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I am doing Imperial Guard and I need and idea for a color scheme for my army. All I've got so far is either green on the armour and lasgun, or red on the same parts. I am not going to mix colors or do drybrushing or other such thing, I mainly plan to paint flat coats since I am very new. So does any one have any advice for a color scheme. (Oh and I hate Khaki so please don't suggest that because I don't want myarmy to look like the Cadian 8th)

Hey Borga,

I wouldn't be so quick to turn away from the possibility of mixing colours... I'm new to the hobby myself and I managed to get a reasonable scheme together (I'll try get pics tomorrow if you so wish) just by following the guides on Games Workshop's site:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat1300046&categoryId=400032§ion=&aId=12900008
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat1300046&categoryId=400032§ion=&aId=2400008

Obviously the first of those links has the stated aim of trying to get you to buy as many paints as possible... but here's what I'd recommend for a beginner such as yourself to get simple fatigues (I know you didn't want them, but it's so easy to do and you can dabble over in camouflage later... and remember, camouflage literally is just dropping blobs of paint on the model, it's not hard at all).

For painting fatigues:
Undercoat in Snakebite leather, paint over all non-recesses in graveyard earth, apply a wash of ogryn flesh to the recesses and finally, if you feel like putting in the effort, highlight the raised area and edges of the fatigues in desert yellow. You can do that pretty quickly and the results are pretty good, my profile picture was painted in that way.

For painting standard Cadian armour:
Catachan green, wash the recesses in badab black (really not necessary but I do it anyway) and highlight the edges in camo green, again, quick and easy! And highlighting really DOES make a difference

I also paint my lasguns black... I just like to see them being a different colour from the rest of the model, I add a codex grey highlight to the edges as well.

Anyway, flick through the camo guide (second link) and see if you get any inspiration

Also, do not be afraid to do something a little different, do some color experimentation, and look through a variety of sources before you say green and red are my only options. Many of the best armies are made by those who tried something a little outside the norm, even if they are not the best painter, an army with an atypical color choice, as long as it is tasteful, will be extremely striking.

I advise you to reconsider drybrushing; It may even be easier than a flat coat.



I painted these guys using flat coats, drybrushing, and a variety of washes. Don't be afraid to mess around! Anything looks better than flat.

If you're trying to get the best results possible, in the quickest time, with the least experience, there are two things you need to know:

Drybrush.

GW Washes.

I'd suggest you decide on 2 main colors, 1 metallic (probably just silver), one "detail" color, and stick to them.

In the case of the Cadian 8th, this is Khaki, Olive Drab, Silver, White. I know you don't like that, so choose something you do.

Then, you paint the cloth one color, drybrush it, paint the armor another color, then wash it with something that works well with both. When in doubt, Devlan Mud.

That, alone, will look pretty decent if you do clean work.

Fill in the buckles, barrels and eagles with silver, wash that black if you're feeling confident, paint the faces, done.

What kind of boards do you usually play on? Try googling the enviroment that the board is for camo patterns, e.g. Urban, Jungle, Winter, etc...

What I meant to say is that I don't like to paint the color khaki in perticular, not that I don't want to paint Fatigues. My reason is that when I try to paint khaki the black primer keeps on bleeding through underneath. My problem is that I've never been good at choices like this, I'm also not huge on the painting side of the hobby, I'm more for building and playing with my army. As for the boards I play on, I only know the local GW in Burnaby and I am not sure as to what is there. Also I'm very tight for cash so I would prefer to know what paint I should get, I can't test with what paint I had because they all turned into some form of small blob in the pots. (I took a rather large break from warhammer and got back in around 5th edition came out)

I'm still openb to advice here. As I said I want to just paint in flat colors. so please some help here.

I would stay away from doing both green and red together unless you want your army to look like militant elves from the north pole.

If you just want to do flat coats of green then use either yellow-green or blue-green for the other sections of the figure as they are complimentary colors to green. With red go with orange-red or violet-red for the same reasons. Or you could always paint the armor flat black or a metalic.

The reason the the black is showing through your kaki color is because you are only doing one coat of it. To get good coverage (with ANY color) you need to do at least two coats of color.

God im starting IG and I cannot decide on the paints I want to use.

I have 2 colour schemes that I couldn't decide between but both were literally one colour for Armour and possibly gun, the above used colour with black and other shades for camo fatigues and the other details in glod and silver. You can do almost anything with this. I have used Dark Red or Green for the Main colour.

Flat colours eh? Foundation paints are your friends. Try Khemri brown over black and then drybrush- highlight with Kommando Khaki. That's for the fatigues. As for armour? What i did was: Take empty bottle of paint, fill 3/4 with Adeptus battle grey fill the rest with a very watered down black. Mix well and apply. The resulting grey looks very similar to the one on the Dakka boards... Good hunting