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So.... i've been given this 'way' to do checkerboards for orky painting as I am waiting for a a new job to roll in. I have been dedicating alot of my time to working trying to figure out how best to do these on smaller models or even larger ones. This 'way' i've been taught seems ... like it won't work and I was curious if Dakka dakka had some suggestions how to most easily accomplish this.

I paint mine white then draw my grid with pencil and then paint in every other square

Waterproof mico pen. .5mm is fine, make sure it is water proof! Base the area in white, pencil in a checkerboard, and fill in, touch up as necessary. I picked up my pen for about 2 or 3 dollars, I use it for more than modeling as well.

dont ork vehicles come with some checkerboard decals?

Ashton

Redfinger wrote:dont ork vehicles come with some checkerboard decals?

Ashton

yah probly the easiest way is to obtain it and it makes Weathering much much easier.....

Yes, i have decals but this is for a smaller infantry model so it won't work well atm.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:Yes, i have decals but this is for a smaller infantry model so it won't work well atm.

I have put the decals on infantry before, it just takes a little practice, patience and some decal solution...and it will look better than painted.

Ashton

For orks, I disagree. A well painted checker pattern looks much more realistic than a printed pattern. Do Orks use templates? It's the imperfections that make it authentic.

That said, you have to do a good job of it. You can never be perfect, but it can't look like crap.

What I do is what others have already said: paint the area white, draw lines in a grid, fill in every other square. I'll go a bit further on nicer models and highlight two sides of each square.

I'll be trying it with my Zagstruk model he looks pretty good already but i wanted him about as close to the GW model as they had him and i really want to try and strive for this easy pattern it will help me when i paint up Ghazghul

If you're doing black checks, regardless of the background color, I'd heartily recommend getting yourself a Sakura Pigma micron pen (available at pretty much any art or craft store). Honestly, you don't need to go as small as 005 - if you keep a light touch, anything below an 05 will still do very fine lines and make filling in the checks much easier. There are plenty of brands besides Sakura, of course, but none I've tried have compared favorably, either due to the tip or the ink. Sakura offers other colors, as well, but they tend to look like marker ink, whereas the black just looks... well, black.