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This is my first venture into actually painting anything 40K related, so please bare with me Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as I'm still learning and want to do the best I possibly can. Thanks!

Close up on the paint scheme:


And his fellow warriors:

Its a bit boring now honestly. I'm a fan of the at least three color rule, which means each model should have at least 3 colors to keep it interesting. Also consider highlights/dry brushing based on your patience level.

They just need something to pop.

Do you have any suggestions for a 3rd color? And I'm still learning to paint, not sure how to do highlights.

Think it is fine. I also believe in a three color rule but here is how I would do it for your guys. Keep the colors you are using, on the guns or even the eyes of the firewarriors use a bright color, like ice blue to make it pop out. When I played Tau I used enchanted blue then highlighted with ice blue on the guns to make it seem like it had a power source inside it.

I really like the basic colour scheme you have going, it sort of reminds me of Cobra characters from the old GI Joe series . Like the other guys say, if I was you i'd really add a third color, it brings some variety to the model. You could colour various pieces of the armor, I'm planning on painting random sections of the leg armor on all my firewariors in the lighter brown then the main armor colour, you could even paint half your helmet the 3rd colour on some models. take my firewarrior (made it a link as the picture is rather large) for example.

The basic scheme is two colours, but the addition of the 3rd colour really breaks up the monotomy. The cloth can be easily highlighted by drybrushing a grey colour onto it (if you dont know what drybrushing is there are plenty of tutorials one google search away). Also, I like applying a light wash on the armor sections (beware of pooling on flat pieces like the shoulder guard on the right arm), not only does that help with filling in, and adding depth to, the lines on the armor, it also makes the colour look less a single solid colour and adds variation to it. If you compare the pictures of my firewarrior in my picasa galary before and after washing, the before pictures make it look chocolaty, but after washing it looks tons better.

As for the 3rd colour I wouldnt really know what to pick right now, a great tool is this Firewarrior painter where you can easily try out different colours (if you need specific colour codes check out this chart).

I think a good suggestion for a 3rd color would be something similar to bleached bone or any other cream color. I think you could create a nice distinction between the sergeant and the other warriors (like painting the sergeants helment primarily cream color. I like the work so far, you are painting really neat and tidy for a starter. I would also recommend experimenting with washing and highlights. Depending on how much time you would like to invest into them, you could really bring your current color scheme to life. I would start by trying a delvan mud wash on the red/maroon color. It will receed into the cracks and bring out the raised areas. Next tryout some color on a piece of paper or tile and find something you would like to use as a highlight. Depending on your tastes you could either do a bold highlight like red gore/blood red (any other bright red color) or just take the base color that you started with and add a small amount of white to it. Finally, you could mix hawk turqoise with black and highlight the raise areas of the black tunics/garb that the Warriors are wearing underneath the armor. A great start though. Look foward to seeing more progress and work from you!

Adeptus battlegrey for the undergarments. Ink them black. Nice and easy and a good stark contrast. Use a metallic on small details, but a quick tip: wash your metallic paint brush in a different pot to your regular colours. Metallics have small flaeks in them that can easily pollute other paints. Always wash metallic brushes seperately.

Great job!

DaOrkz1977 wrote:Think it is fine. I also believe in a three color rule but here is how I would do it for your guys. Keep the colors you are using, on the guns or even the eyes of the firewarriors use a bright color, like ice blue to make it pop out. When I played Tau I used enchanted blue then highlighted with ice blue on the guns to make it seem like it had a power source inside it.

I like the power source idea, sounds neat. For the eyes/lens, I was leaning towards a brighter green, perhaps along the lines of Scorpion Green.

MoD_Legion wrote:I really like the basic colour scheme you have going, it sort of reminds me of Cobra characters from the old GI Joe series . Like the other guys say, if I was you i'd really add a third color, it brings some variety to the model. You could colour various pieces of the armor, I'm planning on painting random sections of the leg armor on all my firewariors in the lighter brown then the main armor colour, you could even paint half your helmet the 3rd colour on some models. take my firewarrior (made it a link as the picture is rather large) for example.

As for the 3rd colour I wouldnt really know what to pick right now, a great tool is this Firewarrior painter where you can easily try out different colours (if you need specific colour codes check out this chart).

Haha, it really does look like something from G.I. Joe. I should make a Cobra stencil for my Fire Warriors! I was going to paint random sections as well, such as a squad leader's helmet/shoulder guard or on various Battlesuits.

I like your Fire Warrior, the color scheme is fantastic .

Element206 wrote:I think a good suggestion for a 3rd color would be something similar to bleached bone or any other cream color. I think you could create a nice distinction between the sergeant and the other warriors (like painting the sergeants helment primarily cream color. I like the work so far, you are painting really neat and tidy for a starter. I would also recommend experimenting with washing and highlights. Depending on how much time you would like to invest into them, you could really bring your current color scheme to life. I would start by trying a delvan mud wash on the red/maroon color. It will receed into the cracks and bring out the raised areas. Next tryout some color on a piece of paper or tile and find something you would like to use as a highlight. Depending on your tastes you could either do a bold highlight like red gore/blood red (any other bright red color) or just take the base color that you started with and add a small amount of white to it. Finally, you could mix hawk turqoise with black and highlight the raise areas of the black tunics/garb that the Warriors are wearing underneath the armor. A great start though. Look foward to seeing more progress and work from you!

Thank you

I did use wash on those particular figures, Dadab Black to be exact. Would Delvan Mud be a better choice though? Highlights I'm not entirely sure on how to do, but I know I can find out how with the magic of Google.

I plan to post more in the near future. The weather's been atrocious lately, so I haven't been able to prime much of anything :(. I've also been working on my Word Bearers army, so that'll be something to look for as well.

Phayse wrote:Adeptus battlegrey for the undergarments. Ink them black. Nice and easy and a good stark contrast. Use a metallic on small details, but a quick tip: wash your metallic paint brush in a different pot to your regular colours. Metallics have small flaeks in them that can easily pollute other paints. Always wash metallic brushes seperately.

Great job!

Thank you!

I'll try battlegrey on a few figures and see if I like the contrast. Thanks for the suggestion!


Thank you all for the comments and advice. It's greatly appreciated :3

I would not use Devlan mud in this case imho. My own firewarrior is washed in badab black, I found that using devlan mud makes the colours to brownish in my case (the grey on my firewarrior is adaptus base, lightly washed with badab black and then drybrushed with codex grey).

As you say you already washed it, that makes the whole point rather moot anyways (you could still paint a test and wash with both to compare). I would suggest applying some more wash, specifically in the lines on the leg armour. If you apply the wash with a very fine brush you can really focus on gettings it into the armour lines which will really helps define the armour and adds depth.

Yeah, I was thinking more along the lines of trying it on another squad and seeing how they turned out. I'll try to wash the leg armor again, I was going to try a micropen for those bits but I haven't located one yet.

Wow that is the exact color scheme my buddy is trying to do on his tau. he's in the same boat, just learning to paint so i have to say in my opinion jumping into the hobby with tau as your learning experience takes balls as they can be quite taxing sometimes to paint. With that said, its a nice base coat start. Try creating a lighter shade of the base color ( Is that mechrite red or red gore?) by adding either a touch of blood red or orange to it. I would either give it a super light edge drybrushing or try your hand at some line higlhlights on the armor plates. you don't have to go crazy with it, just a few in some obvious places like around the shoulders, helmet and chest.How about trying Chardonite Granite for the fabric with a black wash or a nice khaki color with a brown wash. Green lenses would really pop on the helmets. Something like this....Great start though man, keep it up.

The base coat is a 50/50 mixture of Chaos Black and Scab Red, followed by a few layers. It's a modified Word Bearers paint scheme found here. I left out stage 5, but otherwise, everything else is dead on.

I plan to visit my FLGS today and pick up some paints, I'll look for Chardonite Granite and other paints suggested and give them a try!

you can probably mix your own chardonite granite, I think codex grey with a few touches of scorched brown and a touch of black will give you a similar shade