Assault Marines part 3: The Recipe

Free time is still at a premium during the holiday crush at work, however some progress has been made. A few weeks (ok, maybe months now), Josh asked me for my recipe for the Chaplain I had just completed. I explained it to him, but realized that typing it out is a poor substitute for showing someone the steps. I've tried to take pictures of every step I use to paint a marine here. I did 6 assault marines (a collection of Sergeant and assault weapon alternatives), although they are not the same scheme as the chaplain the process is the same. Here we go...

Step 1: The model is assembled and basecoated. Here I use Dragon Red from Army Painter.







Step 2: I pick out all the area's that are going to be black, or metallic. The metal colors show up much better over black. I'm using GW Chaos Black for this step. It's a little sloppy at this point, but there are a few more coats, washing, and dry brushing ahead of us so I don't do any touch ups till the end. Oh, and my Sergeants have black shoulder pads.



Step 3: I pick out all the skulls and parchment parts with GW Foundation Paint, Deneb Stone.








Step 4: I pick out all winged bits with the GW Foundation Paint, Astronomican Gray. This took me two coats as you can see from the picture. I think I just thinned the paint too much.






Step 5 and 6: Lost a picture here, but I then paint all the helmets with the GW Foundation Paint, Something Darksun (yellow). All my assault marines have yellow helmets. I also hit all of the armor joints and belts with Codex Gray.





Step 7: Now every part of the model has its "first color". I then begin to hit up everything I just did for its second color. First I start with the metallic regions. Mostly just silver for the weapons and jump pack straps. The more decorative items I do gold or bronze.





Step 8, 9, &10: I bring the helmets up a brightness level with another yellow, I put bleached bone over all the parchment and skull areas. You can see some gold adornments on the shoulder here.





Step 11: The washing begins! All parchment areas are hit with Gryphonne Sepia. I also wash the helmet and all the red with this color.







Step 12: All wing areas get a Devlan Mud wash.









Step 13: All metal areas and armor joints get a Badab Black wash.








Step 14: After all the washes dry, I dry brush back to the color they were at before the wash. Here I dry brush Bleached bone on to the parchment areas (I also do the skulls).






Step 15: I dry brush Astronomican Gray over all wing areas.








Step 16: I then dry brush white onto the wings.












I then do the same to the skull areas (not the parchment).











Step 17: I then dry brush the metallic areas.









Step 18: I then touch up all the messy areas my fat fingers screwed up. I am currently using Vallejo Model Color, Flat Red.







Step 19: I then highlight. All red areas get a Orange-yellow color, and the black areas are highlighted with Codex Gray. Once this is done, I do the bases.






After that, its Testor's Matte Finish. All in all, these guys turned out pretty good. I think the extended time it took me to paint them lent itself to some sloppiness. Christmas is almost here and then new years, probably won't get much done until January. Maybe I'll try my hand at some dirty space elves.