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The purple glow is good. A little less traditional, but that just makes your models more unique

So, I thought I'd do a tutorial on how you an achieve a pretty good tabletop standard with minimal effort that uses black and white spraypaint and washes to do the highlighting work for you. Its a quick way to get stuff looking decent so you can spend the rest of the time making them boss, or drinking beer

For the tutorial ill be painting 2 of these imperial fists up to tabletop, but ill make the language generic so it can be adapted to whatever youre painting.


To begin with youll need to break down your colours. The colours are laid down from lightest to darkest so seperate each colour into 3 parts: highlight, midtone and shade. More often than not your highlight colour will be white but sometimes bleached bone or some other equivalent off-white tint colour will work depending on what youre going for. The midtone should be whatever colour youre painting but with some of the highlight mixed in to tone down the saturation (unless youre painting metallics which are fine out of the pot). And finally the shade should be your desired colour in full saturation, straight out of the pot, but with a bit of a slightly darker, more saturated colour mixed in. For instance I'm painting yellow mans so my shade is iyanden darksun foundation yellow with a tiny bit of orange mixed in (for the extra kick).

You will also need some form of black ink.. or dark ink of some variety. Im using P3 Armour Wash because its browny black.


1. Undercoat
This is a pretty important stage as it establishes where all the highlights are gonna be. I use white knights for this but any flat black and white sprays will do. Airbrushing will also work if you got one

First just undercoat the model black and let it dry. Then lightly and from a fair distance (around 40-50cm, it varies) carefully spray white around the model at a 45 degree sorta angle. Get an even coat so all the parts except the very deepest cracks have a greyish shade. Let this dry. Then take the white again and spray directly down on the model so the white falls on the most raised parts and creates a sense of light.

It should look something like this



2. Basecoating

Pick whatever the lightest version of your colour is and mix it 50/50 with water to a wash consistency and give the desired area an even coat. The lighter areas should shine through this transparent layer, if it doesnt your mix is too thick and needs mo water


Then take your midtone colour and make a similarly transparent 50/50 mix and apply it over the general panels, leaving only the edges and most raised areas untouched.



Then in the darkest areas carefully paint in your shade colour. I dont usually make this a wash like the other layers, but it can be good if you need to make a bland section more colourful.



3. Shading

Get some dark ink and mix it with a little chaos black so its a runny opaque mix. Then take your finest, tiniest brush and apply it to all the cracks and darkest parts of the model. Also, make a mix that is 50/50 water so its quite transparent and apply it to all the crap you want to look dark and dirty (metallics usually)





4. Cleanup
Use either the shade or a mix with white added depending on what fits best to clean up all the inevitable screwups





Ill chuck up a detailing tutorial maybe next week when i finish these dudes off

now with blue plasma

jackanory wrote:Your cubes are one of my all-time favourite armies! The painting on these Fists is awesome already!
I like purple/yellow as a combo and I think yellow body, red gun and blue plasma will be too "primary coloursy". What if you used a slightly bluer purple for the plasma coil? I'm not 100% sold on the red gun to be honest and would probably try a more neutral colour...
How many models is this army going to consist of? I'd love to make some true scale Black Templars myself but I'm put off 40k by how many models you need...

the army will consist of around 15-17 true scale marines and 2 dreads, for about 1500 pts give or take


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Here is knife man. Dont look him in the eye or you gona get stabbed

it counts as a force sword

Battle Bros, ATTACK!!

trying out the chunkier iron armour arms on this guy...and a ravenguard bolter + bald head

I'm really surprised you're not getting more interest for this project! The muted paint scheme is sublime, the true-scaling and conversion work is top notch, even the basing is ace. Thanks a ton for the tutorial on how you achieve your metal work - I'll definitely try something similar out next time I have a big armour plate to paint.

Blue works much better for the plasma, btw, so good call on the change!

Keep up the amazing work! I'm sure there are some lurkers around appreciating your models, even if it all seems quiet

thanks for the support man, much appreciated!


The guy at the front with the sheild is my counts-as-Draigo test subject. Going for a generic space marine captain look so the only change will probably be the posing and kantor's back banner.
Also there is my apothecary with a chaos marine helmet shaved down, another bolter and knife man, and a plasma guy with some running legs.

While building the standard bearer I was trying to channel this classic black templar art that I would meticulously study as a 12 year old pouring over the 3rd ed rulebook.

Stupidly I didnt bother to google the picture while I built the model though and just went on recollection so the mini looks nothing like it :(





so im thinking I will scrap this one and build a second standard bearer, and look at the art for reference this time


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Kneeling man gotta kneel

token white guy

Those are all sweet, at first I was like... wut... but now Its clearly epic!

Scarper wrote:I'm really surprised you're not getting more interest for this project!

I guess i should talk, because i've been here since you started posting your fists, and i think they look really cool!

Wow. Those are some the best space marines I've ever seen. I am a huge Imperial Fists fan and these are absolutely brilliant.

I think that they look like marines are supposed to, weathered and on campaign. Beautifully done. I prefer the blue plasma as well. I think the purple just didn't contrast as well.

I'm REALLY liking this army!

They are some of nicer true scale Marines I've seen.

Niiiiiiicceeeee.... Exalted

Hey Gwaahr

love the true Scaleness and the paint job, my only problem with it is that half the fun of doing a true scale army is making the model. Apart from that love the model, love the army and love painting

- ironhandstraken

now here is some hip hop


and some space marines


in the background you can see where i chopped off that dudes arm, and also my wallet




peace

Ive dryfitted my dreads together. The contemptor took a bit of minor converting to get regular dread arms to fit on but I think it turned out alright with the lopsided configuration ive given it.



The other dread's lascannon needed to be changed into an autocannon, so all I had to do was make a clone of the ammo barrels from the opposite arm and stick them on. Unfortunately the gun muzzles came out a bit wonky so I will have to redo them with plasticard.



What I was wondering mainly though was whether the bare head looks too out of place

It doesn't really look that out of place...

Just make it look all dead and corpse-y.

thats the plan


people on b&c dont like it but whatever, I do

Why do your dreads look cast in a funny color?

WIP banner man

Not bad, you have a good colourpalette with those pale and subtle hues but you really, really have to clear up the moldlines and gaps. Because they stand out like a spear to the eyes, greenstuff and a file is my recomendation.

I cant be bothered with that

Theyve never really bothered me because I have such bad eyesight i cant see them anyway


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prettymuch done with bannerman, just gotta clean crap up

the banner kinda looks a bit blood angel-ish now that I look at it...but whatever really, its not like im gonna repaint the stupid thing

It is actually an Ultramarines bnner, but anyways, your models look amazing as hell!!

thats one good looking banner! nice work!