Written by This is going to be a relatively short and sweet ninja post. We are normally in constant discussion at the Blog, about what each other are working on, will there be a Blog post and when it will be published… not this one though! I’ve been working on this one in secret.
This is not a conversion, in fact I think that this is going to be my first non-conversion post. The inspiration for this has been a few factors…
- Azazel’s Jewel of July Challenge (And my previous doubts my Norris Possessed was appropriate)
- Krautscientist working on his second Khornate Armiger and discussing vehicle weathering
- My brother staying for a week and us playing Star Wars: Imperial Assault every night.
So here we have it, my other entry for Jewel of July. I practised a bit of weathering in the form of mud and ambient dust/grit and also got to use some little grass tufts on the base that I have had for years. You see in the grim dark of the far future in Warhammer 40,000… there is only war… and no grass apparently.
Please let me know what you think, I’m not super confident in my painting so feedback is very welcome!
~Pandora’s Bitz Box~
Painting In The Dark 
My teenage self is nearly exploding with excitement at ‘the dream’ of 40k Star Wars. Slightly nervous I’m going to get into it. That would be the end of me.
This looks fantastic! I love the scrapes on the front particularly. It looks really realistic.
What did you do to this guy?
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I thought you would get a kick out of this guy, which is why I never told you about it!
The process of painting it wasnt complicated at all…
1. Undercoated black (as I always do) and then heavily dry brushed grey
2. Paint a brown wash into most of the edges (I would normally use black but I wanted it to look like accumulated dirt
3. Trying to get a realistic gradient of dust/mud accumulation I dry brushed a really light brown on the legs and corners of the body and worked my way towards stippling darker browns that that covers less and less until I just did the darkest brown on the edge of the feet.
4. Drybrush a really dark brown (near black) in some of th recesses that wouldn’t necessarily get dirt on like the rest but were too clean, just to draw the eye away from them, like around the hip joints covered by the body.
5. Finally realise that I hadn’t done any edge highlighting which I probably should have done before doing the dirt and paint that on the areas with the least dirt. This accidentally worked quite well because edge highlighting the entire model and then just painting over it with mud would have been quite the waste of time and the suggestion of the highlights seemed to work.
Put your mind at ease man… to my knowledge, there isnt a tabletop Star Wars war game, Imperial is Assault is a board game. Its a very cool board game that has character advancement/progression over a series of games… and requires a little time to play… time you dont really have right now. Maybe when the kids are a bit older and you have time to do things in addition to 40k and Bloodbowl… We could have a game together!
Check out Azazel’s blog for a bunch more minis from the same game he has been painting for Jewel of July.
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That looks great – well done! I literally completed my one of this model yesterday morning (will post it up in a few days). Loving the grime and heavy weathering you’ve achieved!
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Thanks! I thought you’d appreciate this. Watching all your own mini’s go up while we have been playing all week was fun. I had a decent go at the weathering as if it had been tromping through a wet and dirty jungle. I still need to work pn paint flaking, i dont really know how to do that well. For now though, im happy with painting things like mud, dirt and rust.
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Lots of different ways to do chipped and flaked paint – it’ll just be finding the method(s) that work for you. One thing I like to bear in mind for chipped paint is the actual physical interaction of parts with other objects, and try to have more damaged paint where the parts interact with other elements or are touched. Another thing to consider is your edges – the two main ways being the “realistic” way or the “games workshop” way – often in real life those hard edges are where dirt and grime tend to gather, so they end up darker. Stark contrast to the GW style of highlighting them so they they stand out more. With minis and their exaggerated nature, I feel that neither way is “right” or “wrong” and both can (and often do) look bloody good.
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Wow, that is a nice one! I love the Star Wars stuff, and you did a great job. What color of grey did you use? I like the blue tones to it.
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I wish i could tell you, but the reason i was so vague describing the technique ro krakendoomcool was because i mixed most of the colours. At the time of painting it i didntnhave a dark grey so mixed black and Celestra Grey to get the base colour i wanted for the whole thing. For the mud it was mixing black, Mournfang Brown and Vomit Brown, in different combinations for the different gradients of mud… Again, no idea of ratios.
Much like a lot of the other things i do, i am pretty good at doing an impression of someone who knows what they are doing, when in reality i have no idea. Woodwork…. I dont know what the tools are called, but i can make stuff. Cooking, i dont know what herbes and spices to use or how lots of things interact, but most of the time ita surprisingly good.
I get by but, I really want to get better at painting. I want to learn how to look after my brushes, get some new ones, get a magnifying glass on an arm and a wet pallet and try to improve in my various weak areas.
…ha ha ha, i just read your question back and now my answer seems insane, like im rocking back and forth in a dark room whimpering about colours and paint brushes. 😅
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Nope, sounds pretty sane to me! I don’t mix too many colors for minis, as I’ve found that I’ll have to go back to them at some point or maybe want to recreate what I did. Or like last time I sold something on Ebay and the buyer wanted to know what paints I used. Eek! So nowadays I try to post notes on the blog. But what works best for me, is to keep a journal beside my paints. Every night I will try and write down what paints I used that night and where they were applied. And especially how many coats I have applied. With the randomness of guest visits, and having to pack things away, it’s turned my painting world into chaos on more than one occasion. “Did I put 1 coat of Agrax on that guy or 2…?” Anyways, that’s what has helped me a lot. I’m not always good at keeping track, but I’d say I hit it at least 90% of the time. Oh yea, sometimes when I’m really busy, I set aside the paints I just used. Then it’s also easy enough to retroactively record what I did.
With terrain and hair though, I do the same as you. Apply different colors, mix things up, till it looks right.
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Very nice! All the weathering and scratches look good to me! Thanks for including the run down on how you painted it!
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No problem! I dont really know what im doing though, Azazel has just uploaded his and its a lot nicer. I guess the thing about my much more broad technique and vague recollection without specifics is its easy to replace colours if you want or need to.
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