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I have a fully painted (studio bought) Tau army but now have around 3000 points of Space Marines I'd like to assemble and paint to be Salamanders. I've never a figure before in my life. I'm horrible with art (I had to struggle to get C's in art class in Junior High School) but I have a very loving & understanding girlfriend who has offered to help me with some of the detail work. I'm looking to create an army up to tabletop standards and I won't be ashamed to pull the army out of the box to play. So here is my idea:

1. HQ's, Special Characters, Forge World, and any conversions will be done by a professional painter. I'm mostly looking to assemble and paint Space Marines, Space Marine Scouts, Terminators, Rhinos, Vindicators, Drop Pods, and a couple of Land Raiders.

2. As the majority of my army will be done assembly line style I've invested in a Powercat Airbrush & compressor.

3. I'm thinking that the easiest way to add detail is to use the dipping method.

So here is my proposed process:

Assembly & Cleaning
Priming
Basecoat with the airbrush
Add any details by hand (eyes, hair, skin, ect.)
Dip
Mount on base


So here are my questions

1. What GW colors should I use for a Salamander Space Marine? What shade of Green is often used? Should I use Black as the primer color? What color works best to get the Salamander's darker skin?

2. Do I paint before assembly on some things like the Scouts and just airbrush the heads separately or should I just airbrush the fully assembled model in Green and then repaint the head & other skin by hand?

3. Is it easier to paint vehicles before assembly or after?

4. Any other tips?

1: Snot green on a black undercoat. (Spare the green airbrush and just paint the armour to get a blackline effect, much better than a dip.
Skin I'm not sure, I've tried very dark skin tones before and failed.

2: Do the whole lot in one go and repaint

3: After assembly (there may be a couple of fiddly bits you would like to stick on after painting though.

I was thinking of expanding my marines soon. I've got DA at the mo but I wanted to add all the nice new shiney toys that have come out . So I was thinking salamanders. My plan was , take the parts off the sprue clean up the flashing , assemble as much as I can without anything blocking anything , (ie base , legs torso and head, leaving arms and weapons off ) ,to do my usual grey primer , then find a suitable green spray. Spray the suckers up , scorched earth skin. Then black "magic wash" , high light and detail , decal and job done.

Thanks for the input!

Waaagh_Gonads: Are you saying not to use the airbrush to do the basecoat after I prime the models?

asugradinwa wrote:Thanks for the input!

Waaagh_Gonads: Are you saying not to use the airbrush to do the basecoat after I prime the models?

Airbrush the basecoat. Especially if your doing a lot of models. And you could also try airbrushing a Wash. It worked well for me on my Dark Angels

Id recommend using washes instead of dipping, In my experience it helps you control what is going on better, but I try to focus more on the final product than the speed with which I get there, so take that for what it is worth.

I like painting vehicles after they are assembled. I dont think painting them first gives you any edge.

Ive heard Knarlock green works well as a base for them, then highlights with snot.

I also suggest fully assembling them, basing them green, then doing whatever details you want by hand, if you cant get at it when the model is fully assembled, chances are you cant see it from table top distance.

I am in the process of building a Salamander army. On my initial model I primed black, base coat of Dark Angels green, 2nd layer of snot green, highlights on edges with goblin green. I then did a wash of DA Green and water (4:1 it think) maybe dark green ink will work. This dulled the snot green and goblin green down.

Then on the black areas (i.e., backpack, shoulder pads, etc...) I added a drop of grey to my black so that it almost appears black, but is not as dark as the primer.

Picked out aquillas and skulls with brazen brass, shining gold, brown ink wash, then highlight with shing gold. Slapped on a decal and called it good.

The model looked pretty good and seemed to match the paint scheme from the book (close enough for me at least).

I'd suggest painting all the parts of yor scouts before assembley. That way you can make sure you don't get any little patches of black or whatever undercoat you're using. It's really annoying if you've assembeld it, then painted, and there's just one little bit you can't reach... So yeah, that's what I do. As for the other things, I'm not sure.

yeah, i agree

Scorched earth or even graveyard earth would make decent base tones for a dark skin color before washing, but you might want to look at the Reaper Master Series Dark Skin color triad. The triad is made to work "from the bottom up", going from shadow to base tone to highlight in a simple 3 step application.

Also, if you're going to wash using Citadel Color (or other paint), use a gunk or magic sauce mixture. It's simply various parts water and acryllic medium - that's Future Floor Wax if you're not familiar with the term. This breaks the surface tension and allows the paint to collect in the nooks and crannies while flowing off broad surfaces. You can also add other components to the mix for various effects - I use a craft paint "extender" which slows the drying time.

I'd be careful with the Dark Green Ink, though, since it's pretty shiny. A coat of matte sealant takes most of that shine away, however. My FLGS has a few bottles of the stuff available at a discount if you need it, just drop me a PM if you need some.

Lastly, Sicarius has a shining nuggent of advice, make sure to take it to heart. I've read a few of the P&M blogs and found a wonderfully easy way to paint bits os to get blue-tack/poster tack and stick a line of it to something nice a stable (I use a popcicle stick), then push your bits onto it. They stay stuck while you paint them and it's very easy to achieve a level of uniformity and efficiency.

When attaching your bits, make sure to put the surfaces that will receive glue on the blue tack since you want to keep paint off them. Paint and primer makes for a lousy bonding surface and you might find your models falling apart easier if you glue over paint.

It can be wonderfully easy to achieve a great tabletop standard using the methods you're interested in. Just make sure that you do some test minis to get your method down and ensure that you're happy with the results.

I use snot green over black.

Here are the pics of mine

pretty god i suppose

Nice pics Grandmaster.

Your skin is clearly not black enough yet... Which is good, because I dislike that new bit of fluff and the way their figs painted to it looked.

I am a Salamanders player and these models are very nice, I think the green is a good shade and I like the skin, I find pure black makes the model appear unfinished to be honest. Good job!

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