Diary of a Newbie Painter

By Loophole Master, in Dust Tactics

OMFG! Eldar walker strikes back! :D I know this guy stays behind the lines but wel.. For me it's too colorfull, you plan to weather him a bit?

Yes, wash and weathering will hopefully tone it down considerably.

Looking foward to see that guy when ;)

If you want to try a little more highlighting on the gray/white luther you could use your last gray highlight color over the white. It will show some nice wear on the model and bring out the edges.

And here it is, finished Lothar:

Lothar2a.jpg

Lothar2b.jpg

As you can see, the colour was toned down a bit. It still looks pretty colourful, but it doesn't stand out that much on the gaming table. It actually looks pretty cool and menacing.

Neat! That's the way i was hoping for it to come out! Looks now like blood thirsy war machine! GJ!

Great color, any Richtofen would be proud to pilot that!

But why is your MG44 mounted in your smoke grenade launcher?

Prollly couse the default setting sucks,,

Exactly. I think the original position look hideous, so for half my walkers I moved the MG to the back, and half had the smoke grenade launcher adapted. It's not like these walkers HAVE smoke grenade launchers, anyway...

Axis light walkers are done. Here's Heinrich:

Heinricha.jpg

Heinrichb.jpg

Gave it a beige colour which I thought fitted a light anti-infantry walker. I seem to have finally learned to control the wash on wide light surfaces, so it won't create stains all over (compare this to my previous Honey, which had a similar colour scheme). This is such a cool model, that it's hard to screw it up.

And on to the Hermann:

Hermanna.jpg

Hermannb.jpg

I just LOVE this model. So cool. A pity my fellow axis player never fields it... Used the primer for the colour on this one, and had some fun with decals.

So that means I'm done with walkers for now! I've promised myself I wouldn't touch the Revised Set until I'd first painted the figures we already had. So now it's on to some heavy infantry.

Loophole could you give me a short breakdown of how you painted Herman? My RCS is arriving shortly and i would love to try to paint it same way;)

Hermann was actually quite simple, probably the fastest walker I painted. Here's a step-by-step breakdown:

- Painted with Boltgun Metal all the metallic parts in the legs, laser and other small bits.

- Applied decals.

- Took a beat-up brush and a gray paint very similar to the primer colour and lightly touched it to the edges of the decals to simulate them peeling off.

- Applied Badab Black wash to the whole walker, making sure it accumulates in the more pronouced corners and trying to achieve an even distribution on the large flat surfaces, with just a bit of vertical streaking.

- Applied Devlan Mud wash to the base.

- Drybrushed the metallic parts with Mythril SIlver.

- Drybrushed the gray areas with a light gray, making sure the edges are very highlighted, with the colour fading gradually to the flat surfaces.

- Took a piece of sponge and very dark gray paint, almost black, and lightly touched it to exposed corners, making chipping effects.

- WIth a small brush, applied just a bit of Gunbolt Metal to the middle of some of the dark chipping effects done above.

- Drubrushed the base with Gunbolt Metal.

And that's it.

BIG thx! I see that i need to buy some paints:/ From those you mentioned i only have badab black and valileo paints which i can't compare to mithlril silver or other :D

Lska said:

BIG thx! I see that i need to buy some paints:/

Yeah, that's sort of essential when.... painting. lengua.gif

Oh you get it wrong;) I have abou 15 valileo basic colours, just don't have 3 diffrent versions of silver, or any bolt thunder of god paints:D Just one poor valileo silver and some tamya chrome:P I lack those fancy GW named paints:D

No, I understood you, I was just making a joke.

But don't feel bad, those I mentioned are the ONLY "fancy" paints with a name that I have. All my other stuff is generic enamel colours. And don't stress about getting stuff like "mythril silver", any light silver paint will do just as well. However, I do recommend getting Boltgun Metal, Badab Black and Devlan Mud.

Already got badab black ;) And no feeling bad here, was joking also, seems that international forums don't get the irony:D But if you would also say is there is such a big diffrence in boltgun metal from a normal metalic silver and if i relly need the devlan mud if i'm not planing on touching the bases it would be great;)

Loophole Master said:

However, I do recommend getting Boltgun Metal, Badab Black and Devlan Mud.

agreed. Devlan Mud is good for green, brown and white.

@Loop: How are you getting the wash on there so well? do you shake up the wash a lot? how wet is your brush? i either get to much or too little on there, and ruin it trying to get it right. also, you got good quick, sir.

/eventually i'll get pics of my core set, when i eventually finish it.

Boltgun Metal is a great paint, very unique. I don't think you can quite get the same metal quality with any old silver, but I could be wrong. And you can certainly make do without Devlan Mud, as you saw I didn't use it at all for the Hermann, but for other colours it's a great wash.

And Mattador, dealing with washes on the walkers has been a tough learning curve. There isn't much secret to applying them to troopers, but large walkers are a different game. I do shake the pot quite a bit, but the thing is really get your brush full of it. There's nothing worse than painting with almost dry wash, it just stains the whole thing. It's better to put too much wash, end then you quickly wipe out the excess doing vertical swipes which will create some streaks that will add to the realism of the whole thing. Don't play too much with the wash once it's applied, though.

@ Loophole looking great as always. How about submitting a step by step photo article with pics and descriptions of each step to FFG? Your painting is certainly of high enough calibre and it looks like the materials you use are accesible to the average gamer/'hobbiest and your instructions are clear. I think it would be really great to show how you use the bare primer colors of the walkers to achieve those great results.

Another trick for washes is to use a clean brush to wick off excess from large flat areas. As you said, washes work better when you use more rather than less. When I want to get the wash into the crevices to pick up detail, but keep it from leaving big stains on large flat surfaces, I'll glob it on heavily, then rinse out my brush, dab it on a paper towel to get most of the water off of it, then dab it on the large surfaces to wick off as much of the excess and "clean" those areas.

This is a great topic, from hero to 0 as i once said, you can get trough the whole story of learning how to paint here, altrough Master is using non acryl paints so there is always a diffrence. Thx for the tip on the paint, i will surely get the boltgun metal, but that's it i cannot spend more on paints or my GF will kill me:D

Great thread! Good job on the minis!

Thanks for the praise, guys. I'm glad this thread can serve as reference and inspiration for other newbie painters. That was my idea the whole time, that through this thread I would be able to gather the advice of more experienced painters, while also creating a rich pool of references for other noobs.

And talking about references, the following paint scheme was inspired by our fellow noob, Lska. I looked at his "shiny Ozz" and at first I thought it was rather garish, but then it occured to me that something like that could work and make sense. Ozz 117 is the closest thing to a super-hero this game has. He has shed his identity to become this fighting force, and he even has Heroic Attack to back up that claim. Besides, as I understand it, he pioneered the allied heavy armour, so it makes sense for his suit to have this "Iron Man Mark II" vibe to it. Of course, I don't plan to leave it this shiny, this is just the base colours, but I think the raw metal creates a very distinctive look for the guy.

Ozz1.jpg

PS: Lska, this is Gunbolt Metal. As you can see it's not that different from your silver, but I think it has a bit more depth to it.

Nice to know that shint Ozz was useful for someone, i clearly see the diffrence and must say that BM looks a lot better than usual silver, more armored, less pure silver ;) I also like the tin elements on your OZZ, give him more of a first model feel;D Exactly the words you used made my mind about first painting him pure shiny metal;)