Tag: Warhammer 40K

  • Painting NEW Leagues of Votann as Trans-Hyperian Alliance!

    Painting NEW Leagues of Votann as Trans-Hyperian Alliance!

    Games Workshop very kindly furnished me with a copy of the Leagues of Votann army set, a (sort of) brand new faction for Warhammer 40k to paint up, with a suggestion to do them in one of the schemes presented in the Codex itself. As you can see above, I managed to paint most of the set in time, I’ve just got 10 more of the Hearthkyn Warriors left to finish up.

    You can see my work, and that of other painters from around the Warhammer Community, in the blog post here!

    I wanted to give a little advice on how you can paint your Votann the way I did – it’s a little different to the way they do it in the official tutorials on Youtube as I was kind of working by eye from the Codex and obviously putting in my own touches here and there too.

    So, let’s take a look at the various areas now!

    The biggest and most prominent feature of the models is the striking orange armour. This is what gives the Trans-Hyperian Alliance such a unique look, even amongst the other factions of 40k where orange is rarely featured.

    I began over my White Scar primer with the contrast paint Magmadroth Flame. This was then given a shade of Nuln Oil to deepen the darkness in the recesses, as Magmadroth Flame is a very solid, flat orange right out of the bottle unlike many other Contrast colours. You could instead use one coat of Gryph-Hound Orange if you want less steps, but you’ll get a less even orange to work from.

    Next I used Fire Dragon Bright in thin layers, building up over the darker orange until it was nice and smooth, but leaving the darker colour in recesses and areas of heavy shadow.

    To highlight, I mixed in a little Phalanx Yellow for edge highlighting, before using pure Phalanx Yellow for the very top dot highlights in key areas.

    For the dirty greatcoat of the Kahl, I began by painting the whole thing with Black Legion contrast paint. This is a fantastic paint that covers excellently in one layer to give a smooth, consistent black. I then used Mechanicus Standard Grey and Dawnstone for highlighting the edges and raised folds.

    To dirty the coat up, I took Steel Legion Drab and used a drybrushing technique over the lower third of the coat, being heaviest towards the very bottom. This builds up into a convincing grimy dirt texture and helps ground the model.

    The battle damage was simply dots and scratches with Thondia Brown paint. If you wanted to make it more realistic, you can use the lighter orange/yellow mix to highlight the lower part of every brown scratch to create the illusion of depth, but I was rushing to get as much painted as I could for the article ^_^;;

    For all of the golden details, I began with Retributor Armour paint, then applied Agrax Earthshade over the top of this. I then highlighted with Liberator Gold.

    For the white stripes, I used Corax White. Thinning the paint so it goes on smooth, paint in the outline of the stripe first, then fill it in. Two or three thin layers will get you a lovely smooth white finish. Then, take Fire Dragon Bright and add dots and scratches to the edges and a few of the flat areas to create a realistic worn-off paint effect.

    I painted the trousers and belts with Vallejo German Grey (Corvus Black from GW would likely be much the same), then shaded with Nuln Oil. This was highlighted with layers of thinned Mechanicus Standard Grey and Dawnstone just like the greatcoat.

    For the black weapons (also the armour panels of the hoverbikes!) I began with Black Legion contrast paint all over. This was edge highlighted first with Stegadon Scale Green, then a lighter highlight with Thunderhawk Blue. Finally, a few spots were highlighted with Fenrisian Grey.

    For the skin, I used Guilliman Flesh contrast paint all over to begin with. I then raised up with highlights of Cadian Fleshtone and Kislev Flesh. To help the skin look more alive, I thinned Volupus Pink contrast paint down a lot with water and applied it to the nose and cheeks to create a reddish tone to the skin.

    The power axe was painted with Vallejo Game Colour Turquoise. I created highlights by mixing in a little Game Colour Verdigris a tiny bit at a time to create a gradiated stripe texture on the blade, and a nice edge highlight. These colours were also used on lenses and plasma weapon bits too.

    If you enjoyed this article and want to help support PaintSlam, please consider joining the Patreon! Your support helps me keep the lights on and keep producing content like this!

  • How to Paint: Game Ready Necromunda Underhive Outcasts!

    How to Paint: Game Ready Necromunda Underhive Outcasts!

    In this first guide to painting Necromunda Underhive Outcast gang members, I will run through the steps to paint one of these models in a quick way, from a game-ready standard using mostly Contrast paints, to taking the model further with extra details and highlights. This tutorial is made possible thanks to Games Workshop, who kindly provided a box of the new Necromunda Outcasts gang for me to preview.

    Disclaimer: I’m no ‘Eavy Metal painter, so I won’t pretend that I’ll ever post really high level, clean painting here on the blog. But if you’re someone who enjoys painting and wants to improve with easily achievable results I hope my tutorials will prove useful. This is my first tutorial like this, so I’d love to know if this helps you out at all!

    There’s a whole load of freedom with how to assemble these models, so I picked the head with the small tuft of hair, a las-pistol and chainsword. I also liked the look of this particular body. With my model assembled, I primed it with Wraithbone spray paint.

    To begin with, the skin areas were given a layer of Guilliman flesh. It’s entirely possible you’ll get paint on areas where you don’t want it to, but do not fret! Simply clean up with a little wraithbone from a pot to correct any major mistakes. Any minor mistakes you might not even spot until later, so don’t worry too much for a game-ready standard.

    Next I picked out the tuft of hair with Volupus Pink, and the trousers with Skeleton Horde.

    I picked out all the rest of the armour areas with Plaguebearer Flesh, and the chainsword with Iyanden Yellow. At this point it’s not much to look at, but it’ll come together with the next steps. You might miss a few small areas and not spot them with a light colour like these, so it can help to take a photo of the model to help you spot mistakes. In the picture above I can see a few areas I missed with the green.

    I then picked out any areas which would be metallic with Black Templar, to prepare them for the silver paint that would follow. I also decided to go over the Skeleton Horde trousers with Cygor Brown contrast paint to add further contrast and break up the plaguebearer flesh armour. Again, I used the photo above to look to see if any major mistakes presented themselves.

    For the last steps for this quick Game-Ready level, I used Leadbelcher over metal areas like rivets, the gun, the chainsaw blades and motor and the skull symbol on the ganger’s chest. I also applied leadbelcher over the whole base. All these metal areas were given a coat of Agrax Earthshade wash. I also dropped agrax into the more prominent dings and scratches of the armour. I then picked out his right (our left) knee pad with Iyanden Yellow.

    At this point, you could certainly call this model game ready and have it look respectable for a game of Necromunda. But there’s still work we can do to bring it up a bit! Let’s go ahead and take it further, yes!

    Firstly, I took Cadian Fleshtone and smoothed out the flat areas of skin whilst leaving the deeper colours in the recesses. I then highlighted this up using Kislev Flesh, making the muscles and facial details pop nicely.

    To finish the skin off I used a little Magos Purple around the face and arms to vary the skin tone a little. Then, I mixed in some thunderhawk blue with the cadian fleshtone, and painted this on in thin layers to create a believable stubble effect on the top of the head and for the model’s 5 o’clock shadow.

    Next up, I took Krieg Khaki and Flayed One Flesh to highlight the raised edges of all that green armour.

    Next up to make the armour really pop and change up the tones, I use a little Coelia Greenshade in the recesses and also applied it towards the top of the larger flat armour panels. Then I grabbed Stormhost Silver to highlight all the metal areas, including the shoulder spikes and the skull emblem.

    At this point I remembered to paint the little scrappy “purity seal” on the right boot. To do this I started by painting it Zandri Dust, then shaded over it with Agrax Earthshade. This was then highlighted up with Rakarth Flesh.

    Now it’s time to break out the Black Templar again. This can be applied carefully to the purity seal to add text by using small lines and dots. I also used this to freehand some hazard stripes onto the chainsword. I didn’t measure this or anything, I Just did it by eye. It’s a little rough, but this is the underhive. This was then highlighted along the edges again with Flayed One Flesh, which also was used to pick out some scratches.

    With the chainsword done, we’re getting close to the end. I took some Scrag Brown, and watered it down nice and thin. I then dropped this into recesses of the silver areas, and dotted it onto some of the flatter bits. I did the same again with a bit of Fire Dragon Bright, but in smaller areas than the Scrag Brown.

    Finally, I used Thondia Brown and Baneblade Brown to highlight up the trousers. I also used dots and lines of Thondia Brown to add weathering to the armour to show where paint had chipped away. To add final touches, I used an oxide-earth pigment powder on the base, armour panels and lower legs of the model. I love how this made some of the armour look extremely old and weathered.

    And that’s how the model finished up! I hope you like it, and I hope you found something interesting or useful in this little tutorial! This is the most in-depth painting post i’ve ever made I think, so please let me know if you liked it!

    Finally, here’s a shot of the 4 Outcasts I’ve painted so far (from the box of 12!). The plan is to make each one quite unique from the others, so these 4 are built “out of the box” but I’ll probably raid my bits box for the next ones! I’m looking forward to painting the rest of this gang up, once again a huge thank you to Games Workshop and the Warhammer Community for the models and support.

  • Black Templars Character Showcase

    Black Templars Character Showcase

    Games Workshop was kind enough to send me a selection of the new Black Templars models free to paint up for the Warhammer Community website at the end of October, and I was delighted to see my work on the post! In this blog post, I want to show you folks a few more angles and pictures of what I painted and talk a little about them 🙂

    THE EMPEROR’S CHAMPION

    This was the first model I tackled, and the one which I probably spent the most amount of time on overall. I really tried to push myself with the black armour, as painting black power armour was something where I’d previously been quite disappointed in my results on earlier miniatures. In the end, the extra time spent trying to get it right was worth it and I’m very happy with the result. I used Dark Reaper and Thunderhawk Blue for the majority of the highlights, with some spots of Fenrisian Grey for the brightest dots.

    I’m also pretty pleased with the result on the small tilting shield. Lacking a transfer sheet at the time, I wangled a rough approximation of the layout using decals from other transfer sheets including the black sword from the Dark Imperium space marines transfer sheet (I think it was a crusade symbol?) and then painted over the elements to try closely match the artwork on the box art.

    The base was a chunk of slate, with assorted smaller stones and some battlefield scatter which I painted all with mechanicus standard grey, various washes and drybrushes of Celestra Grey.

    GRIMALDUS (and Friends)

    I very much enjoyed painting Grimaldus too. The various robes and parchment were a nice canvas to try add freehand and texture to, as well as the small shields across his armour. Eagle-eyed readers may be able to identify the book at his waist, although how he got hold of such a tome is anybody’s guess. His servitors were the last things I painted as the deadline for the article approached, but I was impressed by the detail sculpted onto these, especially the candle-covered battle standard.

    HELBRECHT

    Helbrecht was quite a different task altogether compared to the other models. His shining gold armour jumps out against the grim black armour of his subordinates, though the black cloak he wears ties him in with the rest of the force. The Ork was an optional piece for the base, but it didn’t feel right not to use such an element in the build, plus it was nice to paint one of our fungal friends again for a change. I painted each of the heads separately, and have kept those unglued so I can pop in whichever head I feel like displaying at any given time.

    For the blood on his sword, I wanted it to look like it was mostly wiped away, so I used Flesh Tearers Red contrast paint and then dabbed at it with a clean, dry brush until it left only a light staining on the surface of the weapon. I painted the servitor’s rag to be a little dirty, as if it had seen a lot of use already during the battle. I can imagine that Helbrecht stands arrogantly waiting for his sword to be cleaned after each kill during a fight.

  • #Painthammer2019 Featured Artist: Scykhe!

    #Painthammer2019 Featured Artist: Scykhe!

    If you’ve been following along with #Painthammer2019 on Social Media, there’s a good chance you’ve come across the works of Scykhe. His mechanicus army is full of unique flourishes and you can really see every model gets a personal touch. With quite a lot under his belt thus far for #Painthammer2019 I thought it was time to get in touch and ask him about his project!

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  • #Painthammer2019 Artist Spotlight: Xavier St-Amand

    #Painthammer2019 Artist Spotlight: Xavier St-Amand

    Something I’ve wanted to do for Painthammer for a while is feature some of the community members and go into a little more detail about them and their hobby progress. With #Painthammer2019 now in full swing, it seemed appropriate to start now. So, I am proud to present our first Community Spotlight: Xavier St-Amand!

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  • #Painthammer2019 Community Showcase #5!!

    #Painthammer2019 Community Showcase #5!!

    Another week, another veritable smorgasbord of hobby from you wonderful people! Click within and let’s catch up with some of the activity!

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