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Hello everyone,

I have enough troops now to the point where I am ready to play more games with people. The only problem is that I don't know what colors to paint my army. Any ideas would be helpful as playing with a large army of grey troops is no fun.

Painted armies are always more fun to play against than the faceless grey masses. First off, depending on what army you're playing you will want an underlying color scheme. Every dude on the table should share this scheme on their armor or clothing or wherever.

Lessay you have marines. They're going to be Purple Marines, because purple is a delightful color that is a joy to look at. Paint their armor purple, but don't just pour it on them, that will look terrible, they'll be lumpy, and all the other marines will laugh at them. Water down your awesome new purple paint to a milk-like consistency, and apply a thin layer on the first of your primed models. (You did prime them first, right? Black is a good primer to use for your sweet purple color scheme.)

Your model will now look awful. Continue applying thin layers of purple paint until it goes from awful to mediocre. At this point, your marine is a nice, smooth, and featureless purple. You will now need to apply a wash.

Washes are a magical fluid that has been squeezed and tortured out of talented artists by Games Workshop, then sealed in small plastic containers. Apply the wash liberally onto your purple marine, and allow to dry. Make sure you are sitting down, because the result of your wash will be nothing short of amazing, and possibly a little terrifying. Do not worry, you have not suddenly become a wizard. Your model really did just go from awful to subtly detailed and highlighted just like that.

However, this is a marine, and no marine can live on purple alone. You will need to paint his eyes some other color than purple, unfortunately. I recommend green. Purple and green have been a tried and true combination for centuries. Lex Luthor wears purple and green. There may be other areas of your marine's armor that you feel should not also be purple. You are probably wrong, but it is your model. You paid entirely too much for it, and can do with it as you like.

Your marine's weapons will also need to be some other color. Metal is a suitable color for his weapon. Since metal is an incredibly vague term for a color, we will go with Boltgun-err I mean Leadbelcher. Yes, use that. Apply several (thinned) layers of leadbelcher to the weapon, making sure not to slop it all over his carefully painted armor like some ham-fisted ape.

Now that your marine's gun/sword/etc is suitably metal-looking, apply the awesome powers of the wash once more. Shield your eyes as it goes from a cheap featureless dollar store metal effect to a much more expensive K-Mart metal effect.

Now, while your purple marine looks pretty great in your hand several inches from your eyeballs, when you put him on the table and stare at him next to nine of his battle-brothers, he might look a little dull. Drab. Lifeless, even. People will say you need to do more to him, to make him 'pop'. This is a silly term used by silly people. They are perfectionists and will never be happy with their models. But if you really must, then apply what is called a highlight.

This is a lighter shade of purple you will apply to the edges of your marine's various extremities. The knees, the edges of boots, shoulderpads, his big mean grimacing helmet, those places. This will be applied very lightly, using the edge of the brush instead of the tip. This is the source of its full name, Edge Highlighting. Possibly. You will also need to do the same thing with your marine's weapons. Games Workshop makes five hundred different shades of metal and I cannot remember which one is the proper highlight for leadbelcher. Ask your friendly GW employee what he thinks would be suitable. He will be happy you asked, and treasure the sense of importance and usefulness to his dying day. You could also possibly highlight other, non-purple areas of your marine's armor. You may even consider a tiny highlight on his helmet's lens. Banish this thought from your mind and never think it again.

Now, holding your purple marine with his lighter-purple highlighting several inches away from your face, it will appear you have ruined those twenty minutes of hard work slaving away at him. But put him down on the tabletop several feet away, and you will be able to tell what they mean when they talk about models 'popping'. You will be able to explain 'edge highlighting' and the source of its name. You will be able to casually mention washes in conversations. You will now be a member of the few, the elite, the Warhammer players who paint their models.

Now base your models.

Dude you have just made my day!!!!!! I think I peed a little while reading that, but none the less I've got to say while laughing heartily all the way through that was a bloody great tutorial!!!!

Ohh and thanks for sharing my chaos army colour scheme lol.


If you do a 75/25 Mix of leadbelcher and iron breaker I gives a nice highlight to the leabelcher.