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Hello,
I am new at dakkadakka and almost new at painting.
I build up a blood ravens space marines chapter based on the color scab red.
Now I have a lot of tanks to paint.
I will begin with my rhinos and predator which have the same chassis.

What I want is some realistic look. Some kind of "look at this big tank with its big cannons, he will kill us all" and not "oh cute, some plastic toy".
The first thing I have done is prime the whole tank with scab red with an airbrush.
But now I want to know how I can go on. I see a lot of pictures on the internet where you see realistic color and weathering. When I try to get some realistic to my tanks it always look like crap.
Can you give me hints how to make my basecolor better? I think drybrushing is one thing I can use but how? When I drybrush bloodred it makes the modell only brighter which is not very realistic to me. Another direction are washes, I think. I also tried this. But I have problems to get a good seem coverage of wash (devlan mud) to the armorplates. It also looks like crap...

So I want to ask about some hints here. Can you (detailed) how do you paint your tanks? Which kind of color you use, which brushes and whats your technik is?

Regards and sorry for my poor english.
Tobias

The first commandment of Warhammer 40,000 is NEVER MIX REALITY AND WARHAMMER 40,000. A light drybrushing of boltgun metal along the sharp edges should fix things right up. Welcome to DakkaDakka.

whole idea with washes is that its not gonna be a even coverage.

Scab Red Tanks......

What I would do is a follows......

1. Brown Ink the whole tank after the Scab Red. It doesn't matter if the scab red or brown is uneven at this stage, and it will look crap when the Ink dries.
2. Hand paint the whole tank Scab Red, leaving the recess Brown Ink. Again, a too even coat does not matter.
3. Mix some Blazing Orange and Scab Red toghter and drybrush the entire tank. This will blend in your uneaven painting and add a layer of depth to your tank. Then, with just Blazing Orange, highlight the extreme edging by hand.
4. Pick out all the metalic stuff and paint black, drybrushed Boltgun.
5. Paint any other detail.
6. Weather as Nescessary.

This should give you a pretty reasonably looking tank.

i like secretsquigs idea but if you want to do something like his idea with different colors that wouold still be awesome can you post some pics once your done welcome to dakkadakka!!!1

I recommend you check out www.armorama.com for armor modeling help. Just because your Marine vehicles are red doesn't mean you can't treat them like any other armor model... I play Blood Angels, so it's just the same. You'll want to take advantage of some drybrushing and washing techniques... oil paints are far superior for doing washes on armor models. Don't be afraid to practice on a 'real' cheapie tank model first... if you want to make your 40k tanks realistic, you want to get comfortable with the techniques before trying to apply them to something special for your army.

Another tip worth mentioning: any armor modeler worth anything will tell you right away that no paint chips on a tank will be bright silver... think about it, any exposed metal will rust over and dull quickly after being exposed, and alot of surface damage will only expose to primer anyway. Read up on some build logs from armor modelers, and feel free to ask any questions you've got.

Warpcrafter is right. If you want realism you are likely playing the wrong game.

Um.....I don't have a lot to add really, but you might want to think about priming your stuff with black if you want dark, subdued colors. Black is also good for hiding errors.

If I read that right, and you are just spraying the tanks with GW Scab Red, that's actually not a primer. Primer is different from regular paint, it's designed to help things stick.

Also, if you don't like Blood Red as a highlight, mix something less garish with the Scab Red, like Bleached Bone or maybe Dwarf Flesh. You'd have to experiment with that to know for sure what you'd want.

yes, welcome to Dakka.

I would suggest putting small patches of chaos black where you want the paint to look as if its chipped. This can then be overlaid with boltgun metal. Giving the chip a slight black edge. When you do this dont worry about being too accurate. Also, if you find the results too shiny, you can weather the chip with a very slight amount of flesh-wash or some other brownish ink.

hope that helps.

yes, welcome to Dakka.

I would suggest putting small patches of chaos black where you want the paint to look as if its chipped. This can then be overlaid with boltgun metal. Giving the chip a slight black edge. When you do this dont worry about being too accurate. Also, if you find the results too shiny, you can weather the chip with a very slight amount of flesh-wash or some other brownish ink.

hope that helps.

oops... double post!

Hello and welcome
I've used spray guns in my working life and two things
that happen are:
1] Spraying tends to make the paint lighter when applied.
I do know that if you spray red the first few coats
will be almost pink.You may need to spray a few more
coats to build it up.
2]You may need to mix a darker blend of your chosen colour
to get it looking right.

In model shops they sell stuff called weathering powders
which are fine powders(obviously) that you can apply to
vehicles that will give a weathered look.They act like
chalkdust.
Hope this helps

Thanks for your hints. But I have some new Questions.
1. What size of brush you use for drybrushing vehicles? I only have one size4-brush for this. I think this is a little bit to small.
2. I want to mark my vehicles with tactical signs (great arrow or maybe bloodraven-sign). I already have tried to paint this but it looks like crap. You see lines everywhere. I have bought a GW-tankbrush but have the same problems.
3. Do you know the primer of ArmyPainter. They have a primer in bloodred. But I have heard the they aren't good. Can you say something about this?

Regards

Hi John_Doe! Welcome to the forum. There has been good advice already from previous posters. As I am currently painting my BA army I feel your pain for painting red tanks. The following is the technique I use for my BA vehicles;
1. Black primer undercoat
2. Two thinnish coats of Mechrite Red
3. Devlan Mud wash
4. Mechrite Red overbrush
5. Blood Red heavy drybrush and highlighting
6. Baal Red wash
7. Blood Red light highlighting
I use a small flat drybrush when painting tanks as it allows a good portion to be covered at a time and is also small enough to get to difficult to reach places.

Here are my BA Rhinos using this technique;



The weathering was done using solely Foundation Paints using the following technique;
1. Scorched Brown heavy overbrush on the tracks and lower hull
2. Calthan Brown heavy drybrush
3. Khemri Brown drybrush
4. Deneb Stone light drybrush round the edges

Also, to help making the tank look more realistic I have picked out the rivets on the armour plates. Time consuming I know but worth the effort IMO.
I cannot comment on the ArmyPainter primer as I have not used it, I have only used their matt varnish for terrain peices. Plastikote is another cheaper alternative to GW sprays and comes in a wider variety of colours.

warpcrafter wrote:The first commandment of Warhammer 40,000 is NEVER MIX REALITY AND WARHAMMER 40,000.

I think that is the worst advice anyone could give to someone new in this hobby, especially when it comes to a topic such as tank weathering, where the fundamentals remain the same whether the year is 1917 or 848.M39 and whether the location is Kursk or Krieg.

What makes painting miniatures fun is that you get to decide how realistic you want them to be. Some people paint their armies and units in elaborate camouflage and weather them to look like they've spent months in any given warzone. Some people turn their minis into elaborate works of art. Who's to say which one of these is wrong?