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So I took about a 7 year break from painting, then suddenly got an urge to start painting again. Any tips on how to improve them would be welcome. I'm moderately happy with how they turned out, but would like to improve them. Thanks!

I can't tell what your aspiring champion's eyes are supposed to be, it looks like he doesn't have eyes and has some metal paint where the eyes should be. I really like the custom horns, though, those are nice. Brother Greecius is clearly unfinished, his horns have metal paint on them and his rebreather is just basecoated and in thick paint for that matter.

Aside from that, the Word Bearers don't use Sorcerers. Oddly, the closest model that sorcerer could count as is a Dark Apostle. As I've said in Word Bearers Lord thread, the Dark Apostles are all psykers, so you'll need to adjust the profile accordingly. I know you're just asking for painting tips, but I figured this was worth bringing up.


EDIT: I recommended that you use the sorcerer as a dark apostle so you could still use the model, but actually you could field him as a sorcerer if you paint him as belonging to another legion or warband, which the Word Bearers have actually done. So you could do that instead.

After 7 years away you should be pleased. Metallics look a little think in places, are you using new paints?

Love the names by the way.

 Quarterdime wrote:
I can't tell what your aspiring champion's eyes are supposed to be, it looks like he doesn't have eyes and has some metal paint where the eyes should be. I really like the custom horns, though, those are nice. Brother Greecius is clearly unfinished, his horns have metal paint on them and his rebreather is just basecoated and in thick paint for that matter.

Aside from that, the Word Bearers don't use Sorcerers. Oddly, the closest model that sorcerer could count as is a Dark Apostle. As I've said in Word Bearers Lord thread, the Dark Apostles are all psykers, so you'll need to adjust the profile accordingly. I know you're just asking for painting tips, but I figured this was worth bringing up.


EDIT: I recommended that you use the sorcerer as a dark apostle so you could still use the model, but actually you could field him as a sorcerer if you paint him as belonging to another legion or warband, which the Word Bearers have actually done. So you could do that instead.

A few misconceptions here, the Word Bearers do make use of sorcerers, after all, someone has to summon those daemons. In fact, the Word Bearer called the Dead Speaker (His actual name eludes me) is specifically referred to as a sorcerer in the novel Daemon World (along with Karnulon, the Word Bearers Sorcerer who plays a prominent role in the novel) and he is not even on the road to becoming an Apostle. Ampheon and Zethus are two further examples of Word Bearers sorcerers, along with Karnulon.

Similarly, not all Apostles are psykers. I'm assuming you got this from the Word Bearers omnibus with Marduk/Jarulek projecting their souls and summoning, but this is sorcery, one does not have to be a psyker to be a sorcerer. Eliphas the Inheritor was a Dark Apostle before defecting to the Black Legion, and has never displayed an iota of psychic power.

On topic, Always good to see someone bearing the Word! As cliché as the advise is, you should try and thin your paints a little more.

I follow TheApatheticFish's tutorials when painting my Word Bearers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5Y7slYoUMQ

Best of luck, keep us up to date with your progress!

That was a fantastic tutorial by TheApatheticFish, though I'll admit some of the jargon and techniques were just a bit over my head. You k now I've been playing Word Bearers forever and I never actually knew that bit about their Apostles mainly being their Sorcerers as well, but that's pretty cool; gives them even more flavor. I kind of feel like I've hamstrung myself enough by not using any marks so I'll probably just leave the Sorcerer there (And speaking of no marks, I can't take my Daemon Prince anymore, nooooooo! He was always my warlord!). All my info about Word Bearers has been from the army books and an occasional glance at a lore-based web page. If you could recommend a book I'd be more than happy to check it out. I've always been afraid to read a book about the Word Bearers because I just kind of assumed they would gak it up.

As far as the painting on the chaos lord, the silver isn't the eyes, it's just a cross pattern across the entire mask to give it some contrast. And thinning the paint down is the kind of advice I was looking for. That's another thing I haven't tried yet, because I know I'd end up having to buy about 10 containers of Khorne Red before finally getting the right consistency and not ruining the paint altogether. I've also painted a dreadnaught, a predator and a rhino, but vehicles are giving me a hard time. Speaking of consistency, I just can't get the large, flat surfaces consistent. The paint is thicker in some spots, thinner in others, and it just looks uneven. I don't really want to invest in an airbrush system, but the airbrushed models look soo good, I might break down and have to do it, unless someone has some tips for painting vehicles. I built a custom squad of possessed that I've been putting off painting till I have a bit more skill, but I might start them soon. Anyway, thanks for the advice and tips!

 Sheokronath wrote:

 Quarterdime wrote:
I can't tell what your aspiring champion's eyes are supposed to be, it looks like he doesn't have eyes and has some metal paint where the eyes should be. I really like the custom horns, though, those are nice. Brother Greecius is clearly unfinished, his horns have metal paint on them and his rebreather is just basecoated and in thick paint for that matter.

Aside from that, the Word Bearers don't use Sorcerers. Oddly, the closest model that sorcerer could count as is a Dark Apostle. As I've said in Word Bearers Lord thread, the Dark Apostles are all psykers, so you'll need to adjust the profile accordingly. I know you're just asking for painting tips, but I figured this was worth bringing up.


EDIT: I recommended that you use the sorcerer as a dark apostle so you could still use the model, but actually you could field him as a sorcerer if you paint him as belonging to another legion or warband, which the Word Bearers have actually done. So you could do that instead.

A few misconceptions here, the Word Bearers do make use of sorcerers, after all, someone has to summon those daemons. In fact, the Word Bearer called the Dead Speaker (His actual name eludes me) is specifically referred to as a sorcerer in the novel Daemon World (along with Karnulon, the Word Bearers Sorcerer who plays a prominent role in the novel) and he is not even on the road to becoming an Apostle. Ampheon and Zethus are two further examples of Word Bearers sorcerers, along with Karnulon.

Similarly, not all Apostles are psykers. I'm assuming you got this from the Word Bearers omnibus with Marduk/Jarulek projecting their souls and summoning, but this is sorcery, one does not have to be a psyker to be a sorcerer. Eliphas the Inheritor was a Dark Apostle before defecting to the Black Legion, and has never displayed an iota of psychic power.

On topic, Always good to see someone bearing the Word! As cliché as the advise is, you should try and thin your paints a little more.

I follow TheApatheticFish's tutorials when painting my Word Bearers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5Y7slYoUMQ

Best of luck, keep us up to date with your progress!

Soul projection isn't sorcery. In Dark Creed, a White Consuls Librarian does it, and in The Emperor's Gift, Grey Knights do it. Still, I forgot that you don't need to be a psyker to be a sorcerer. Is that even canon anymore?

P.S. Are Amphion and Zethus in the Blood Ravens Omnibus? If they were just from the video game, then I wouldn't refer to them as a standard.

Apocros wrote:
That was a fantastic tutorial by TheApatheticFish, though I'll admit some of the jargon and techniques were just a bit over my head. You k now I've been playing Word Bearers forever and I never actually knew that bit about their Apostles mainly being their Sorcerers as well, but that's pretty cool; gives them even more flavor. I kind of feel like I've hamstrung myself enough by not using any marks so I'll probably just leave the Sorcerer there (And speaking of no marks, I can't take my Daemon Prince anymore, nooooooo! He was always my warlord!). All my info about Word Bearers has been from the army books and an occasional glance at a lore-based web page. If you could recommend a book I'd be more than happy to check it out. I've always been afraid to read a book about the Word Bearers because I just kind of assumed they would gak it up.

As far as the painting on the chaos lord, the silver isn't the eyes, it's just a cross pattern across the entire mask to give it some contrast. And thinning the paint down is the kind of advice I was looking for. That's another thing I haven't tried yet, because I know I'd end up having to buy about 10 containers of Khorne Red before finally getting the right consistency and not ruining the paint altogether. I've also painted a dreadnaught, a predator and a rhino, but vehicles are giving me a hard time. Speaking of consistency, I just can't get the large, flat surfaces consistent. The paint is thicker in some spots, thinner in others, and it just looks uneven. I don't really want to invest in an airbrush system, but the airbrushed models look soo good, I might break down and have to do it, unless someone has some tips for painting vehicles. I built a custom squad of possessed that I've been putting off painting till I have a bit more skill, but I might start them soon. Anyway, thanks for the advice and tips!

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff in there that's not particularly clear if you're newish to painting, though for the rank and file a few of his steps are totally skippable. When I was first learning how to thin my paints effectively I practised on larger, flatter surfaces first. Games Workshop recently put a video on youtube where Duncan Rhodes paints a Chimera using the large drybrush .take a look, it was invaluable to me

With my Word Bearers I try to think of fluff reasons for why my units can have marks. Remember that being marked is not always a voluntary process (Uzas and Cyrion are Night Lords with the marks of Khorne and Tzeentch, respectively. Though they fight for warband which hates Chaos and are shunned for their marks.) For example with cult units, want noise marines? Prototype weaponry.

If you want to learn more about the Word Bearers the Dark Apostle series by Anthony Reynolds is good, it follows the rise of a Dark Apostle named Marduk and the politics in the Legion, you can buy all three books in an omnibus called "The Word Bearers Omnibus". An older book featuring a kill team of them is "Daemon World", it reads lie half warhammer fantasy and half 40k.

My favourite books with them are the Horus Heresy books, "The First Heretic" which shows you how they started down the path to heresy and the creation of the original possessed space marines, the Gal Vorbak. There's a novella called Aurelian which takes place during the events of the First Heretic which details Lorgar's first voyage in to the Eye of Terror where he meets Kairos Fateweaver who explains Chaos to him. After that is Betrayer, which features a good view of how Chaos is getting it's claws in to the Legion.