Reilly2040's Blog

Over the last week, I’ve been painting up my other space marines, and continuing to try around with different ideas. I’ve slowly added some extra details, like painting the scroll on the side of their legs and painting their belt pouches brown.

However, today I thought I’d go a bit extra. I’d been meaning to pick up the Citadel Washes pack to try them out, as well as some proper gold paint for the chest detail and shoulders, so tonight I grabbed them from Games Workshop and set about the next two marines I’d been playing with who had a red foundation.

I had been toying with a red and silver colour scheme, but each different mix I tried, I decided I prefered the red and gold scheme I’d used originally (the Genesis Chapter from the Codex). The results of tonight’s painting can be seen on the right. The middle marine is my original one, with the basic red foundation and yellow details. The only changes are I painted up his gun a bit, added black to the joints in his armour legs, and painted his belt pouches.

For the other two marines, I started as usual. Black undercoat, and red foundation. Then green for the eyes, black in the mouthguard, and brown for the belt pouches/holster.

I then used my new shining gold paint on the shoulders and chest detail. I then took the red wash and applied it over the marine, save for his chest, which had a black wash applied.

Once the washes had all dried, I then lightly added another layer of gold to the chest (very lightly with hardly any paint on the brush to try for a dry-brushing effect) and added another layer of gold to the shoulders as normal.  The green in the eyes, and brown for the pouches/holster were re-applied.

For the gun, a basic coat of gunmetal was used, as well as red for the marine’s hands. The insignia was then painted bronze. The hands were given a red wash, the same as the marine, while a black wash was applied to the gun itself.

I’m pretty happy with the results.   The washes definitely add a level of depth to the figures with minimal work, and the gold looks much nicer than the yellow.

Next is to paint up my final two marines with the green and black Salamander paint scheme again I think.  That’ll give me two groups of three in each colour scheme.   I’ve started painting one so far, however this time, rather than gold I’ve applied a light foundation of bronze to the chest logo over the black basecoat, which currently looks quite effective, so I may leave it with that.   For the wash, rather than the obvious green, I’m tempted to try the Devlan Mud wash and see if it gives the whole thing a more battle-worn look.

Oh yeah, and I need to tidy up the left eye of the marine in the top picture.  Bit of a splodge that one

Over the last while, I’ve been slowly getting into tabletop wargaming.  I’ve been playing for a few months with a group of friends with one of them providing all the miniatures, and for a while I’ve had the vague notion to start collecting my own, as I’ve always been impressed by them, and the level of detail they have.   However, one thing always put me off.  The idea of having to paint them.

You see, I’m blighted by two things in this regard.  Shakey hands, and no artistic ability.

After seeing the Battle for Skull Pass Warhammer starter set, I became very tempted by the 40K Black Reach set.  Here was a way for me to instantly have two reasonable armies with a variety of weapons, some generals and even a special unit.   However, again, I’d have to paint them.

I got talking to my friend with the Skull Pass set, and he pointed out that a basic paint job on his goblin spearmen was actually pretty easy, so I shouldn’t be put off.  I resolved to investigate further.  I spent some time quickly googling, and watching some Youtube videos, but they all seemed to be from experienced painters, who would talk about things like “washes” and “dry-brushing”.  What I wanted to know was, could someone with shakey hands, get some basic paints and do a job that, while it’d never look like those pretty pictures on the box, would look ok enough that I could use the units in a game without being embarrassed?

And so,  I ended up in the local Games Workshop, where they told me they did free painting lessons.  They supply everything you need and take you through the basics as well as demonstrating some of the more advanced techniques like dry-brushing and washes.  I was pretty impressed, so thought I’d give it a go.  All I had to lose was 15 minutes of my time.

Suffice to say, the painting lesson went very well.  I was given a Space Marine unit and taken through each stage of painting it up to a basic standard.  From an incredibly basic point of view, this took the form of four stages:

1. Base coat.  Paint the whole thing black.

2. Base colour.  In my case I was going with the traditional Ultra Marine colour scheme, thus the whole marine was painted blue, save for his gun.

3. Shoulder detail.  Paint the edges of the shoulders yellow.

4. Paint his gun gunmetal grey.

And that was it.  The trickiest part was undoubtedly the shoulders, although what that involved was just taking your time and slowly rotating the marine around while making small, straight strokes with the yellow paint along the edges.

While the finished marine wasn’t going to win any awards, it was certainly acceptable.   I was intrigued enough to pick up the hobby starter set (basic foundation paints, glues, paint brush etc), and some packs of their basic space marines for practise (3 Space Marines for a fiver, perfect for practising on).

When I got home, I did decide to add some extra detail, as the helmet looked very plain.  So I added red eyes, and some black to the mouth plate.  The trick to this I found was again, taking my time, but also just adding a little paint to the point of the brush, and slowly dabbing it in place.  In the case of the eyes, I invariably ended up splodging it on, but by letting it dry and then putting a little blue paint on the end of the brush, I could then paint around the splodge to get a more satisfactory job on the eyes.

I’ve now done three marines in this style.   I’ve played around a little, trying three different colour schemes, and trying to add detail here and there.  Some of this hasn’t worked, so I just paint over the offending bit again.   One thing I have been doing, which I think looks better, beyond the eyes and mouth, is to hold off attaching the gun to the miniature and painting the crest on their chests yellow first.  It again serves to break up the solid colour a bit.

The finishing touch is pretty simply dabbing some PVA glue on the base, and sprinkling on either sand or grass (again, included in the hobby starter set).

I’m still very much playing around, seeing what works and what doesn’t, but I do think the results I’m getting are not bad.  Again, it’ll never look as good as those pretty pictures, but for having them painted up in a basic way, that I’ll not be ashamed to play with, I’m pretty happy and its all done using the very basic paints.  I’ve only done three marines, and I’ve only been painting a few days, so if you’re not sure, I’d say give it a go.  Patience is really the only thing you’ll need, and if the idea of having to go over the same bit a couple of times to neaten it up doesn’t scare you off, you’ll probably be all right.

I’ll definitely be getting some more models to try painting, and I’ll probably throw caution to the wind and pick up some of those washes to play with as well.  Again, this is where I think those basic marines are useful, as I’ll probably just base coat them, apply the base colour, and then try a different wash on a couple of them before adding any details, just to see what looks best.  If they end up not looking great, then its not a huge loss, and once its dry, I can always paint over it again.