Army painting.pdf

8/14/2019 Army painting.pdf

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Over time, theainting Workshoperies builds into annvaluable resourcef techniques, tips

nd tutorials coveringvery aspect of theainting hobby.

TM

PAINTING

WORKSHOP

Chris Peach is a renowned armypainter, whose work has gracedmany army books, White Dwarf

issues and our website. With the releaseof War of The Ring this month, and theexcitement generated by last monthsApocalypse releases, many of you will betaking up your brush and setting out topaint a whole host of models. This monthsPainting Workshop is about just that painting a whole army.

Chris: I often have to paint a whole armyat a time, sometimes in a week or less,which means that when it comes topainting large numbers of models quicklyand to a high standard, Ive got a fewtechniques and tricks up my sleeve to helpme out. Hopefully youll find some of thisadvice helpful. Painting an army is notnecessarily the same as painting a singleminiature, so its important to get into someof the theory behind army painting before Ishow you how I painted my Mordor army.

I always start by painting a single testpiece. This gives me a good opportunity toexperiment with my colour palette. I seewhat colours look good on the model,selecting a good basecoat colour, as wellas picking out some good contrastingcolours too. I studied colour theory at

university, so Ive got a basic understandingof the principles involved with colourcontrast certainly not to the level of EavyMetal painters such as Darren Latham, butenough to get me by when it comes topicking colours that work for my army.

Once Ive finished the test model, I startto plan out how the whole army will bepainted. The way I do that might sound abit weird, but hear me out as its for a verygood reason. I take my test model, hold itup and then squint at it. This blends all thecolours together and lets me pick out thedominant colour of the model, which Ithen employ across the whole army. Trythis trick with a fully painted army too squint at it, and you should see thedominant colour for the army.

Using this colour as the basecoat tiesthe army together if you squint at amodel and cant make out a single definingcolour, then the chances are it will look fartoo incoherent when a whole army ispainted in this way. This may seemobvious for an army such as SpaceMarines, which has a bold, single colour,but it applies just as much to a multi-coloured army, such as Eldar. In fact, insuch armies it applies doubly a single,strong colour can really unify an otherwisedisparate force.

ARMYPAIN

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With any army I like to start byworking out a rough army list,and then assembling the

miniatures in accordance with that.

Sometimes I just grab a box set and divein, but its always useful to have an idea ofthe size of units, and the options theyreequipped with before you get started. Isometimes change my mind about myarmy list midway through a project, butthats OK nothing is ever wasted in thishobby, it just provides me with morechoice in the future.

On the face of it, it might seem a bitexcessive, but I like to assemble a wholearmy at once. I think a lot of the reasonsfor doing this is to do with discipline when Ive finished, I know that everything

is built there in front of me. If Iveassembled that Chimera already, I knowthat Im much more likely to paint it; if itsstill unassembled in a box at home Immuch less likely to. Theres also thatincentive to press on and paint them all after all, Ive invested all that time in theassembly so the army is halfway there!

I dont go over the top with an army tostart with, I make sure I keep it to amanageable size with a horde army suchas Skaven or Imperial Guard, I start with asmaller force (500 points, say) so I dontget overwhelmed. Whatever the armyssize, I always make sure its legal on thebattlefield that way, once assembled andpainted, I can begin playing right away.

I tend to tip all the plastic kits onto thetable and then assemble them a unit at atime. I like to mix and match as much aspossible between kits, so its handy to seethem all together. This is just as true forThe Lord of The Rings as it is forWarhammer I quite often swap the armsof my Men of Gondor about, for example,turning spears into banners, and so on.

For my Mordor Orcs I assembled all ofthe plastic Orcs, then the Trolls, and finallythe character models. Once the army isassembled, I base it all at once. I almostalways undercoat an army with ChaosBlack spray, using my painting stick.

Painting Sticks

I use a piece of wood (called Narsil) as my undercoating stick. Most ofus in the Studio use a stick for undercoating, such as Eavy Metalsancient stick, with a several inch-thick layer of old sticky tape fromyears of use. Its not just faster and more efficient, but also better than abox. With a stick you can rotate it as you spray, ensuring you coatevery part of the model. With a box its trickier, often leading to parts ofthe model getting missed. I stick double-sided tape to all four sides ofNarsil and attach models to every surface it may look like some sortof stone-age mace, but it means that theres less wasted spray; if itmisses one model, its bound to hit another! Once sprayed, I eitherbalance the stick until the models have dried, or use a hairdryer tospeed up the drying process.

Assembling RegimentsWhen assembling a unit for Warhammer you have to consider how themodels will work together, especially with regard to how they rank up.I work backwards when assembling a Warhammer unit, starting withthe back rank and moving towards the front. I try to make sure that anymodel will fit in any position. I sometimes use regiment bases, whichare a great time-saver in game for larger units. I save the commandgroup until last, as they can be assembled in cool poses.

With War of The Ring movement trays, theres usually no problemgetting all the models to fit, but I always check just to be sure.

Technique

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Top Tip

ASSEMBLY AND UNDERCOATING


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86 WHITE DWARF PAINTING WORKSHOP

Painting ElitesThe Morannon Orcs are meant tobe more elite than the rest of theOrc rabble, and Ive tried toreflect this in the way that Ivepainted them. Ive added a secondhighlight, but Ive also tried tomake them appear moreregimented by painting the areasof clothing the same on each.

In the case of moreregimented armies, such as myGondor or Imperial Guard, theconverse is true. The novices,such as the Conscripts, look cleanand fresh, whereas the moreelites, such as Hardened Veteransor Osgiliath Veterans, look morebattered and battle-worn.

Technique

After undercoating the whole army, Ithen basecoat all of the models. Ifyou remember at the start of article

I talked about squinting at my models to

discern an overall colour well, thats thebasecoat! In the case of my Mordor army,this was Scorched Brown. Actually, brownis one of the colours I readily default towhen basecoating an army, especially onefor The Lord of The Rings or Warhammer.Many of the fiddly bits of detail, such asthe belts, are going to be brown anyway,which saves a great deal of time. From adistance it looks good across the wholearmy, as it adds an overall dirty and battle-worn appearance.

I apply the basecoat with the SprayGun when basecoating an army, although

I do sometimes use a tank brush whenbasecoating a small number of models. Itend to use the Spray Gun regardless of thecolour, even spraying metallic paints suchas Chainmail when painting largelyarmoured armies.

I then split the army up into formationsor units, and begin to pick out the details.

With my Mordor army I started with myMordor Orcs (yes, all 72 of them) andapplied all of the brown, then all of themetal, and so on. I apply each colour to all

the models in the formation this mightsound like a hard slog, but it does meanthat once youre finished, thats the hardestpart over with.

Batch Painting & Spot ColoursThe reasoning behind painting such largebatches at a time is simple: its all aboutkeeping up the momentum with an army.If I paint 72 at once, Im much more likelyto push on and finish the army not leastbecause Ive got 72 painted already, butalso because if I paint my models inbatches of 10, once those 10 are done

theres a tendency to sit back and thinkyoure done, when in reality you still havethe same to do six or seven times over.

Its worth talking about the colourpalette Ive chosen for the Orcs and theway Ive applied it to the models. I try tolimit myself to four colours in my palette,not including the flesh tones or the brown

PAINTING UNITS

Before embarking on painting thewhole army, Chris paints a singletest-piece. This gives him theopportunity to experiment withdifferent colour palettes andtechniques, making sure they workon a single model before applying

them to an army.


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basecoat. For my Mordor army these werered, grey, silver and brown/hide. When Iapply these colours to the rank and file, Itry to vary the areas theyre applied to sothat they dont all appear the same. So Imight paint ten with a red tunic, then tenwith red trousers and so on. It keeps thearmy coherent, but also gives it the

appearance of a rabble, rather than auniform army.

In the same way that a spot colour isoften used in a colour palette to tie thedifferent areas of a model together (SeeDarrens use of Bleached Bone in lastmonths Eavy Masterclass for a goodexample of this Ed), when painting anarmy a spot colour can be used to tie thedifferent models together. For the Mordorarmy I used red as the spot colour, andalmost every model has red somewhere onit. The one exception to this is the Witch-king, who has deliberately been left

without it to contrast with the rank and file.

Applying WashesAfter Ive applied all of the basecoat to aformation, I apply a wash. I use a 50/50mix of Devlan Mud and Badab Black formost things these days it looks good overmetals, as well as flesh and cloth. I tend tohave a couple of pots mixed up in thesequantities on my desk. I sometimes use atank brush to apply the wash, stabbing atthe model from above so that the washruns into the crevasses, but the Spray Gunworks well for large numbers of models,

making the whole process nice and quick.

Unlike undercoats and basecoats,I dont use my hairdryer to speed theprocess along, as this ends up blowing thewash out of the cracks. Instead I use it asan opportunity to take a break and go andmake a cup of tea (Aah, so thats why Nickand Chris have so many tea breaks Ed),which is important when youre painting

large numbers of models at a time.I find that when youre painting a

whole army, it really pays to consider theorder that you do things. So, whilst waitingfor the wash to dry on the Mordor Orcs, Istarted applying the basecoat to theformation of Morannon Orcs. And as thatdried, I went back to highlighting the now-dry Mordor Orcs. It helps break the wholeprocess down and makes for a much moreefficient use of your time.

HighlightingBecause Im often painting such large

quantities of models, I often only applyone highlight, and sometimes dont evendo that for real horde armies. Leavingthe wash as the final stage and letting itdo all the hard work for you lends thearmy a really dirty look. At heart Im aperfectionist, but time constraints oftendictate otherwise.

I tend to use the base colour as ahighlight, applying it as a simple edginghighlight to the raised areas of a model.I dont usually bother with mixes for therank and file the washes have darkenedthe paint down already, so the basecoat

stands out nicely with no messing about.

Command ModelsI paint a command group at the same time as the unit. Once the restof the unit is finished, I go back and apply another highlight to thecommand group, typically applying a cleaner highlight to more of thesurfaces. The aim is to make the command group stand out, whilst stillappearing to belong to the unit. The same is true for Warhammer 40,000,where I will spend more time on a sergeant,painting the face a bit better or posing the modela little more dynamically. I like to make sure thatbanners tie in with the rest of the army too. MyMordor formations all have black banners withred symbols, for example, which adds coherencyacross the army.

Top Tip

Three versions of the sameminiature, showing how Chrisapplies different colours todifferent parts of the model. Byvarying the placement of coloursacross the model, Chris creates the

appearance of a rabble.

Two models from Chris Bretonnian army, aWarden and regular Man-at-Arms, showingthe extra detail and highlights he applies tohis command groups to make them standout from the rank-and-file. Chris paints thecommand group at the same time as the unit,to keep the painting consistent.


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After finishing the infantry, I paintedthe Trolls as a treat for myself (seethe Top Tip on the left). I wanted to

spend a bit more time on the Trolls, so Ipainted them individually. I used the samepalette of colours on them as I used on therest of the army to avoid having them standout too much. I used a similar technique aswith the Orcs, but added a few more stagesof highlighting. I concentrated the mosttime and effort on the largest areas theflesh and the metal as the eye is naturallydrawn to them.

Because they are large centrepiecemodels, I added a few conversions to theTrolls to make them even more individual.I used short lengths of brass rod on one torepresent arrows sticking out of him. I alsorepositioned the arms to give him a uniquepose. I glued some casualties onto both ofthe bases many of The Lord of The Ringscharacter models have dead models on thebases, so I used a couple of these. I findlittle finishing touches like this really helpto place the army in the context of the

battle, making them seem like they havealready been in the thick of the fighting,rather than being new to the war.

The same is true for monsters inWarhammer and Warhammer 40,000.I like to paint my monsters, monstrouscreatures and walkers to a higher standardthan the rest of the army, but I make surethat I use the same colour palette, to makesure that they fit in with the infantry. I alsolike to add extra details such as battledamage or scenic bases as theyrecentrepiece models I like to go to town.This is partly because the larger size of themodels gives me the space to create avignette or story for example, the ScythedHierodule in my Tyranid army has one ofits claws plunging into the ground, and anImperial Guardsman clinging onto thescales on its backs with a grenade in hishand. Likewise for monsters in myWarhammer army the Shaggoth in myWarriors of Chaos army has a scenic base,with slaves chained to the rocks that itsstanding upon.

RewardsIm very disciplinedwhen painting an army,painting all the infantry,

then all the cavalry. Imake this a bit easierby rewarding myself after I finish a stage ofone of my units I go fora cup of tea. But after Ifinish all of my modelsI reward myself with apainting treat; so Ipainted my Trolls aftermy infantry, and Ipainted my Heroesafter Id finished mycavalry. I find that this

breaks up the painting,and is a nice incentive.

Top Tip

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LARGE MONSTERS

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After the large block of infantry andthe Trolls, I ploughed on into mycavalry. When painting cavalry I

assemble and paint the riders and mountsseparately. I find this makes it easier to

paint them I use a drybrushing techniqueto paint the fur of the mount, which couldmake a mess of the rider if I dont paintthem separately. I also find that it makesthe cavalry models easier to store oncetheyre finished.

I use the same palette of colours for thecavalry as I do for the rest of the army, tokeep it consistent. I paint the riders exactlyas I do the Orc infantry.

When painting the fur or hide of amount, I like to use different tones so thatthey dont all look uniform in colour. Iused three different tones of brown for thefur of the Wargs, painting six in one colour,six in the next and so on.

I use the same method in Warhammerwhen painting horses or any mounts, infact using a mix of different tones. I makesure the tones are all similar, however, as Idont want any one model to stand out asdifferent. The exception to this are the unitchampions, and I tend to reserve a coloursuch as white or black for their mounts Iwant them to stand out, after all.

The same is less true for Warhammer40,000, with the exception of cavalrymodels such as Rough Riders or Krootox,as bikes and jetbikes tend to be painted tolook the same. I do make sure that themounts are painted separately from theriders, so that I can get at all the detail.

Painting RidersWhen painting cavalry riders, I like to paint them separately from theirmounts. The fur of the mount is often drybrushed, so keeping it separatehelps me avoid getting paint on the riders. When painting the riders, Itemporarily attach them to a plastic tube or stick.

Technique

CAVALRY

When painting fur or hide, Chrispicks a single colour and then usesdifferent tones of that colour ondifferent models to keep theappearance varied and naturalistic.In the case of his Wargs, he usesbrown tones Snakebite Leather,

Bestial Brown and ScorchedBrown. About a third of the Wargswere painted each colour.


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Isave the characters in my armies untilthe very end. I know many people findit hard to resist painting them first, but I

find its far easier to motivate myself topaint the rest of the army if I haventpainted the best models already! If youpaint the heroes first, then you still havethe rest of the army to go. If you paint therest of the army first, then you only havethe heroes to go.

When it comes to painting charactermodels, you really want the characters tostand out the most. For the Witch-king, forexample, I used a completely differentcolour palette to the rest of the army,making him really stand out in a unit, aswell as marking him out as something a bitotherworldy. I didnt go to the same extentwith the Undying, and I included patchesof red on his robes and his staff.

When painting heroes in The Lord ofThe Rings you need to remember that youneed a hero both on foot and mounted, sothat you can put them in either type offormation. I make sure I paint them

together I want them to look the same,but if I paint them at different times theyrelikely to end up looking subtly different.I once made that mistake with an Arwenminiature, and sure enough the two lookeddifferent as a result I dont use them anymore (Wow, you said you were aperfectionist Ed).

The same principle applies inWarhammer and Warhammer 40,000. Ilike my heroes, lords and HQ choices tostand out I want my opponent to knowwho is in charge, after all.

I use my heroes as an opportunity tospend extra time on the bases too, and thesimple addition of battered shields, brokenarrows or dead opponents really adds tothe story of the character. With The Lord ofThe Rings miniatures this also allows me toplace them in scenes from the movie, tyingtheir bases into events or locations. I alsolike to paint shields and casualties in thelivery of my opponents armies, to remindthem of the (irregular, admittedly) victoriesIve enjoyed over them.

Movement TraysWith War of The Ringyou can go one stepfurther than just addingdetail to the base themovement trays are agreat opportunity formodelling extra detailson too. When I finishmy Osgiliath Veterans,I intend to model debrisand ruins onto thebases, placing them inthe shattered remnantsof Osgiliath. Ive notadded any Legendaryformations to my armyyet, but when I dotheyll be the perfectopportunity for asimilar treatment.

Top Tip

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The Witch-king on dark steedThe Witch-king The Undying

CHARACTERS


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OTHER ARMIES

This is the Blood Axe Ork army I painted for the Studio. Ibasecoated the army Scorched Brown in exactly the sameway as the Mordor Orc army. This might sound counter-intuitive, but its a solid basecoat to work over, and meanstheres less hassle when it comes to painting all of the belts,pouches and dirt. The unifying colour for the army is thevibrant green of their skin, and the distinctive camouflagepatterns used across all of the models.

Me and Nick Bayton painted thisWarriors of Chaos army for the Studioweb team. Rather than a single, unifiedforce, it can be thought of as three mini-forces devoted to different Chaos Gods.Each of these forces is tied together withthe same colours, but they remain distinctin their own right.

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Army painting.pdf