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So, I've given up on painting IF. Even the pro's on tutorials I've found have mucked up yellow, so I've decided there is not much chance for a nub like me.

So the decision has been made, Soul Drinkers! Not the extinct Soul Drinkers, but under the emperors protection Soul Drinkers.

I've been searching for a tutorial for them to no success. I've found more attempts at the IF yellow than the Purple of the SD.

So I basically need a shopping list of paints should be used, what to prime with, washes, etc...all essentials please!

And if any of you know of a good, NON-VIDEO, tutorial, please help me out with a link. I have faith in you dakkaz! More faith in you than myself for sure, haha.

I appreciate all of your comments. I've seen a lot of comments on: prime black, darkest blue, purple shade, etc. If you guys have a step-by-step, please share it! I'm new so the more detail, the better. Thanks ladies and gents!

I briefly entered into the arena of painting soul drinkers, and had good results with priming with Army Painter's Alien Purple spray, using their purple tone wash for shading, Runefang Steel for metallics with drakenhoff nightshade to dull them down, then going back and highlighting with the original colors (so highlighting the purple parts with army painter alien purple, and the metallics with runefang steel). For bonewhite bits, I used P3 Menoth White Base and washed with Army Painter soft tone. Overall, the whole model turned out a bit darker than I would have liked, but was still a good look. Also, if youre looking for a lighter look, there was a squad of soul drinkers featured in the first issue of Warhammer: Visions. No tutorial, but they were beautifully painted models for inspections.

Best of luck as you get started! (Your motivation for doing soul drinkers is the same as mine, as I was also trying to do fists and decided the hassle wasnt worth it) I would post some pictures of my soul drinkers, but they have been mostly repainted as alpha legion at this point.

Thanks for your help! And as for the trans to alpha legion, they do have a sweet color scheme, are they preheresy, or chaos Alpha? Off topic, but interesting.

As for the bone colored trim, was it pretty difficult to coat over the purple? or did it only take a couple of layers and a light wash?

Good purple is probably harder to pull off than good yellow.
Just sayin'. Good luck.

Really? All other I've asked to this point say darker colors are easier to pull off. Aside from black.

Why is purple harder than yellow in your opinion?

Yeah I think yellow is the toughest having struggled for months on this darn Knight Titan hah. Purple is a cake-walk in comparison.

It's a tough colour to highlight. Adding white or a very light colour to the purple won't work as you'll end up with pink highlights.
You'll need to add just a tiny amount of yellow to the base colour but too much or you'll risk highlighting in a turgid green colour or just the yellow which can look odd.
Likewise adding some dark green for your shades can look great on purple but too much and it'll start to look muddy again.
If the pros are mucking up yellows then wait to see what they can do with purple!
Just my 2 cents.

Meh...It's seeming there is a pain with every color so far. I've heard mega complaints with reds, blacks, white, yellow, and now even purple haha. -_- I have to like the most difficult to paint chapters.

I don't know what your painting ability is like as you have no gallery images.
It's possible that you'll be happy with a simple purple (read pink) recipe but seeing as you don't like how the pros have done their yellows on the whole internet it seems unlikely.

Uh, okay, New to painting miniatures, the pro pics that I've seen are too much a honey-mustard that I've seen (and oh-so-many steps), I just meant that yellow seems like it's pretty hard to get a consistant yellow for.

And I have no photos in my gallery because, :O! I'm new to this and have no projects completed (this is my first miniature army), why I thought that maybe dakka could help a guy out in beginning such a project, but if you feel the need to be only a critic, well, maybe go be a critic to those who have some experience in this (they might put up a better fight)?

My apologies for upsetting you in my attempt at trying to search for some assistance, as I've had a lot of help from other members here on DakkaDakka, I thought I'd try again. (And, just a thought, maybe if a thread irritates you, ignore it, or report it?)

I don't really care for your "subtle" jabs. Just lookin' for help, bruh.

http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-to-paint-hawk-lord-space-marine.html

Any 'positive' comments or concerns with this? It seems pretty simple to the IF's 41 step painting methods I've found online (Phew, seems like a lot of work). Doesn't seem too difficult, as I've done my sisters AR15 in a duracoat Barney Purple over a parkerized (black) finish in the past, it turned out about this color, but then again, duracoat and acrylic paints are two very different paints.

All-in-all, it seems a much easier, more friendly scheme, when compared to the yellow IF forces.

If this is your first army and exploration into miniature painting, you bit off way more than you can chew by going with yellow. Yellow is one of the hardest colors to get a uniform consistency without an airbrush. Not impossible, but difficult. My suggestion, would be go with a darker color as it allows for more mistakes. Learn the following painting techniques:
Using a wash
Dry brushing
Two layers of highlights (edge high lights)
Keeping your hands steady

If you're going for purple, get a solid middle purple color you like. Next use a purple wash. When dry, use a watered down black wash to get into the deep recesses where the armor would have natural shadows. Then use the original color as an initial highlight and a lighter purple to do edge highlights. Paint the weapons and dry brush as necessary.

Keep practicing. You won't get to the pro painted level without practicing. Don't take the insults personally as criticism doesn't translate through the internet very well at time and across languages at times. Post pictures and ask for advice on how to improve your technique. You'll get pro painters telling you how they learned new techniques.

Thank you! And I didn't mean that the pros didn't know what they were doing, just that they them selves said that Yellow is a terror, and they had hell getting it to where they wanted it, so I suppose a rephrase is in order, even the pros hate yellow.

Thank you for your tips on purple though! I by no means expect my miniatures to look anything like what I've seen, I'm sure they'll be an eye-sore until I get the hang of it, most miniatures that drop my jaw, the people have been painting for a decade and a half. I don't mind critics, if they have something constructive to follow.

Had a boss like that before, you suck, you suck, you suck, but never had anything to say to help improve me in my "sucking".


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And, as embarassing as it will be, I will absolutely post photos of my project, just selecting paints, thinking of army painter for black primer? And Vallejo paints. Just trying to decide which will work the better.

I think the problem your facign is that.. someone, somewhere hates painting every colours. between all of us, we hate painting any colours atall full stop!

As you practise and have a go at various bits and bobs, trying new model styles and techniques you will have hits and misses with how your feeling about each particular job.
There is likely going to be one particular colour that your going to hate more than any other, gonna have to find out the hard way

For me its skin and flesh tones... I suck at faces and hands in general.
many times iv put my all into a model and then the face detracted from the whole thing at the end ... (helmets are my friend!)
Orks were easier for me being green I felt better about my results anyway.

I used to have my dark angels painted up purple with yellow trim... which is quite soul drinkers. But I've recently stripped them all to go codex green.

Heres what pictures I could dig up of it;



Thats Black spray primer (I use Halfords Matt Black Paint - read paint not primer but it does fine for me)
the airbrushed nagaroth night, then xereus purple, and genestealer purple, in a Zenithal spray kind of style.

Washed with Druuchi Violet, and edgehighlighted with dechala lilac (or drybrushed witht he dry paint of the same colour I guess) layers of drybrush and druichi violet would prob come up nice over nagartoh night base.

Thats all the newest range of citadel purples. I found them really easy to achieve that quality. The wash is really quite a nice deep violet an made a huge difference.

My trouble in that scheme was consistent yellow for the weapons... some squads were more brown some orange... it was a bit dissapointing.
When doing purple, try to remember that red and green kinda clash with it, yellow and blues for accent colours seems to work better (to my eyes)

sorry for the long post. I did try to hide the pics to shrink it down.

Wow, that looks amazing. I won't be achieving such a paint job, but as for color scheme, I was looking at the same GW paints, and was wondering if the lilac would be too light for a highlight, but looks great! As for a secondary, the Soul Drinkers have a bone white on trim etc and veterans and HQ gold. So we'll see about the bone white =\ I heard a brown with a couple of thin layers of white or something outta get the result done.

But that purple would be exactly what I would picture my Soul Drinkers to have. Very nice army you have!


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And I'm actually excited to see what gives me the most trouble, obviously all of it is going to make me smoke like a chimney from stress haha. (at first).

As for the long post, no worries! The longer the post leads to more detail, and I need all the detail I can get, as for airbrushing, I only have a few airguns and one compressor, which are all currently tied up for my second job in duracoating firearms, I don't think I'll be blowing acrylic paints through it, if any hardner gets mixed in with it, probably won't be the best result, and they're all set for duracoat.

So I'll be brushing everything to start. Luckily starting small.

A friend of mine was recently painting his Eldar Wraithlords purple. He applied a Blue wash with a tiny bit of black added to it. Then re-applied the base purple... then it really only needed one highlight which was a 'purple / bone' color mix; the affect was really nice.

 Orkzwuzmade4rokkn wrote:
Wow, that looks amazing. I won't be achieving such a paint job, but as for color scheme, I was looking at the same GW paints, and was wondering if the lilac would be too light for a highlight, but looks great! As for a secondary, the Soul Drinkers have a bone white on trim etc and veterans and HQ gold. So we'll see about the bone white =\ I heard a brown with a couple of thin layers of white or something outta get the result done.

But that purple would be exactly what I would picture my Soul Drinkers to have. Very nice army you have!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And I'm actually excited to see what gives me the most trouble, obviously all of it is going to make me smoke like a chimney from stress haha. (at first).

As for the long post, no worries! The longer the post leads to more detail, and I need all the detail I can get, as for airbrushing, I only have a few airguns and one compressor, which are all currently tied up for my second job in duracoating firearms, I don't think I'll be blowing acrylic paints through it, if any hardner gets mixed in with it, probably won't be the best result, and they're all set for duracoat.

So I'll be brushing everything to start. Luckily starting small.

Airrush isnt strictly necessary, I think you could simplify it right down and go;
Nagaroth Night all over, (using black, grey or white primers will have a huge effect on how deep or bright the purple ends up)
block layers of xereus purple,leaving the darker nagaroth in recesses and shadow
lightly drybrush more from the top, in downward strokes mostly with dechala lilac (or the dry equivalent paint .. i forget its name, i didnt like the marshmallows tbh i can drybrush just fine with regular paints but whatever its the colour that matters)
wash druichi violet,
brighten up the edges with the lilac

if needed wash again and brighten up again ; the wash makes it go so much darker and deep purple, so you can go way over the top with contrasting highlight and shading then deepen it right down with the wash nicely. (i guess using it as a glaze instead... adding glaze medium may help there )

Airbrushing, I didnt get my gear for painting mini's but it was quite handy to have you could probably hook up a cheapy airbrush to your existing gear with a suitable adapter at some point

That is an awesome walk-thru =D haha thank you.

And as for a secondary spray gun, I've found with those, wow, they suck haha. Then again! It could've been the duracoat, the paint is hard on equipment. Maybe acrylic won't be so bad.

I might give that a try and run down to the hardware store and see if I can find a deal on one, and try it out on a test model. Thanks!

 Orkzwuzmade4rokkn wrote:
Thank you! And I didn't mean that the pros didn't know what they were doing, just that they them selves said that Yellow is a terror, and they had hell getting it to where they wanted it, so I suppose a rephrase is in order, even the pros hate yellow.

Thank you for your tips on purple though! I by no means expect my miniatures to look anything like what I've seen, I'm sure they'll be an eye-sore until I get the hang of it, most miniatures that drop my jaw, the people have been painting for a decade and a half. I don't mind critics, if they have something constructive to follow.

Had a boss like that before, you suck, you suck, you suck, but never had anything to say to help improve me in my "sucking".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And, as embarassing as it will be, I will absolutely post photos of my project, just selecting paints, thinking of army painter for black primer? And Vallejo paints. Just trying to decide which will work the better.

I use krypton for black primer. For black, I'm looking to make my paint stick to the model. I live in Florida so humidity is a problem - I use the cheap stuff because I may have to strip the model because it came out "furry". If you're using the primer as a color base coat, then I would go with army painter. I think black primer is great for beginners because it can be more forgiving for beginners. New painters see better initial results with darker paints. If you want a bright color you need to prime white or a medium gray at the darkest.

If you're going vallajo or reaper (droppers), make a wet palette. Buy a thin pencil box (box depth should be about the thickness of a pencil). Layer a paper towel at the bottom and cover that with parchment or wax paper. Make sure the towel stays wet and put the paint of the parchment paper. Close the box when finished painting. I've had paint stay wet on my palette for a week plus. Blend the paint about 10-20% water and paint with multiple coats.