Post by Aaron on Feb 16, 2005 11:41:28 GMT 12
The forum has gone a bit quiet recently so thought I’d share my approach to painting. In particular to LOTR Warriors of Minas Tirith.
The first step is clean-up and construction phase. Filing, gluing, filling, filing, washing & drying. (You all know how this goes I hope)
Then I undercoat, because the amount of armour on these models I undercoat black. I use a spray cause Im lazy but I always do a 2nd coat with watered down black paint to fill the gaps the spray missed. This 2nd stage is also good for getting a feel for the model and scouting out the details you may have missed in your plan…<br>
What do you mean you don’t have a plan before you start painting? How can you paint without a plan?
If you figure out what colour goes where before you pick up a brush you’ll save yourself lots of time in the long run! That’s why I started to write this, I had my WoMT plan and thought it might interest some people if I shared it so started to flesh it out.
I generally paint inside out. This means starting with the lowest layers on the model and working my way outwards. Generally something like skin-cloth-armour-accessories/weapons.
For my WoMT Id already painted a few figures to get a feel for them before I laid out my plan for the bulk of the troops this is my plan:
Skin: base coat of Dwarf flesh - light coat of flesh wash in recesses – highlight of dwarf flesh – top highlight of elf flesh.
Now If you get the flesh wash just right (about 1 in 10 that I do) you can stop here and it will look perfect but normally you’ll need to highlight with dwarf flesh then elf flesh on the very raised areas (bridge of nose, brow line, cheeks, point of the chin) I don’t bother with painting eyes as its too tricky on rank and file.
Cloth: base coat dark angels green – chestnut ink painted into the recesses – snot green highlights
Don’t forget the underarms! The model looks much more complete if you add in these. I also paint my shield fronts to match my cloth colour but I only use a flat coat of dark angels green on the shield and then pick out the tree in white. (This is the toughest part of the entire model, you will need to go back and tidy up the green again.
Armour/weapon blades: base coat boltgun metal – black ink wash – highlight boltgun metal.
Apart from this I then paint the tree and details on the front of the helm with mithril silver to give it a little more focus.
Accessories – base coat black – highlight codex gray
Generally this just involves a tidy up of any overspill onto the accessories with black, ie belt, shoes, gloves. Then highlight this with codex grey on the raised edges only. I find highlighting black very tricky to get right, basically don’t go overboard or you will end up with grey accessories rather than black.
Weapon hafts/bows/scabbards: base coat Scorched brown – heavy highlight bestial brown.
This is another area I find tricky, really its more of a basecoat of bestial brown with scorched brown in the recesses than a hgihlight, it could probably do with another highligh layer but I don’t bother with rank and file troops.
Basing is pretty straightforward so I wont go into that but again its recorded in my plan. So I know what Im putting where.
And that’s it!
The actual WoMT in the movie had black clothing but I have a grand scheme and a bit of green will tie the whole army together better. If you stick with black for the cloth it will make the whole thing easier and quicker once you get the hang of highlighting black.
Of course Im normally painting for an army rather than one off or for pleasure so being able to paint quickly is important and also to be able to remember how I did them so I can keep doing them the same is important. I never finish an army in one go so being able to comeback and continue the same scheme is essential.
Another good thing about having a plan like this is you can easily see what paints you’ll need and have them all organized and if your missing a colour (like snot green in my case) you know what you need to get.
Of course no plan survives contact with the enemy so you always need to be open to alterations and painting something new requires a pretty general plan, like the Chaos bikes Im still cleaning up (I have never seen a models in a worse state of repair it had 3 different colour schemes painted one over the other! (still they are coming up pretty good just needing a good long soak and some gentle scrubbing!)) Ive got a vague plan but until Ive tried painting one I cant be sure I’ve thought of everything.
Anyway hope you found this interesting. I don’t know if other people do this? I guess most people do it in their heads but I find putting it down on paper helps to avoid mistakes.
The first step is clean-up and construction phase. Filing, gluing, filling, filing, washing & drying. (You all know how this goes I hope)
Then I undercoat, because the amount of armour on these models I undercoat black. I use a spray cause Im lazy but I always do a 2nd coat with watered down black paint to fill the gaps the spray missed. This 2nd stage is also good for getting a feel for the model and scouting out the details you may have missed in your plan…<br>
What do you mean you don’t have a plan before you start painting? How can you paint without a plan?
If you figure out what colour goes where before you pick up a brush you’ll save yourself lots of time in the long run! That’s why I started to write this, I had my WoMT plan and thought it might interest some people if I shared it so started to flesh it out.
I generally paint inside out. This means starting with the lowest layers on the model and working my way outwards. Generally something like skin-cloth-armour-accessories/weapons.
For my WoMT Id already painted a few figures to get a feel for them before I laid out my plan for the bulk of the troops this is my plan:
Skin: base coat of Dwarf flesh - light coat of flesh wash in recesses – highlight of dwarf flesh – top highlight of elf flesh.
Now If you get the flesh wash just right (about 1 in 10 that I do) you can stop here and it will look perfect but normally you’ll need to highlight with dwarf flesh then elf flesh on the very raised areas (bridge of nose, brow line, cheeks, point of the chin) I don’t bother with painting eyes as its too tricky on rank and file.
Cloth: base coat dark angels green – chestnut ink painted into the recesses – snot green highlights
Don’t forget the underarms! The model looks much more complete if you add in these. I also paint my shield fronts to match my cloth colour but I only use a flat coat of dark angels green on the shield and then pick out the tree in white. (This is the toughest part of the entire model, you will need to go back and tidy up the green again.
Armour/weapon blades: base coat boltgun metal – black ink wash – highlight boltgun metal.
Apart from this I then paint the tree and details on the front of the helm with mithril silver to give it a little more focus.
Accessories – base coat black – highlight codex gray
Generally this just involves a tidy up of any overspill onto the accessories with black, ie belt, shoes, gloves. Then highlight this with codex grey on the raised edges only. I find highlighting black very tricky to get right, basically don’t go overboard or you will end up with grey accessories rather than black.
Weapon hafts/bows/scabbards: base coat Scorched brown – heavy highlight bestial brown.
This is another area I find tricky, really its more of a basecoat of bestial brown with scorched brown in the recesses than a hgihlight, it could probably do with another highligh layer but I don’t bother with rank and file troops.
Basing is pretty straightforward so I wont go into that but again its recorded in my plan. So I know what Im putting where.
And that’s it!
The actual WoMT in the movie had black clothing but I have a grand scheme and a bit of green will tie the whole army together better. If you stick with black for the cloth it will make the whole thing easier and quicker once you get the hang of highlighting black.
Of course Im normally painting for an army rather than one off or for pleasure so being able to paint quickly is important and also to be able to remember how I did them so I can keep doing them the same is important. I never finish an army in one go so being able to comeback and continue the same scheme is essential.
Another good thing about having a plan like this is you can easily see what paints you’ll need and have them all organized and if your missing a colour (like snot green in my case) you know what you need to get.
Of course no plan survives contact with the enemy so you always need to be open to alterations and painting something new requires a pretty general plan, like the Chaos bikes Im still cleaning up (I have never seen a models in a worse state of repair it had 3 different colour schemes painted one over the other! (still they are coming up pretty good just needing a good long soak and some gentle scrubbing!)) Ive got a vague plan but until Ive tried painting one I cant be sure I’ve thought of everything.
Anyway hope you found this interesting. I don’t know if other people do this? I guess most people do it in their heads but I find putting it down on paper helps to avoid mistakes.
