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Hi all.

I've finished assembling my 40k Thousand Sons, including a couple of helbrutes converted from 30k automata. I'm hoping to get some base coats down on Saturday and paint a test model over the coming weekend.

I'm in a bit of a quandary about the best base coat to use (I do have an airbrush). I've seen Thousand Sons painted using a blue base, a gold base and from a white base using contrast.

I know that however I paint the models it's going to be time consuming thanks to the fiddly nature of the armour but I'd like to make it as easy as possible. Normally I'd paint inside to outside, so starting with the lowest layers and working out, but I don't know if that is easier with all the gold and I'm tempted to try a gold base coat instead and then paint the smooth blue panels after.

Has anybody got any tips or ideas to make the process any easier?

I would start with the gold base, shade and maybe highlight the gold.

Then I'd apply the yellow on the headdress.

Then I'd fill in the blue panels.

Putting blue over gold or yellow is far easier than putting either of those colors over blue. If something is hard to reach, leave it gold.

It's unfortunate that you waited until you were done assembling to ask, however. It's worth leaving the backpacks and heads separate on those models, the Thousand Sons are super fiddly with the detail. Good luck.

I airbrushed a basecoat of medium blue, then a coat of Vallejo Light Sea Blue. I then did the gold details with Scale75 gold and the yellow areas white, then yellow. Finally I gave the whole thing a thinned wash of GW brown shade.

It's a little time consuming but the end results do pop.

I would do the gold first and then the blue as shown in the Warhammer TV tutorial:


I remember Peachy saying somewhere that this is the technique that they used to paint the Studio's Thousand Sons as it was quicker than picking out all ofd the tiny gold details after painting the blue.

It's a little time consuming but the end results do pop.

The OP does want to save time, however.

Im going to assume you are doing 40k tsons and their blue, and im here to tell you taht unfortunately. there is no easy way to paint them.

You have to make a choice, do you think piping in blue will be harder/faster? or trimming gold will be harder/faster?
Personally if you are rocking an airbrush i would go with painting the blue first then the trim.
Now the way I do it to get this result, mind you this picture sucks because it was before i knew how to actually take pictures.


How i do this is base the model in Cadgar blue from the can
Then layer the model with an airbrush in Saphire blue from reaper paint
Next i shoot a highlight of a ligher blue, iirc i used sky blue mostly on the shoulders helmet and legs
Then shoot upward a shadow color, i used burgundy wine from reaper.

Now the magic trick part of this, get yourself some teseract Blue contrast paint form GW, and then shoot that over then entire model, this creates a filter and helps blend the colors together and help saturates them, and REALLY can make it pop.
From that point, enjoy painting ungoldy amounts of trim.

Now something you can do to help is make sure you first paint all the gold areas in a brown, THEN paint them gold. Helps a lot.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'll take a run at spraying them gold, then painting yellow>blue>details. I'll prime a couple of models tomorrow and have a go at a test on Saturday and post some pics at the weekend.

I painted some test models for tzeentch cultists for AOS a couple of years back and found I had to paint the details brown then gold to get a good colour. Painting the blue then the gold, might give a great blue probably means a couple of coats on all the trim and that sounds tedious.

Valkyrie, is the scale 75 gold good enough to cover the blue in one pass? If it is I might try a second test model using a blue to gold method if I can get my hands on some.

I agree that painting heads and back packs separately might have been easier but then I probably wouldn't want to game with them until the army was fully painted. Hopefully if I can get a good technique I can at least base coat and get a second colour in to avoid using a mass of grey minis.

In a single pass? probably not, since blue is going to show through.

Paint the whole model silver, then paint over it with contrast paint. Use a goldfish contrast for gold and a blue one for the blue. Call it good.

The Black Adder wrote:


Valkyrie, is the scale 75 gold good enough to cover the blue in one pass? If it is I might try a second test model using a blue to gold method if I can get my hands on some.

One coat will probably do it but I do two just out of habit. Area like the thin trim will be fine but the larger areas like those triangular areas on the pauldron might need two.