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Hey everyone,

After tons of googling I finally gave up, decided to look up the forum and ask pro's about my situation and what I'm doing wrong.
I just got Ultramarines starter kit with squad of five to paint. My first though was it's gonna be PITA.. *sigh* but Its actually turning out to be fun, the whole creativity and paint mixture really makes up for it.

Before I go to my problem, does it matter that I've painted Umarines a different color than their chapter? Always wanted to paint my chapter, but only have ultras to work with. Dunno if there are any Space marines without chapter that were trained by one chapter to perform certain duties? Hence Ultra's insignia? A back story or something.

So yeah, my problem.. I base coated the SM's with citadel black (all my paints are citadels) and things were going great. It was kinda thick and I could see the details.. Then when I went to apply citadel blood red for my certain idea, it all went down hill.

I tried everything, even base coating the marine in red. Its like citadel blood red isn't stick or something, and If I do two coats the details on figure are hardly seen. I'm confused. Am I supposed to do something? I've been reading something about pot and water, mixing yadayada... I'm painting out of the little cups they came in with. Was I supposed to mix or something?

So yeah, whole problem was that the red was a bit muddy and stuff.. I found a way around this tho. I painted regardless, and used the black ink washer to give the whole armor a battle worn look with black/red mix in it. Third color was citadel gold for certain stuff like crests and skulls.

What do you think? Any tips would be great, really got hooked onto this and thinking of buying more figures.. Dunno if they have chapterless figures in store, so I may have to stick with Ultras or something..

I'm guessing you are a very new painter.

As to your first question, I don't know if you quite understand how space marines work as a faction. The Ultra Marines are purposefully a visually neutral chapter. Except for their independant characters there is no such thing as an ultra marine standard marine. You can paint regular marines whatever color you want. Ultramarine minis ARE the chapterless marines. Typically they come with decals for a dozen or so different chapters.

If you are talking about independant characters you have two options there. A) file off the insignias, B) have them be an UM successor chapter, as the majority of chapters are. Then it is understandable that they would adopt their parent chapters insignia.

Now for painting. First: thin your paints, you should never be able to get a nice coat of color with a single layer. It should take at least 2-3. If you are losing detail your paints are WAY to thick. I can put on a couple of dozen layers before I really start losing detail, though that is probably too thin for you. Paints in the pot are never thin enough, always add at least 1 part water (preferably on the pallet, not in the jar). Personally I've transferred all my GW paints into dropper bottles, the GW jars are crap. They make it hard to put paint on a palet, and let your paints dry out. Store your paints upsidown to help them last longer.

Speaking of that, don't paint from the jar. You'll dry out your paints. Use a pallet of some sort. Until you have one, yes, you need to add water to the paint, it is too thin. A drop or two of windex helps too.

As for pallets, I'm not talking about the big, flat oil paint palets. You can get nice, cheap plastic ones with mixing divits at walmart for 3$. You can cut out and use cerial box. You can also make a wet pallet, which can really make your life easier. You just need tupperware, sponge, and baking parchment. Cut the sponge to fit the tupperware, soak it with water, and put the parchment on top to use as a pallet. The water will very slowly soak through and keep your paints moist and properly thin.

Next, you need to understand paints are translucent, and some much more so than others. Red and yellow are particularly bad because their pigments are very expensive, so modelling companies don't add much pigment to red and yellow paints.

What this means for you: blood red is pretty close to impossible to paint over black. It takes TONS of layers when properly thinned, and looks like crap if not properly thinned. You need to get the citadel paint "mechadendrite red". It is what is known as a 'foundation paint', which means it has tons of pigment and will only take a couple of coats. Base in mech red, then paint up blood red on top of that. Keep that blood red thinned, it will take a few coats. The bonus here is that since you are doing lots of layers you can do more layers where you want highlighting (where the light hits, usually) and get a nice gradient.

Finally, lets talk about working with that translucent red. What is under paint shows through, sometimes subtly, sometimes heavily. In red's case it is usually heavily. As you noticed, painting over black it just always looks dark.

The solution is to paint over white or pink. Paint an area you want bright red pink first, then paint blood red over it, and you will have a beautiful, bright red.

This applies to priming as well. Prime black, the whole model will look dark in the end. Prime white and it is bright. Prime grey for something more neutral, or to give yourself enhanced color control.

Finally, it sounds like you are going to need to strip some mini's. Grab some "simple green" at walmart in the cleaning isle. Soak your minis for a couple days then scrub with an old toothbrush.

Hope that helps.

You also mentioned that you use gold, another difficult color to work with. When painting with gold, I find it useful to first use a yellow color or silver, then paint gold on top of that. Sometimes a wash of Gryphonne Sepia helps, though that makes it look less like gold and more like brass.

One last thing, 5 marine kit is kind of a special set of mini's. It's the one I started with too, so don't feel bad, but they really aren't a good deal. The ten man kit comes with tons of spare parts, heads, weapons, etc. The 5 man kit...not so much. It's meant to give you a few extra, generic guys to fill out a squad, or if you lose a few. The 10 man kit is the much better deal.

Assault on Black Reach is also a pretty amazing deal. You get a full rule book (minus the fluff bits, but the rule book with the fluff is 60$), a dreadnought (usually 40$), captain (15$), ten marines (35$), 5 terminators (50$) for only around 75$ online. So just for the marines your saving about 200$. Then you get a full ork force on top of that, so you can actually play a (small) game. It's a great way to get into the hobby. Works especially well if you can find a friend who wants to play orks.

You should be warned though, they are special, easy to assemble versions of the regular troops. They look great, but the regular kits come with tons of options: weapons, decoration, etc. That is not the case in Assault on Black Reach. Also where the regular marines are very posable, the Assault on Black Reach marines have fixed poses. Again, they look great (better than the regular marines in some ways), you just don't have as many options. Still a great way to get into the hobby though.


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Right, the gold. Tips on gold.

Never paint gold over black, always paint it over brown. Just like red, gold allows sub layers to show through. Paint the area brown first, then gold on top of that. You really should have both shining and burnished gold. So you want to do brown, shining gold, devlin mud wash, burnished gold highlight (gets rid of the brass look the previous poster mentioned).

And washes. Get both washes (devlin mud and badab black). They will make your minis look at order of magnitude better. Easy mode is to paint them, wash them (black for the red, brown for the gold), then touch up/highlight to taste.

Washes are kind of like really thin paints (with special addatives to make them flow better). You slather it on over your paint job, help it get into the cracks a bit, and BAM, instant highlighting. And thin the washes too, they are also too thick.

Remember, all paint is to thick. Always thin.

(I should note these are suggestions for what one might call 'tabletop' quality paint jobs. They aren't supposed to be the alpha and omega of painting gold or red, they are just a good starting point. Personally when I do gold I usually do brown foundation, tin bitz base, shining gold main, wash, shining gold highlight, burnished gold highlight, burnished gold/mithril highlight edging. I follow a similar pattern for red. But even there it doesn't stop. For red you can base in purple to give a demonic feel. Or you can highlight up to orange to give a super/bright, flame feel. Shading and layering is a whole huge world, and eventually where a lot of the tone of a model is set. Red isn't just red. it can be flame red, hellish red, brimstone red, flesh red, cartoon red, blood red, dull red, copper red, etc. It all comes down to how you base it and how you highlight it)

Ultramarine minis ARE the chapterless marines. Typically they come with decals for a dozen or so different chapters.

Hmmm, did not know that. Should not have problem than. Always assumed they were a chapter *facepalm* -they box I got with its a shoulder piece that's attachable to the body, and their insignia is engraved in that piece so no way of removing it. Except from filing off as you suggested, but I've already painted two. The b option sounds awesome Only wanted some story when someone asks me or something, its more of an collection thing. I've never had a chance to actually play the table top W40k game

Just wanted to make sure if I'm not doing anything wrong, I deeply respect the Warhammer 40k franchise

What this means for you: blood red is pretty close to impossible to paint over black. It takes TONS of layers when properly thinned, and looks like crap if not properly thinned. You need to get the citadel paint "mechadendrite red". It is what is known as a 'foundation paint', which means it has tons of pigment and will only take a couple of coats. Base in mech red, then paint up blood red on top of that. Keep that blood red thinned, it will take a few coats. The bonus here is that since you are doing lots of layers you can do more layers where you want highlighting (where the light hits, usually) and get a nice gradient.

Damn, should have known.
I though the citadel black worked just fine, all the details are showing off nicely, its just the red that's giving me trouble. I'll try the water mixing. Its exactly as you said about the red, I had to do layer over layer :s

I'll look for mechadendrite red.

Hmm, what do you mean base in mech red? My base coat is black, how would that work?

The solution is to paint over white or pink. Paint an area you want bright red pink first, then paint blood red over it, and you will have a beautiful, bright red.

Question, can I paint white over black and then possibly apply citadel blood red or mechadendrite red for shiny?

Finally, it sounds like you are going to need to strip some mini's. Grab some "simple green" at walmart in the cleaning isle. Soak your minis for a couple days then scrub with an old toothbrush.

Uh... could you elaborate? :OOO *confused* which reminds me.. how do you smooth out the figures once they're done?

You also mentioned that you use gold, another difficult color to work with. When painting with gold, I find it useful to first use a yellow color or silver, then paint gold on top of that. Sometimes a wash of Gryphonne Sepia helps, though that makes it look less like gold and more like brass.

Hmm.. well i am still learning.. I was provided with citadel gold itself, and it looks well on weapons and crest? Like real gold??

But overall yeah.. I don't know anyone who plays this game, I'm just doing it for hobby and cause I love and respect W40k too damn much its and interesting and compelling universe overall.


edit:

Few more questions..

How exactly do you know if the paint is thin? Is it thin if it needs more than one layer of base coat or one layer is enough?

And how exactly do you high light? I've seen videos on youtube but I've never quite understood it, for example the edges of ultramarine armors with some highlighting? How is it done?

Tyris1013 wrote:
Hmmm, did not know that. Should not have problem than. Always assumed they were a chapter *facepalm* -they box I got with its a shoulder piece that's attachable to the body, and their insignia is engraved in that piece so no way of removing it. Except from filing off as you suggested, but I've already painted two. The b option sounds awesome Only wanted some story when someone asks me or something, its more of an collection thing. I've never had a chance to actually play the table top W40k game

Just wanted to make sure if I'm not doing anything wrong, I deeply respect the Warhammer 40k franchise

I'm trying to figure out which mini's you got in a 5 man set that would have the ultra-marine symbol (an omega i.e. Ω) engraved on the shoulder. The only ones I know of are the Marnus Calgar set with honor guard and the tyranic war veterans, who did not come in a 5 man set. Are you sure it is an ultramarine symbol (Ω)? There are lots of other symbols that aren't related to the chapter.

And yes, the ultra marines are a chapter, but there are very few actual Ultramarine mini's. Most are just space marine mini's painted as ultramarines.

Damn, should have known.
I though the citadel black worked just fine, all the details are showing off nicely, its just the red that's giving me trouble. I'll try the water mixing. Its exactly as you said about the red, I had to do layer over layer :s

I'll look for mechadendrite red.

Hmm, what do you mean base in mech red? My base coat is black, how would that work?

Are you talking about citadel black spray primer or chaos black? You are priming right?

There are a few terms at work here.

Base coating refers not to the first coat of paint applied to the model (typically a primer of black, white, or grey), but to the first layer of color before you start adding effects. So gold gets base coated with brown, red armor with mech red (mechadendrite red). You base coat each area of the model with the basic color you are going to build up from.

Question, can I paint white over black and then possibly apply citadel blood red or mechadendrite red for shiny?

Not quite understanding the question, but yes you can paint white over black, though that is a pain too. White isn't as bad as red, but it is still pretty translucent and takes lots of layers. Mech red is going to be a much stronger pigment. Grey is one of the strongest pigments and often a good starting point..

Uh... could you elaborate? :OOO *confused* which reminds me.. how do you smooth out the figures once they're done?

To strip paint from figures and start over you buy a cleaning product called "simple green", pour it in a cup (50:50 cleaner/water), and let the mini's soak for a couple days. Then scrub them with a toothbrush. Not sure what you mean by smooth out.

Hmm.. well i am still learning.. I was provided with citadel gold itself, and it looks well on weapons and crest? Like real gold??

But overall yeah.. I don't know anyone who plays this game, I'm just doing it for hobby and cause I love and respect W40k too damn much its and interesting and compelling universe overall.

I'm the same. Mainly a painter and collector.

As for gold...well it looks good when you first start, I'll admit, but eventually you realize flat metallic paints look like crap in comparison to what you can accomplish with some layering.

Here is one of my old mini's as a comparison. Not the best, but I think the the strengths of layering over using a single color are illustrated fairly well. You can see the red layering techniques as well. The brightest reds are done using the pink method I mentioned. :

How exactly do you know if the paint is thin? Is it thin if it needs more than one layer of base coat or one layer is enough?

Well, it is really more of a question of how thin are you willing to deal with. it is hard to get 'too' thin. Some of the best models have literally hundreds of layers. Of course to get that thin you can't use water, you need mixing medium and a flow aid.

JUst wanted to say I think I've learned more on painting in the last page than in the 2 weeks previous.

And I still don't get it all.

Indeed riplikash explained a tons of stuff you normally can't find, at least I haven't by googling these past two-three days.. or watching youtube videos. They just teach you how and where to paint, not how to mix the paint or how does it work etc

I'm trying to figure out which mini's you got in a 5 man set that would have the ultra-marine symbol (an omega i.e. Ω) engraved on the shoulder. The only ones I know of are the Marnus Calgar set with honor guard and the tyranic war veterans, who did not come in a 5 man set. Are you sure it is an ultramarine symbol (Ω)? There are lots of other symbols that aren't related to the chapter.

And yes, the ultra marines are a chapter, but there are very few actual Ultramarine mini's. Most are just space marine mini's painted as ultramarines.

Hang on, let me check on that.. Well, there isn't any indication on what model it is but.. I do seem to have one seargent (with crest on his helmet?) two bolter marines with strap on it, and two marines with communicator on their helmets and scope on bolter. Nothing special, but good enough to get me started.

As for paints its undercoat black, mordian blue foundation, calthan brown foundation (can I use this as base for gold) or can I use chainmail?, blood red, skull white, burnished gold, badab black washer

Are you talking about citadel black spray primer or chaos black? You are priming right?

There are a few terms at work here.

Base coating refers not to the first coat of paint applied to the model (typically a primer of black, white, or grey), but to the first layer of color before you start adding effects. So gold gets base coated with brown, red armor with mech red (mechadendrite red). You base coat each area of the model with the basic color you are going to build up from.

Now it makes more sense, thank you. So the prime color is how the figure will look as to dark or lighter model, got it.. So for red, I have to paint mech red on black, than blood red on it?

Not quite understanding the question, but yes you can paint white over black, though that is a pain too. White isn't as bad as red, but it is still pretty translucent and takes lots of layers. Mech red is going to be a much stronger pigment. Grey is one of the strongest pigments and often a good starting point..

Nvm, my mistake, I misunderstood it for something. Though you wanted me to use white as base for red, after black prime coat?

Of course to get that thin you can't use water, you need mixing medium and a flow aid.

Wait, what? what's an flow aid? o.O

I can say the paint should not leave a texture, it should hold no shape on the mode

yup, that's exactly what happened to my blood red. Odly enough not with undercoat black even when I used the same painting method.. out of product jar. Red isn't flat as I hoped for.

Bah, for now I'll just leave my two painted and focus on learning with other three I guess
Thank you for your time, its been a blast reading this

Tyris1013 wrote:So for red, I have to paint mech red on black, than blood red on it?

Bingo.

In a nutshell, paint doesnt stick amazingly well to the bare plastic, so you spray them with a primer, which is slightly 'rough', which helps the next layer of paint stick really well. If you dont prime your models, the paint can sometimes rub off, which I think you have experienced?

After the primer, you need a colour to work up from. As before, Blood Red doesnt go very well n top of black. One quick way that I have found of painting red marines (in my case, Blood Angels) is:

Black primer -> Mechrite Red coat all over -> 50:50 mechrite red and blood red all over -> 25:75 mechrute red to blood red. All of these mixes have a drop or two of water added to thin them. You are looking for a milk like consistency to your paint, maybe slightly thicker.

The massive amount of pigment in the mechrite counteracts the lack of pigment in the blood. By progressively adding blood red to mechrite, you get the coverage of the mechrite, but the colour of the blood. You can then highlight with pure blood red, which will cover much better.

Also, for loads of pictures of Space marine chapters and colour schemes:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Pictorial_List_of_Space_Marine_Chapters_A-L#.Ty2xx8Wod40

Welcome to the hobby

Xen

The idea is, that painting blood red onto black means you can see the black through the red. Painting blood red onto mechrite means you see red through the red. Which is good.

Thanks, that really did clear it up. I have one more question tho. Is mech red marked as color/paint as is with some of citadel paints like black is marked for undercoat, and mordian blue for foundation? On the paint jars, I mean.

I have had great success using astromincan grey as a base coat for Reds, and like everyone else says they NEED to be watered down.

Tyris1013 wrote:Hang on, let me check on that.. Well, there isn't any indication on what model it is but.. I do seem to have one seargent (with crest on his helmet?) two bolter marines with strap on it, and two marines with communicator on their helmets and scope on bolter. Nothing special, but good enough to get me started.

Those are the "free" Marines you get in the 40k paint starter kit. They are an excellent starting point to learn to paint, but I'd recommend only using them for practice painting. Grab a 10-man box of Marines and you can pose and customise them however you want

Tyris1013 wrote:Thanks, that really did clear it up. I have one more question tho. Is mech red marked as color/paint as is with some of citadel paints like black is marked for undercoat, and mordian blue for foundation? On the paint jars, I mean.

I didn't really understand this question fully, but I'll try to answer.
Foundation paints have a higher amount of pigments than color paints, this leads to a more solid, deeper color than color paints... I hope that answered what you were asking.

Thanks guys. You've been a great help thus far, and I can't wait to give everything a try once I purchase new brushes and more paints.

@FrozenSoul80, about those 10 marines, does that include Chapter's insignia modification or?

Hmm, I haven't though about it before, but what about tear on armor? Does it have universal color or? Like blood ravens have white tear which I really like, but wouldn't go too well with my black/red/gold o.O



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GGGGGG

This red color is driving me nuts! Went to the store today, bough couple of brushes for everything cept mass undercoating or tank paint.. There was no mech red. Store helper suggested royal guard red or something like that since it had a lot of pigments as you folks suggested.

Excited, I went mixing blood red and royal guard red, adding water.. That was a hellhole... Paint was too slippery, non applying, barely shown any paint on black undercoat. I sighed, and tried mixing up again, this time with 20 % of water. This time it was bit better. But there was no point. Its same effect, only probably thinner. The red color was washing away and showing black here and there..

So I did layers. First, second, third.. then I went nuts. I can't keep doing this, the paint just doesn't apply. And details keep disappearing. How long till you can paint another layer (how long till paint usually dries?)

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. Maybe its the black undercoat or something.. I put two of my figures in color dissolvent, and will pick them up after day or two and start over.

*sigh* I gotta check some videos I guess