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Good day, gentlemen. Having picked up the Assault on Black Reach box set I've decided to put together the kernel of a new Space Marine army... and for some reason I have my heart set on the Imperial Fists. Let's face it, they're awesome. I could do with some advice, though, on painting YELLOW over a BLACK undercoat. I know, I must be mad. But even if it takes far too many coats to be sensible, I'm going for it - I'm terribly set in my ways.

I was thinking about starting with a brown basecoat, possibly Snakebite Leather or even Dark Flesh, then blending up in a sneaky fashion using Iyanden Darksun (foundation paint) then Golden Yellow, and so on and so forth.

Any pointers?

boltgunmetal dry brush will effectively cover the dark color in matters of seconds. Simply apply the 1 shade before your perfered yellow and its good to go!

I agree with lunahound, But you seem to know what youre doing though, Keep it up and they should look amaznig.

... Boltgun Metal? As a basecoat for yellow? That's a little out there.

Why not undercoat white? I do that with all of my minis, and they turn out fine. In fact, it allows me to use plenty of little tricks that I wouldn't be able to if I primed black.

I undercoat all of mine black. They usually turn out ok, too. Any time I've used white they've turned out really rather badly!

If you've gotten good effects with strong yellows over white, I'd still be interested to hear them.

It'll be quicker if you forget the Snakebite basecoat for the armour and use the Iyanden Darksun, with a flesh or brown wash for the shading, that way you'll have less work to do building up to the yellow main coat, IMO.

(sorry, I've just read what I typed and it sounds much more pious than I intended )

Nono, that's a good call. I guess that's what foundation paints are for.

I think I'll be testing it all out on a few of the AOBR Marines (the Terminators I've converted rather extensively with spare parts and are too precious to waste!). Will be interesting to see which techniques provide better results.

For the yellows I used on my Bad Moons, here is what I did. You can see some examples of it below:

Iyandan Darksun base
Privateer P3 Ember Orange
P3 Heartfire
Final highlight with P3 Cygnus Yellow

The Ember Orange and Heartfire give a great yellow color that would look great on Fists. And the Iyandan Darksun has great coverage over black.

Examples:

Vandez wrote:... Boltgun Metal? As a basecoat for yellow? That's a little out there.

give it a try before dismissing it :"P it works wonders.

also only works with boltgun metal, not chain mail, not mithril silver.

Those look great, JHall. Unfortunately I only have access to Citadel paints right now, but Darksun definitely appears to be a winner thus far in my tests!

So yeah, I've given up on the Imperial Fists. I just don't have that kind of patience.

I have instead settled for their chaming cousins, the Crimson Fists - although the term 'settled for' is a little unfair, because the Crimson Fists are pretty awesome in their own right. Plus, they make the ideal counterpoint to my Ork army!

Anyway, I've put together a test colour scheme on one of my AoBR Tactical marines and would appreciate any feedback you might have. Also, have included a photo of my Terminators, pre-basecoat, converted from the Black Reach plastics with some GS and a few spares.

I used Dheneb Stone over black as my basecoat followed by a top coat of Golden Yellow. Here's how it turns out.

I really perfer your highlight style way more then the ( high light everything!!! ) style, this looks so.... natural

very soothing on the eyes

Nice result on the Crimson Fist. The highlighting isn't overdone and balances well with the base colours.

As a counterpoint to an Ork force, the Crimson's are indeed ideal, especially given that it was a waagh that reduced them to a 2 company fighting strength in their fluff ( one of the few pieces of fluff that hasn't been changed since Rogue Trader )

Yeah, that's part of their charm. Also, it'll be the first time I've ever used a *Codex* marine army, which will be entertaining. I still have my Space Wolves, and have used Dark Angels and Blood Angels in the past.

Vandez wrote:... Boltgun Metal? As a basecoat for yellow? That's a little out there.

No no no, Luna means that you drybrush BM over Black undercoat!
EDIT: just read that you changed to crimsons, good going, IMO they are the best Imperial Fist related chapter

The trick to a codex SM army is value for points. Try to avoid chosing Vanguard Veterans where a normal Assault Squad will do, for example, but I'm sure I'm not saying anything you don't already know.

Modelling wise, doing Crimsons gives you a wealth of options for custom base work using Ork bits.

Looking forward to seeing more.

If you're going to be painting an entire army yellow, you're doing yourself a disservice by not using this:

http://www.thewarstore.com/product39116.html

I use the green on my Salamanders and it is immeasurably helpful.

Just tossing that out there in case you can be swayed.

A little late, now I've basecoated my terminators, but thanks all the same.

I like your stuff but Crimson Fists only paint 1 fist for a regular brother and veterans have both fists painted. I love your paint job it looks great.

No Imperial Fists that I have ever seen have looked good, so it's good you chose Crimson Fists. Its a handsome chapter, and the way you do it looks good. I like the highlighting.

I allways wanted an Imperial Fist army too, since I really liked the colourschemes potential -> I never finished the army, and repainted/sold alot of it. I might some day take a new stab at them.

This is my testfig, picture quality is bad since its taken with an old table scanner. You can still get the basic idea of how I would have done mine.
I also started with a black basecoat, but I made the yellow with an airbrush, starting with a dark brown, then mid brown and finally dark yellow.
Details, weathering and stuff is done with a traditional fine detail brush, but you cant really make any of it with these pics!

Nice stuff, Innom. I can totally see the weathering, and it looks good. He looks way better than any Imperial Fists I have ever seen.