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Made in us
One Canoptek Scarab in a Swarm





I would like to completely paint an army with just a base coat, washes and dry brushing.

I know people say Necrons are the easiest to paint, but my Necrons are my best painted/modeled army so that's out. I also play Slaanesh/Chaos and Eldar. My Eldar were supposed to be my quick paint army, but I started wet blending with a "fire" theme (orange/yellow/red) so it turned out to take much longer than I thought. Slaanesh is my favorite army to play, so I want to put more effort into my demonettes and seekers.

So yeah, I'm basically in the middle of painting three armies and want to start a fourth. Makes sense in the world of 40k .

I thought that painting a Khorne army would be easy and fast. It was, but there were two things I didn't like about my bloodletter prototypes. I really didn't like the red aesthetic and painting the swords took longer than I wanted. I realize this sounds lazy. After priming, washing then dry brushing the bodies were acceptable but painting the hilts and swords required some more skillful brushwork, more than I was willing to do for a quick paint army.

The bloodletter swords got me thinking: is there an army out there that could look decent only using washing and dry brushing?

I'm leaning towards tyranids, possibly blue. Prime with Corax spray, blue wash, dry brush with a light blue and maybe a light green. Then wash the carapace parts with a darker color, dry brush the carapace. Dry brush the guns/swords with a different color. Sounds easy enough, but how might it look? Since they are such organic looking models any time the wash goes into another part accidentally it actually might look natural.

I also thought about a Tau suit army, all stealth and crisis suits. I know it doesn't really fit with how most people paint Tau, but I really like the look of a black base coat then different colors of metal dry brushed over it (silvers and coppers). It gives a nice rusted metal look. I already use this on the dark parts of my Necrons, though, and I'm not really sure how this would look on a full army, might be a bit bland. Maybe give the suits a blue base coat, wash, then dry brush in lighter blues?

Another option would be an all metal dreadnaught army, but again, the rusted metal look that's so easy for me to paint might not look good on a whole army.

These are the three I've been thinking about, anything obvious that I'm missing?

As far as things I'm not interested in, Dark Eldar seem easy, but I don't really like their vehicles. I already tried Khorne. Custodes models are very ugly to me. Other than that I'm open to suggestions. The reason I'm leaning towards blue is my current armies are red/orange/yellow, purple/green, green/black/metallic.

One more thing, I recently got an Iwata airbrush that I haven't even opened yet haha. I should probably incorporate learning to air brush into my fourth army.

Thanks for any feedback.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/11 21:08:14


 
   
Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut






Basicly just plated marines left, ultra marines and space wolfs for blue tone, grey knights(drybrush silver), sororitas.

Tyranids can be anything and everything. I could allso mention that you have Deathskulls orks, they paint all their wargear blue.

darkswordminiatures.com
gamersgrass.com
Collects: Wild West Exodus, SW Armada/Legion. Adeptus Titanicus, Dust1947. 
   
Made in us
The Marine Standing Behind Marneus Calgar





Upstate, New York

Have you considered contrast paints?

I do my nids with a total of 12 paints, but almost all of the work is 3 contrast paints and a wash. And the wash is only because I’m fussy about how my red turns out. You would need to tweak to your scheme

From tiny rippers to towering death noodles, same scheme.
Spoiler:





I feel that the big bugs might benefit from a light drybrush/edge highlight, but work OK without.

And these guys skitter across my paintbench at crazy speeds. Simple easy to do.

   
Made in ca
Stormin' Stompa






Ottawa, ON

I find that dry brushing and then washing helps blend the drybrush into the basecoat. I used to do something similar with my orks.

Tyranids I think would be the best option. Their organic shapes lends themselves better to a rougher paint scheme than the Tau's clean plates.

You would be best to make the basecoat, drybrush and wash a blue.

Ask yourself: have you rated a gallery image today? 
   
Made in gb
Frenzied Berserker Terminator




Southampton, UK

I suspect Tau would probably be pretty easy to do a fast paint scheme like this with.

You could easily get away with painting skin and cloth parts with base + shade + drybrush (maybe not drybrush for the skin). Their armour, suits and vehicles look good with base coat + panel lines. You could break out the airbrush and experiment with zenithal highlights for a bit more definition.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





What about grey knights?

Lead belcher
Agrax earthshade or nuln oil
Stormhost silver dry brush
   
Made in us
Courageous Questing Knight





Texas

I do all my armies this way!! And I got A LOT of armies... I keep the base coat to about 4-5 colors only, then quick wash and a lght drybrush on the edges. And, I will prime the mini in the main color, so I don't have to paint over every inch again.

My Novella Collection is available on Amazon - Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi - https://www.amazon.com/Three-Roads-Dreamt-Michael-Leonard/dp/1505716993/

 
   
Made in gb
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Scotland, but nowhere near my rulebook

I painted the Space Hulk genestealers entirely with contrast paints (other than details)





I'd imagine that washes would achieve a similar result, and if you're looking to try out your airbrush I think some of the bigger armour plates on the big bugs are a good location to try out some gradients from one colour to another, or some patterns with less sharp edges which would look pretty organic.

   
Made in au
Grizzled Space Wolves Great Wolf





Most armies can be drybrushed well. The only ones I'd avoid are armies that have a lot of different colours close together (like Orks) as it'll take a lot time to drybrush/wash those areas without accidentally hitting the wrong areas.

Even armoured units like Space Marines or Tau you can spray, stipple then drybrush to create a rough and battle-worn look to them. That's the approach I took on my Aeronautica Imperialis Tau aircraft, they were primed, washed, then I stippled/drybrushed the highlights on, then finally did some lining with the original wash to clean up some of the panel lines that got hidden by the drybrushing. Seen here:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/1074411-.html?m=2

Even though they're "organic", drybrushing and washing Tyranids can be just as much of a challenge as you'd be surprised how many areas on the nid models have low-detail which will take a bit of work/skill to make look good when drybrushed and washed.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/12 16:42:45


 
   
Made in us
One Canoptek Scarab in a Swarm





Thanks for the tips and ideas.

I decided to go ahead and try some blue tyranids. Got a box of hormagaunts, some Macragge blue spray and a bunch of blue drybrush colors, along with some brighter colors for some pop. My first attempt was disaster haha. I sprayed the blue base on, then to get any kind of pop with the other colors I had to apply the drybrush so hard that it got that ugly caked on look. It was still really dark looking.

My next attempt I will try a Corax white spray base, then apply some shade (forgot it's not called wash anymore) then drybrush over that.

Two ideas were mentioned that I'm not sure what to do with:

Contrast paints, what's the benefit of using that compared to the regular paint line?

AllSeeingSkink, how did you use the stippling brush for that? My attempts at a stippling brush have not ended well.


 
   
Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut






Contrasts behaves like inks, super thin and good pigment coverage, it is designed for thouse who want tabletop ready armys in one single coat.

Downside is that it is a paintrange that requires alot of brush presision. finding normal paint in the correct colourtone to paint over any misshaps is hard and you will get visable lines if you do not fully paint a section. They allso dont work on flat panels, they pool.
You allso need to use a bright and slick undercoat, GW made their own undercoats made for the contrasts(grey and bone), but any brand will work aslong as the surface is smooth and slick.

It is a paint range that deffo needs experience and training to pull off right even tough the first impression is that you do not.


on that note, armypainter is going to release their version of GW contrast that supposedly is better in all ways, called speedpaint, next year.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/15 08:43:11


darkswordminiatures.com
gamersgrass.com
Collects: Wild West Exodus, SW Armada/Legion. Adeptus Titanicus, Dust1947. 
   
Made in no
Liche Priest Hierophant





Bergen

There where series of these. They where quite good.

Good canidates are any fantasy army as stone, fire or ghost.

5th edition Grey Knights had a unit that where ghosts. Perhaps you can do an entier GK army as ghosts or as blue and say they astral projects.

Perhaps orks in red and say that Khorne has reanimated them to fight once more because he liked them.

Tyranids works fine. Tau and eldar probaly to. Perhaps you have to go back and re-do some fleshy head arias. Honestly I do most of my Space Wolves like that for the base colour before I move on to other colours.














This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/11/15 09:54:20


   
Made in gb
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Scotland, but nowhere near my rulebook

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
Downside is that it is a paintrange that requires alot of brush presision. finding normal paint in the correct colourtone to paint over any misshaps is hard and you will get visable lines if you do not fully paint a section. They allso dont work on flat panels, they pool.


In most cases, you're better doing a layer of the undercoat colour over the mishap, then putting the contrast on top. Probably less of a problem with organic things.

Agreed for flat panels - I've got some Terminators painted up in the contrast red, which works great for the detail areas, but not for any flat plates. This isn't a problem - you just go over the flat areas with a normal paint - but it's correct that you can't just use them as "one layer and you're completely finished" on that type of surface.
   
Made in au
Grizzled Space Wolves Great Wolf





Discodoggy wrote:
AllSeeingSkink, how did you use the stippling brush for that? My attempts at a stippling brush have not ended well.


Those particular models I actually stippled using a foam brush.

If you want to use a hairy brush, I find a rounded tip brush not dissimilar to the ones you might use for drybrushing work well. Something like the Artis Opus drybrushes, or the Army Painter set...

https://www.amazon.com.au/Army-Painter-Masterclass-Professional-Roleplaying/dp/B08GQ7DQ18

Basically you wipe most of the paint off the brush (not so dry as if you were drybrushing, but kinda in that same ball park) and gently stab at the model, let it build up gradually, and do it in multiple layers. Even though it's "multiple layers" it's still a lot quicker than layering, as you can lay down a stippled coat of paint on a model in a couple of minutes.

But yeah, those Tau aircraft I actually decided to use a foam sponge brush. So similar to "sponge chipping", you dab at the model with a sponge in a stippling motion to build up the paint. Same deal, get most of the paint off your sponge brush before attacking your model with it otherwise you'll just get an ugly puddle. I found it useful to have a piece of cardboard next to me, so I dab the sponge into the paint, then dab it on the cardboard to remove paint until I'm getting a nice stippling pattern, then dab it on the model. Again, build it up over multiple layers. For a sponge I just use that packaging sponge, the type you might find in a pelican case or what GW used to use in their blister packs. When the sponge starts to get clogged with partially dry paint I just swap to a new piece (rinsing the old one out in water so I can use it again later when it dries out).

I got the idea of using a sponge from Miniac, he used it in this video at 3 minutes in to paint the shoulder pad of this bust...

https://youtu.be/GyZWc9tIRi8?t=180

I'm probably making it sound more complicated than it is, but it only took me a few minutes to paint each of those Tau aircraft, the most time consuming part was building them, spraying them and washing them before I got to stippling.

And you could totally use a brush instead of the sponge, but yeah, use a rounded tip brush and get most of the paint off the brush then build it up with gentle stabbing motions.

Artis Opus has some tutorials which I think show well how to jump between stippling and drybrushing (though their products are very expensive, the techniques I think are good). Basically you use stippling either on flat open spaces where drybrushing has no detail to pick up on, or you use stippling as your initial base coats to build up a bit of a texture from which you can then drybrush on top of.






This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/20 02:42:59


 
   
 
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