My First 40K Figure

So, I promised some images of my the Fire Warrior I painted, which just so happens to be the first 40K model I have ever painetd, and the first model of any kind that I've painted in over 10 years.  I also made some reference to the words "urban," "digital," and "camo."

Well, here you go:

I think it turned out pretty well.  Not too bad for a guy with a decade of rust. 

So, how did I go about this paint job? Glad you asked.

I sprayed a black base onto the figure using Armory Black Primer. This gave it a nice, smooth coating to paint on, while also giving a nice foundation for the acrylic-based Games Workshop (GW) paints to cling to instead of potentially peeling off of the plastic. The next step was to paint the armor sections and weapon with Astronomican Grey, a GW foundation paint.
*************************************************************************************

At this point I would like to take an aside to mention the Foundation Paints. I must say that they are definitely worth the investment. They give a good coat of paint that can give a better base for different color paints. Because I used a black spray coat to base my model with, any regular paint would need several coats to truly come out as it should. But, the Foundation Paint covers the base with a single application, thus, enabling me to use my lighter colors with single applications. This is great in that you don’t have paint build up filling crevices and small details. The fewer coats you have on a model, the more physical details show through your paint job. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

*************************************************************************************

Once I laid down the Foundation paints, I covered the armor in its base tone of Fortress Grey. This is the lightest of my three grey-tones I was using in my camo scheme, thus it is the base-tone. (To further explain this decision, I’ll post a camo study here in the future.) The next step was to lay my darkest tone in the camouflage scheme. I used Adeptus Battlegrey for this tone. Yes, it is actually a foundation paint, but I liked its scale and contrast with the Fortress Grey. After stippling the dark-tone areas onto the armor (Using the tip of a fine-tipped brush, one-tap-at-a-time. Not the method of using a flayed-bristle brush for multiple, chaotic, less controlled touches… that is not true stippling, that is laziness for the sake of covering more area with less effort. Taking the time to stipple one at a time may be time consuming, but it looks so much better. Trust me. You'll be much more pleased with it.), I then stippled Codex Grey on for the mid-tone.

Once the camouflage pattern was completed, I re-painted the recesses with a with a fine-tipped brush using Adeptus Battlegrey. This gave them more definition, and put a little extra “pop” into the model.

*************************************************************************************

As another aside, I do not use black to paint recessed in a model. That is not the best option. It gives far too great of a contrast in your model than is necessary to convey a shadowy recess. If you want a more natural look to the shadowing, use the darkest tone of whatever color scheme you are using. Using this to fill in the recesses allows the recess to be itself. The dark tone will be further shaded by the recess, giving the appearance of an even darker tone. It is much more pleasing to the eye and can give that extra pop your model needs, while keeping it from looking like an outlined cartoon.

*************************************************************************************

For the garments under the armor, I put a coat of Chaos Black. I painted the “boots” and armor straps Adeptus Battlegrey. I then used the black GW Wash to cover the “boots.”

The weapon casing was painted Fortress Grey while the butt and trigger area were painted Adeptus Battlegrey. I used a base of Gore Red and a highlight of Blood Red on the helmet reticles, and various “glowing” areas of the weapon.

For the “jewels” in various places and Tau symbol on the shoulder plate, I used Sunburst Yellow to make the model stand out and not be completely camouflaged out.

As you can see, I have tried to give the armor a camouflage pattern that appears much like a digital pattern from a distance. Close up, as in these photos, it appears more as small blotches. This is fine, as most of the time, the soldier will be seen from afar anyway.

Let me know what you think!!!