3 Colours Up: Painting an Imperial Fist Dreadnought Part 2
October 7, 2011 by elromanozo
Video Sponsors: Battle Foam - Infinity
Here's the second part of Romain's epic tutorial where he paints an Imperial Fist dreadnought.
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Dear! :O
This took long. Already forgot this project.
There’s a link to the first part of this tutorial above, but here it is again, in case you missed it:
PAINTING AN IMPERIAL FIST DREADNOUGHT – PART 1
Well, there was all this cutlass week stuff, and so on… It’s been pretty hectic.
But, as they say, your regular program will be back on schedule shortly !
BoW Romain
Downloading for future reference – don’t care how it takes for them to appear Romain’s tutorials are worth their weight in gold 🙂
Thats shaping up nicely 🙂 im taking some pointers for my dust walkers 🙂 thx
Good tips on painting yellow, I always have problems with my yellows. Keep them coming!
Finally, a new Romain tutorial.. I like a the special coverage on Cutlass etc., but these tutorials is why I visit BoW. Keep ’em coming Romain!
Thank you all for your kindnesses… This wouldn’t have been possible without the expertise of video editor extraordinaire, @dignity !
BoW Romain
I gotta say man, you have a wonderful teaching voice! Your accent is class!
Thanks… That’s a bit of luck, because I’ve got little choice in the matter. It’s an accent from all over the places I’ve been to, I’m afraid, and I can’t be bothered to work to change it at my age. People seem to like it, and I make myself understood; I guess that’s what counts !
BoW Romain
You know there’s no sense acting british if you’re not. It just makes you sound funny. It’s much better to speak the way you do. This way pretty much everybody will understand you (be it British, American or any other person who doesn’t use english as his/hers mothertongue). I stopped trying to pretend any accent some time ago and am pretty happy with my ‘mid-atlantic english’ ;).
As far as the video is concerned: thumbs up Romain, beacuase you’re doing a great job!
I’m not doing it on purpose, that’s how I speak english !
I could speak with a thick Monty Python french accent, but honestly, it would bug me as much as it would you.
BoW Romain
I wasn’t trying to be offensive by any means:). I just wanted to say it’s cool you don’t try to sound like a Briton while you’re not. I know some people who try emulating the british accent and it usually sounds funny. It’s not the case with you. If it sounded the other way… Sorry. English is not my mothertoongue neither 😉
Don’t worry, I’m not offended ! 🙂
And your command of the language is excellent, by the way.
BoW Romain
The mustard marines a defo my favorite out of the vanilla marine codex.
Brilliant tutorial as always Romain. There is something very soothing about your voice. It would be such a great voice for audiobooks… particularly A Feast for Crows from the Game of Thrones series… which i am finding rather tedious reading through. Keep up the great work!
Awesome, worth the wait. That bevel on the auto cannon arm is just brilliant.
A word of caution : It either takes an airbrush, or a lot of patience ! I think I spent over twenty minutes on that shoulder alone, just for the yellow.
And we’re not done… There’s more highlighting to be done.
BoW Romain
Perhaps a brighter undercoat may have helped speed up the painting, since yellow is more easily painted over a white undercoat (or with tau sept ochre GW foundation paint, which has a similar-ish hue to the sandy base coat you mixed). Or maybe with the highlighted undercoat you did, if there was more white sprayed on, you could base coat with yellow on the whiter areas and the purple/yellow shade on the darker areas; blending them in where they meet.
However, for a one off display model that you really want to spend time on, then everything I said doesn’t matter lol.
Maybe a quicker method would be to undercoat with yellow Army Painter spray and then apply the shading as a wash, then highlight up back to yellow.
On youtube, TemplarsCrusade01’s channel http://www.youtube.com/user/TemplarsCrusade01#p/c/E2F7014046E6DEC1/23/E268zuNniSs has some weathered Imperial Fists, and is a different take on painting yellow marines, as he uses weathering effects and paint chips. It’s totally different to your method and makes dirty, battle worn marines, but it’s a bit more achievable for regular painters and gets models done and dusted (or painted, or dusted with weathering powders – gah, shut up brain!) and ready to game with.
It’s not the “most-ultimate-best method-in-the-world”, just a quicker one, (and you could substitute the dark wash he uses with a purple/brown one for a less dirty looking marine) and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone on youtube get squads of minis painted up quicker than this guy! He even uploads his painting videos while he’s painting the same squad (and puts my tub of unpainted minis to shame-me poor old dwarfs, guard and marines, I will paint you guys soon, I promise, lol).
How would you tackle painting minis to a table top standard that still looks kick arse but doesn’t take 20 minutes to paint one piece of armour? 😛 I’ve got my own ideas on how I’d do it, but for those who might not know, it would help to see it done, especially for those who can’t afford or don’t have an airbrush and who would just use a spray can of undercoat.
I’m trying to not get too precious with my own painting because I nearly always end up using lots of layers and get afraid of making them look less than perfect, and so I take weeks and weeks in the process and end up with unfinished minis on the shelf. I know where I’m going wrong, (and hopefully my new minis won’t take as long!) but would you do videos of painting minis to a table top standard, showing how you can get a squad done in one day?
Excellent comment !
I realize this isn’t the quickest method, but I wanted to show something generic enough about the color yellow that it could be used on everything… And besides, the whole Dreadought has been painted up to my “hero” standard in about three days. For a mini this size and the centerpiece of a force, it’s not too excessive…
Or maybe I just say that because I like painting and don’t really mind… 🙂
That said, retrospectively, I would have sprayed black first, then my purple-yellow mix (or a similar color) then yellow… Effectively pre-shading yellow. That’s the way to go when painting a whole army, by the way : Saving time is always the best option. But I did not have the necessary spray cans.
An airbrush would do, of course, but I didn’t have one, and I wanted to show how to do this with a brush… With an airbrush, everything becomes easier for those big beasties, as you can instantly apply an almost perfect gradient with a very thin coat !
I was also a bit annoyed at my yellow, not covering enough… But I’m well aware “a bad worker always blames his tools” : It’s no use blaming the Vallejo yellow, since that’s the kind of paint most people will use. Either that or the Citadel yellow, which is even thinner…
I’ve looked at the tutorial you linked, and the battle damage is interesting, but the detailing and blending quality isn’t exactly the same… It shows, at least, that there is a demand on BoW for more specific advice about yellow and battle damage ! Maybe more tutorials are in order… Perhaps on more manageable miniatures.
In any case, thank you for your good insight and your keen interest ! That’s exactly how one gets better at this sort of thing.
BoW Romain
Cheers Romain! 🙂
It depends on how you like to paint too; whichever way suits you is the best way to go. So, probably like most people, for the special minis I’ll take more time, and less time on the troopers.
It is good to see vehicle types painted by hand as that’s how I painted my first (and as yet only) tanks years ago, since I was a kid and couldn’t afford an airbrush (I bought a cheap Aztek one years ago, but still can’t afford a compressor, then again, it is Christmas soon 🙂 ), but you get what I mean; for all those who’ve just bought the paints and just want to get painting; seeing how you can paint an armoured vehicle type by hand well is very helpful, as it shows it can be done.
One of the first minis I ever painted were the marines from Space Crusade and I still have the minis I from the game, including the imperial fists I painted, holy cow, 20 years ago… 20 years… 20… Years….. agh!
And I remember painting yellow was a bugger on colours other than white, so seeing you paint yellow brought that memory back to me and is why I replied. I remember pushing the yellow paint around and getting impatient, waiting for it to dry before the next coat.
Since I remember John’s video’s mentioning Army Painter spray, perhaps a future tutorial on that brand or just a tutorial on using anypray paints, not just as undercoats but for camouflaged patterns with areas masked off is something that would be cool for others to see; as a means of doing camouflage when you can’t afford an airbrush.
While the detail and quality in the link isn’t the same as your demo, and Templars’ is definitely an batch-painting-in-a-day sort of a guy; it is a decent way of getting squads painted if you’re just starting out. His method works well with his Death Korps of Krieg http://www.youtube.com/user/TemplarsCrusade01#p/c/2F71093BB8837142/13/8rQZdBR0A-k since the mud and dirt looks less messy on their dark colours and you can get away any messy bits. You can always apply more highlights and paint them a bit neater though.
Tutorials on battle damage would definitely be cool to see. Certainly, when the army is arrayed, all the painting layers blend in the viewers eye, especially when seen on the table top, as opposed to up close in a photo-which I think is something Lloyd mentioned in the last Turn8 show. But that’s the difference between what you’re showing and what the Templars’ guy is doing; he likes the battle worn, grimy look; which helps him to get his squads done quicker, so you have to paint with an end result in mind, so it will help you achieve the look you’re after and help get minis finished. Hmm, I think I’ll take my own advice now, since I’ve just thought of that; cheers me lol!
Glad the comment was a good one. I tend to ramble on a bit… 😛
And just for a bit of bonus awesomeness, check out Templars’ WIP of a Valkyrie with real working lights, including a red flashing light in the troopers cabin, just like in Predator. 🙂 This is something I’d love to do if I got a Valkyrie for my catachan predator’s vet squad…when they’re painted… damn it 😀 http://www.youtube.com/user/TemplarsCrusade01#p/u/1/kqir1DSBvYg
Holy cow, my reply is long again! Lol 🙂
its great, all the steps are awesome