.

Anyways, to summarise; well worth a look. The recent development with paints (foundations and washes, through to the latest releases) have really helped improve my painting, but I'm inspired to try a new approach to some subjects after reading the new painting guide. I'd definitely recommend it to hobby newcomers or those who are uncertain about their painting techniques.

Laters all

Warp Factor Five

OK OK OK; so I'm a little late to the party here. But, anyone else who's also fashionably late, needs to haul on over to From the Warp. This guy is turning out some absolutely cracking pieces and is super-modest about it all too.

The quality of the painting is some of the best I've seen and makes the pieces on the IJ site look positivley pedestrian. But that's OK. There's some really inspirational stuff on the FTW site and loads of new ideas I'm hoping to try out at some time in the near future.

So, if you're not out enjoying the couple of days of summer we're actually getting here in the UK, head on over to From the Warp.

Laters everyone....

Character Assassination

Hey everyone,

Quick post today with a shot of a model I revisited a month or two back. My bro picked this up when we first got into the hobby, but it's languished in a box in the attic for most of the time since. When I went about my mass reclaim of metal figures a while ago, I cleaned this one up to repaint it.

This was another super quick paint job as the figure is pretty simple, with three main block coloured areas; the suit, the skull and the metalwork. The stealth suit was my usual 'realistic black' method of Charadon Granite, washed with Badab Black and highlighted back up to the base colour. The skull was Dheneb Stone/Ogryn Flesh/Dheneb Stone. Tin Bitz was used to base coat the metal areas, before washing it with Badab Black and Ogryn Flesh. These areas were then drybrushed Boltgun Metal and washed again with Leviathan Purple, which gives the metal a nice aged antique appearance. One last highlight was lightly drybrushed on with Boltgun Metal again. 

The base was the normal treatment and I purposely went for the bushiest 'tuft' in the pack so the Assassin looks like he's jumping out of cover.

Well, 'til next time folks

Enter the Dragon

'Sup everyone, thought I'd round out the week with a quick pic of a figure I painted super-quick a few weeks back...

I've not found an application for him yet, only maybe as a generic adventurer in an RPG, with a heavy lean towards the fighting arts. I picked him up from the good people over at Hasslefree Miniatures a couple of months back for two or three beans. As ever with their pieces, the figure is a nice clean sculpt that required very little prep work prior to painting.

I based him on a 40mm scenic resin base, mainly down to the stance, but this also gave a bit of scope for the extra scenics, creating a mini diorama. It was also an excuse to try the new pot of Mephiston Red I had in stock.

In all, there was less than an hours painting involved, having airbrushed the red basecoat over a black undercoat. The skin areas were painted Khemri Brown before washing the model with Ogryn Flesh. The cloth areas and skin tones were layered back up to the original colours and the hair was painted black with progressive highlights, adding Adeptus Battlegrey to the mix each time.

The base had the standard treatment before adding some clump foliage and highland tufts from the Army Painter range.

Simples

Works in Progress

Hey all, thought I'd follow up yesterday's post in quick succession as there's been a bit of a hobby drought these last couple of weeks.

I've thrown together a few shots of a couple of projects that are currently works in progress.

The game board sections are coming along nicely. They were basecoated in Army Painter leather brown primer; two cans just stretched far enough to cover all six pieces. Just. Using the airbrush I applied some shading around the base of the hilly areas and add low-lights to some of the other features on the sections. Although the contrast looks quite stark in the photos, it's not so noticeable in the flesh, er, plastic.

I used some low-tack masking tape to mask off the areas around the skull pits before laying down a couple of layers of Bleached Bone as it seemed like a quicker option than painting these areas. In reality though, I was a little over-zealous with the airbrush and dusted BB outside of the masking. This was relatively quickly resolved though with a subsequent drybrush of Dheneb Stone over the whole area to tie the colours together and represent the worn down surfaces around these areas. I also used the airbrush to lay down a few patches of the paler tones to add some further contrast.

Switching tack, I revisited these Genestealers as an impromptu painting project with my lad Jake a few weeks back. He's a budding painter and has got the 'spraying stuff' bug from his Dad, so we found these lurking in a figure case to use as fodder.

They were originally basecoated with Army Painter Skeleton Bone primer, so the Scorpion Green went on pretty well without any hiccups. Once this was dry, the bases were painted Scorched Brown and the 'Stealers themselves were all washed with Thraka Green wash to shade in between the armour plates, ribs and other joints. We're in the process of re-overbrushing the majority of each figure with Scorpion Green. The teeth and claws are Khemri Brown/Dheneb Stone and the tongues have been painted Hawk Turqoise/Ice Blue.

We've had a couple of trial games of Kill Team 40k and these things tear it up! You get 14 standard Genestealers for your 200pts and they're lethal. Assuming there's sufficient cover to bounce between, there's not much that can be done to stop them. Unlike your regular games of 40k, it's pretty much full speed ahead each time, and with limited enemy forces on the table, it's normally all sewn up by the end of turn 3.

Gruesome. But, I might have an answer to the problem...

Laters

Deonne...

Hey all,

Its been a while since the last post, thanks to a brush with Nurgle, but I'm back in the blogging saddle with a pic of a figure i recently picked up from Hasslefree Miniatures.

This is 'Deonne' and shes a kinda freedom fighter/rebel type adventurer. As ever, the sculpt was really crisp and clean and packs bags of character. 

I used a super-simple colour scheme of flesh tones and complementary shades for the skin and hair, Charadon Granite for the clothing/boots, with varying numbers of shading washes on the different layers to create subtley different variations of the colour. I figured she'd probably operate during darker hours, so probably wouldn't be decked out in her technicolour dreamcoat...? The handguns were Boltgun Metal washed with Ogryn Flesh. As ever, the base is Scorched Brown with Dheneb Stone drybrishing on the surface. Job done.

As an aside, I'm gradually getting through the stocks of older paint colours, so I'll be getting some newer stuff up on here soon.

Laters.