I’m currently painting up reinforcementsfor my own Warmaster Empire army. Forme, the most important aspect of paintingthe army is speed, the faster the better – itis the overall look of the army that matters,not the individual models. So far the entirearmy has been painted using just fivecolours and a Chaos Black undercoat. Asfor highlighting and shading, there is none!Note that unlike the ’Eavy Metal painters, Istick the models onto the base beforepainting – if I can’t get my brush in to paintthe back rank then it probably won’t be allthat visible anyway!

GRAHAM’S TOP PAINTING TIPGraham’s tip for this month makes painting largeamounts of Warmaster miniatures much quicker. Whenpainting regiments, paint the front rank to whateverstandard you’re prepared to spend the time on. As themodels behind the front rank are mostly obscured fromview you can skip on things like faces and clothing, justpaint the bits that show. Doing this saves lots of time andwill go unnoticed when you look at the army as a whole.

All the stands in a unit arefirst superglued to theirbases. Extra superglue is

applied around the edges ofeach stand and the base is thendipped in sand to texture it.Once the base is dry the standis undercoated with ChaosBlack. The entire stand is thendrybrushed with Codex Grey. Ithen paint the bases GoblinGreen (fairly roughly to leavesome of the texture showing).

The next stage is detailing.First I choose a singlecolour (in this case

Enchanted Blue) and paint theplumes plus one or two otherbits on each trooper. I thenpaint all the armoured areasand weapons with Chainmail.

The final stage involvespainting the skin on theface and hands with Elf

Flesh, but I only bother withthis stage for the front rank ofthe front stand of the unit. Ifthe stand has a champion orstandard you might want to adda few extra details or a symbolon the standard, but personallyI’d rather get on with the nextunit and get them onto the fieldof battle!

11

22

33

Graham Davey

DRYBRUSHING

DETAILING

FINISHING

SPEED PAINTING

The ’EavyMetal teamhave foundthat paintinglarge numbersof Warmasterstands is a loteasier if youfirst attach allthe stands of aunit to a stripof thick card.Just take astrip of card

about 30cm long and attach the six stands in a row along itslength using double-sided sticky tape. As you paint you canapply one colour at a time to all the stands in the unit. Thismethod makes the painting a lot faster and ensures that allthe stands within a unit have the same finish.

After you’ve painted all the stands in a unit, the next thingyou’ll want to do is get them on their bases. Before you rushto get the superglue out, it’s worth bearing in mind flock.Once two stands are fixed to a base it becomes quite difficult

to glue flock between them. The best approach here is to fixone of the stand to the base first and apply your flock withPVA glue leaving the other side of the base bare. When this isdry, you can then glue the second stand to the base and flockthe remaining area.

When flocking bases (not just Warmaster) try mixing brownand green flock together in equal amounts. The addition ofthe brown will stop the flock looking too flat and add anelement of realism to it.

DRYBRUSHINGA quick way to paint Warmaster miniatures is to drybrushthem. First undercoat the model with black spraypaint.Next choose an appropriate colour and wipe away mostof the paint on the brush onto a tissue. Then lightly brushover the entire strip of models. The remaining colour willadhere to the raised detail leaving the darker colour inthe recesses, providing shading. The more you drybrushover the model, the lighter the model will be.

So, you’ve got a stack of thegreat new Warmaster miniaturesand are eager to start paintingyour latest army. The scale maybe smaller than you’re used to,but we’ve compiled somehelpful tips from threeWarmaster Generals who provethat small can be beautiful...

’EAVY METAL PAINTING TIPS

PAINTINGWARMASTER

ARMIES

wd 244 painting warmaster 4.0 29/11/00 2:43 pm Page 1

Before starting to paint, it is a good idea totry out a few colour schemes on testmodels first. I often paint up two or threebases to test different paint schemes I havein mind and choose the best.

There are some things to rememberbefore you start to decide on the paintscheme. Author Douglas Adams shared hiswisdom with us when he said thatmankind is the only race in the universe tostate the obvious all the time. So here it is:Warmaster models are small, they looksmall in your hands and look even smalleron the table. Besides being obvious, it isalso important for your choice of colours,

patterns and highlighting. If you do a black and white checkpattern on the trousers of your Wardancers in Warhammer it willlook quite nice, but doing the same on a Warmaster model willlook blurred and a bit of a mess. It is better to keep the paintscheme simple with areas of uniform colours.

On a Warhammer model, harsh highlights often look quite nicewhen the army is on the table. If you choose to highlight yourWarmaster models, strong highlights confuse the overall look ofthe miniature, so it might be better to use a single subtlehighlight, which you probably won’t even see when the model ison the table, but which makes a difference when you give theminiature a closer look. In the same vein, you should avoidpainting small details in contrasting colours as this too will be adistraction from the overall figure. At a distance it will look morelike a misplaced spot of colour than a pouch or bottle. Also, toomuch contrast in the different parts of the uniform might resultin a noisy look.

The choice of undercoat is rather important as it determineshow quickly you can finish the paint job. A sensible choice willsave a lot of time later. If you intend to paint your Warmasterminiatures metallic or dark colours then a black undercoat is agood start. If you intend to paint your Warmaster miniatures inbright colours then a white undercoat will make the coloursmore vibrant. Generally the preferred undercoat is black even ifyou are painting bright colours as you won’t need to shade andthis makes the whole process a lot quicker.

The first part of a Warmaster miniature I paint is the armour,using the drybrushing technique. This has two purposes. First itpaints the armour and second it reveals all of the detail on therest of the miniature, making painting easier later on. Afterarmour comes the faces and while you’re painting flesh coloursyou might as well do the arms too. As you apply the colours, youcan leave a small amount of the black undercoat showingbetween the different areas of colour. This creates black linesthat separate the flesh, clothes, armour and weapons and whichneatens the finished miniature.

When painting horses it is often a good idea to keep them all thesame colour to make them more uniform. First decide on thehorse’s colour. You can save a lot of time by using a darkcoloured breed of horse.

If you have drybrushed metal on a black undercoat try applyinga Chestnut wash directly over the metal. The ink over metal willlook like a satin brown as if the horse has been sweating.Painting the mane is as simple as it gets. You take a lighter colourand draw the brush over the mane rather like drybrushing. Theundercoat and ink will work as the shadows.

The painting of the accessories is straight forward, but as I saidearlier don’t use colours that contrast too much as the miniaturewill become confusing. You can apply highlights at this stage ifyou wish but this is only if you want to make the paint job thatlittle bit better.

Bases are a very important part of any army. Just like Warhammeryou can add static grass, stones and gravel or small scenery if thespace permits. My personal favourite type of base are those thathave really deep grass. I’ve also experimented with transparentbases made from perspex, which has the advantage of ‘adapting’to any terrain you play on.

The Warmaster miniatures may seem a challenge because oftheir size, but remember they are quick and easy to paint, andthey look great on a gaming table. Have fun!

Stephan HessWarhammer

Champion ’98

Just a small part of Stephan’s Warmaster High Elf army (on his owntransparent bases!) marches through his Empire town.

Stephan’s High Elf army arrayed for battle.

PAINTING

®

wd 244 painting warmaster 4.0 29/11/00 2:44 pm Page 2