Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Was looking forward to painting my SW this holiday break but ive been very frustrated so far.

I have Fenris Grey, SW Grey and Fortress Grey paints and i dont really like any of them, but im going with just a straight all SW grey colour scheme on the body armour.

But when i paint it on i cant stop the black base from showing under the SW grey, even when i based with black then based with fenris (a foundation paint) and then put on SW grey you could still see blakc streaks underneath.

To make it even worse for some reason every time i put a wash on a model it bubbles up and i cant spread the wash where i want it without it bubbling.

So how can i make the SW grey spread better and stp the wash from spreading?

SW Grey is an almost white blue and as a result should be treated as though you were layering to white. You might need to start with a lighter basecoat or use multiple thin layers. I dilute my SW Grey with a 1:1:3 matte medium:flowaid:water to help maintain the consistency of the paint for the thin layers necessary.

Your other alternative is to mix the SW Grey with the Fortress, say 1:1 to start your first lighter layer, then move to 2:1, 3:1, or straigh SW Grey. Hope that helps!

I primed my SW's in grey, rather than black.

Krylon indoor/outdoor primer to be exact.

It helps the issue of such a contrasting base coat to armor coating (aka streaking), ya know?

If you're going with the true-blue SW theme (light blue/grey color scheme), I might even base-coat white, ya know? Might be a bit extreme, and make your colors pop a bit, but it'll work.

Yeah im regretting using black on all my darn models now, its impossible to get a flesh colour on the face because the paint spreads too thin and black shows up underneath it. This is credibly frustrating for me, its not even watered down, just straight dwarf flesh paint.

Im seriously thinking about just trading all my models for Tyranids to make it easier on me

Use Foundation paints to help cover the black. For a darker look, basecoat with your Fenris Grey and then layer Space Wolves Grey over top. For brighter, look at the Astronomican Grey Foundation paint. For flesh, basecoat in Tallarn Flesh or Dheneb Stone.

Alternatively, you can strip all of the black primer with Simple Green and then reprime with Krylon Grey or Krylon White primer.


Don't get discouraged. It took me 5 tries with different colour schemes before I found a colour scheme for my Wolves that I liked. I don't have any pictures yet, but I can tell you what I used:

Primer: Krylon White
Basecoat: Vallejo Model Color Sky Blue
Topcoat: GW Space Wolves Grey
Shoulder Pads: GW Astronomican Grey
Shoulder Pad Edges: GW Fenris Grey
Faces: Vallejo Model Color Light Flesh, washed with GW Ogryn Flesh wash

Well thats encouraging, one of the other problems though is that im a University student over in Waterloo, i gotta keep costs down so im trying not to have to go to my FLGS and buy another $40 worth of stuff to get what works. I guess il try fenris on everything then SW grey over top

Another trick to try is to put down a layer of your darkest grey over the black, then highlight it with the same grey mixed with white/pale grey instead of the poorly covering pale grey alone.

It should give much better coverage while still giving you a nice highlight. Also, it might seem obvious, but make sure you are giving the pots a really good shake before using them. If the pigment has settled, they are going to give terrible coverage.

Also another obvious point is to make sure the layer below has dried properly before moving on. Sometimes with the lighter colours if you try to do it too fast you can sort of rub off the layers below.

Thin coats building up in tone is the way to go with colours like white and SW grey. Also rather than make it pure SW grey, build it up to slightly off then use the SW grey itself as a highlight.

For flesh I do something similar to what was mentioned above bleached bone or deneb stone over black with washes to build shading then light highlights of deneb stone. This does give a tone that may be too light for the wolves, but that could be solved by adding another wash or two over the final result. Like paints however they need to be applied thin and actually exactly where you want them rather than just splashing them over the entire surface.

I use shadow grey over white primer, then layering with 50% mix of shadow grey and space wolves grey, highlight with watered swg and then with a mix of swg and white.
Personnaly I don' like to use washes in this case.

SWEET HOLY FREAKING JESUS

Does watering down paints ever WORK AMAZING

I watered down Fenris Grey with even just a few drops of water and oh dear lord is it going to make my life easier, i never thought of doing this before, but wow it covers so much easier, spreads thinner too and so evenly now if i go over with SW Grey its bound to look better.

This has completely saved me, i cant believe how much this has helped, now im actually motivated to paint them. So if anyone out there has similar issues: WATER DOWN YOUR DARN PAINTS

I am also painting space wolves right now using a light grey primer as the base. Another breakthrough for me came with the use of a wet pallete which keeps the paint wet for days and makes mixing easier. I use a plastic tupperware style container, 1 sheet of paper towel folded into a square, wet it, and then a piece of wax paper over top the soaked paper towel. Easy and near zero cost.