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I got into 40k over the last year and half through the gateway drugs know as Dawn of War and Space Marine. Since then I've been devouring the Black Library's pulp fiction like candy (Entire Horus Heresy and a half dozen Omnibuses).
I've also slowly been learning to paint. At first with a brush for about 6 months, but when I started looking at terrain and vehicles decided I needed to expand my toolset. I picked up a Paasche Talon Gravity feed airbrush and decent compressor.

After priming a drop pod, painting a few trees, and doing a horrid job on one poor plastic/metal Tau Broadside, I started on my first big project: A Realm of Battle Board.

My initial intention was to make it the standard Green and Brown with some stone here and there look. During the priming process I feel in love with the look of a more snow covered battle field (ala the Imperial Strongpoint board expansion on Forgeworld). The high contrast offered by the board also seems to really make the models on it pop. I worked most of the weekend and this is what I have so far.

I think it will need some extra work to enhance some highlights, add some snow and ice effects, and I need to hand paint all the sweet looking skulls. A nice layer very translucent blue highlight in some places would go along way i think.

I started the project by soaking the tiles for a few hours (I had to do this 3 tiles at a time, as my bath tub couldnt fit anymore). So my first evening was basically spent soaking and drying tiles.
The next day, I got my start on painting.

While Priming my drop pod using the Vallejo Model Primer I found that the noozle would clog, or paint would dry on the Size 2 Needle of the Paasche. So for this exercise and because of the large surface area I was covering I went up tot he size 3 needle (.55 mm or something).
This worked like a charm, I didnt even need to thin my primer with this setup.

The first thing I did was give several tiles a nice basecoast of white.

After I had finished priming one or two panels, I remembered reading about that magnetic primer that you could buy. I've only played a few games of Warmachine at my dinner table, but I hate when models get knocked over or unintentionally moved.
So I went to home depot and picked up the Rust-o-leum magnetic primer for $20 a can. I shook the stuff and attempted to mix it, finally settling on a 2:1 Primer to Liquitex Airbrush Medium mix. I filtered the primer before using it with some cheese cloth to get the nasty bits out. I was able to spray all the panels while only getting a clog once over several hours of work.

I used this to prime all the panels, doing at least 3 coats, if not more on each tile. A bit of informal testing with rare earth magnetics showed it did attract them, but not enough where I could move boards with units on them untouched or anything.

I would have done more layers, I think I didnt mix the primer enough as when I wnet to pour more the next day to mix up a new 2:1 solution all that was left was a black sludgelike stuff at the bottom. I'm guessing I didnt mix it well enough and poured off all the water paint with little particles or something, leaving the sludge. I tried opening another can and repeating my steps from the previous day, but i ended up being a mess and I got covered in that nasty primer. My nails are still black down by the cuticles.

I think I need to do some more experimenting wtih this primer.

Safety notes: The enormous amount of paint required for the board and the speed at which i worked left my garage filled with nasty paint residue in the air, I highly recommend working in a well ventilated area when using the magnetic primer and please use a respirator when doing your airbrushing.

For the next step I used more Vallejo White Primer (I buy it in 200ml bottle and ended up using the entire thing over the course of this project) to provide my base coat.
I went heavy on the flat lands, lighter on the hills, and just dusted the cliff faces to help achieve some nice rock like effects peaking out from the snow. I also went very light around the skullpits so taht I can hand paint them at a later date.

These pics reflect the current state of the board. As I mentioned in the first post I have some more work to detail it. I'd love to hear some suggestions from the community. Also, any comments or criticism would be welcome (with the exception about gripes that I'm a moron for paying so much $$$ for a ROB, I already know I'm a rube.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One last thing, I found it helped to place the boards together near the end so I could "even" out the paint. Doing each board individually ends up with them all being very subtle different shades.

My terrain painting is taking a backseat while I await a large kickstarter shipment of mdf terrain.

In the mean time I have begun work on my Raven Guard army. The first beaky item I paint was a drop pod. I don't like how the bright pure snow white looks against black, so i opted for a more bone/creme color.
Here is the completed work. My next major task is to paint up a tactical squad to go with it.

I have finished the first 5 members of my tactical squad. All five marines are in Mk6 armor. They have roughly the same pose, so I'm going to make my other 4 marines and the sarge a bit more blinged out.
I think they are good models for troops though. I have attemped to hand paint the squad #, company #, and the Tactical Up Arrow Symbol. I need some work on those though. Any tips on freehand are more than welcome.

As for paints and techniques I used:

Primer
Vallejo Black Primer airbrushed on

Base Coat
Minitaire Raven Black (Entire Model)
Minitaire Raven Black:Minitaire Grey (Need to look up exact shade) 2:1 applied as a half ass Zenthinal highlight between 35-45 degrees.

Details
Chapter Pauldron (Right) Left it black around the rim, and colored in the middle with P3 Tusk Ivory
More layers of tusk to hide the black
Then wash it with a very very thing layer of pure white
Finally one last thin layer of tusk ivory

Squad Marking Pauldron (Left)
P3 Rust Red around the rim. (This may change, as I might switch from 3rd company to 2nd or 4th.)

Guns and Chest Aquila
Basecoat with Privateer Press Pig Iron mixed with Black 3:1
Dry brush Necron Compound

Aquila on Gun
Basecoat Brown
Layer Citadel Gold Color very lightly
Dry brush Citadel Gold lightly

Chest Aquila
Base

I'm trying to finish modeling the rest of the my units for my 1000 point army

Chaplain with Jump Pack
1 TH/SS Termie, 4 LC Termie.
2 x 10 man tac squads with heavy bolters, flamers, and drop pods
1 Sgt TH/SS 9 Assault Marine with Jump Packs

Here are some pics of the Chaplain. I combined Cpt Koryvdae legs with the torso of a Chaplain from the chaplain bike kit.
I had to cut up a tabard make the body fit the legs better.

The jetpack is the icarus kit from Kabuki Models. I cut down the wings a bit as they were a bit too much. One could argue the wings now are a bit too much as well.