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So I have started collecting some IG units to go with my space wolves. I figured they would be the human defenders that serve in the fang and as such would have winter camo suitable for a frozen world. What would be the best way to paint such a scheme without an airbrush.

Also i have no idea how to base them or the wolves i have. I was told once that you shouldnt base models with the same/similar colors as the model. Thusly for winter camo guard....snow may be a bad base. True/false?

any tips are much appreciated.

There are plenty of different ways to paint winter camo, some of which are recognizable as such without any actual white in them. One popular version is essentially your typical "overlapping blobs" type of woodland camo, but uses light grays and blues instead of greens and browns. A more jagged "tiger stripe" pattern using the same colors works quite nicely, as well. Using something like either of those would keep the models quite visually distinct from white snow basing, if you're really concerned.

Even if you did go with a predominantly white camo scheme, I don't think the models would get lost in the basing, unless you simply spray everything white and leave it, as is. Adding patchy snow over varied terrain and picking out the guardsman's straps, weapons, and accessories keeps the white predominant, but not overwhelming. Somewhat dirty, shaded white paint doesn't look the same as crisp white snow flock, anyway.