Simple Dwarf Paint Scheme for Big Armies – 3 Colours Up
December 31, 2012 by warzan
Mantic are all about big armies, so we set john the challenge to come up with a simple paint scheme for the Dwarfs that us mortals could follow to get a great looking dwarf army with out spending the rest of our lives trying to achieve it.
This video is the result, infact we think its so simple that even Alessio Cavatore could follow this to paint up his own Kings of War army - Alessio we will be expecting you to follow this carefully 😉
Let us know if you fancy seeing a series of these where simple to follow schemes are developed for each of the KoW range?
Why not check out the new Kings of War groups and ask whatever questions you have:
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Since the approach is pretty much the same to dipping with Army Painter stuff, could you do a sort of “paint off” between the two ways of painting? It would be fun to see some of the less painterly people of BoW having a go at that (Maybe Darrell vs. somebody else) and see what they can come up with in a specified amount of time.
I think I would change the blue for a red tone for more effect from wash shading (black / brown works better on red than black / brown on blue). Also, a careful drybrush/overbrush around the edges/raised parts with a slightly yellowish white would make this guy really pop on the tabletop.
If possible do more of these vids, and include a finished unit at the end (like 10-20 models) so we can really how they look and feel altogether. Seeing just one guy just isn’t having that same impact.
Another 3 Colours Up? Unpossible!
Good to see another painting vid from you John.
As before, John keeps it simple and very very effective. Nice one, give us some more John, Please!
Nice to see anther painting video 😀 hope to see one for the elfs and undead!
BTw where is the cheapist place to get the 72 box val model colour set? best i have seen it was around £129
I definitely think it’s a good idea for a series of painting schemes for the KoW range
agreed, make some elves and undead too, they need some love!
wheres the mantic paint range love?? this is mantic weekend after all 😉 Nice demo of how it can be done… my mate would go mad doing 40 per unit, takes about a week to do 1 fig but he is getting to Eavy metal standards with that amount of time. I do a bit more than your demo and did a unit of 10 today
good to see another painting vid 🙂 I’ll just have to wait now for the damned youtube to process it a little bit for a better quality…
Great technique, it’s how I do most of my core units. The only thing I would have done is use brown army painter primer to cut down on antihero step. That way you would have only the metals, blue and face to do.
Would love to see more videos for each mantic army
I can see that I’m not the only one thinking Army Painter here. Their colour primers and quickshades areawesome ifyou want a guick and easy colour scheme and the whole army on the table and ready to fight in virtually no time. My friend is starting a Necron force and he’s thinking metalic primer, some metalic details, strongtone guickshade, some highlighting and maybe drybrushing. I think he’s gonna have pretty good looking army in maybe two days after getting the whole package. 😀
Even though I think this vid is great. The scheme isn’t very complicated and shows that even people who don’t have the talent,time or patience can have a fully painted army which looks great from above the tabletop.
Good to see some more painting vids. Could you possibly go the next step and show finishing the model? Mostly clear coating, sealing, and your preferences on how to get the model finished for play. I’ve had trouble putting clear coats on in the past and have ruined my paint job. I’ve gotten to the point of having a collection of models I don’t want to touch because they haven’t been sealed but I don’t want to screw up the work I’ve done with a cloudy clear coat.
Damn that’s so easy lol, got a ton of Mantic stuff coming from the weekend deal, this actually helped a lot John. More ‘3 Colours up’ yes please!
Fantastic quality as always, John.
The only thing I’ do differently would be use a few more browns, just to break it up a bit. And maybe use green instead of blue, but that’s just personal taste.
Wow after that wash dried it looked great!
I was unsure on how it was gonna look before it dried. Definitely am gonna pick up some of these paints and models.
Do all of you use such large brushes? my prefered size is about an 8th of that one maybe. 00 000 sizes
Its great to see another painting Vid after so long. More vids please John. 🙂
This looks like an effective and fast way to get units on the table quickly. I’d love to see a block of these guys together. They would look superb for relatively little effort. Id also agree with using a coloured primer. Doesn’t have to be army painter, many manufacturers sell coloured matte paint that would be good.
good stuff
quick tip for Johns constant focusing problem – once you get the position of focus worked out for the spare hands, take a pencil and mark an “x” immediately underneath the models position – this way you can quickly relocate it into focus whenever necessary, no matter how much you’ve moved it around =D
(granted this technique works best when the model stays at the same height in the spare hands, rather than being twisted about the place, but it would still help cut down on John moving things the wrong way off screen when he’s trying to refocus it all 😉 )
This is pretty much the steps I use in painting my armies. I then go back and highlight the models in the front row and any heroes/ characters I may be painting.
yet another great vid,tnx
i would like to add that if you paint the model as in the vid and leave them “unfinished” you can go back after and add more levels to the model -hight light the boots,gloves,dry brush ect. ( if you planing on going back and adding levels you may want to thin down your base coat )
even if you are playing wth the model Unfinished it should last until you are able to step it up…as long as your not dropping them off the table,or rolling them like dice!
this way you get a base army to put on the table right away and end up with a good looking army at the end.
you might want to do a vid showing some of the up grades to the base model thats done.
Also i agree the it would be nice to see a unit or part of a unit on the game table to get a feel for how it will look…i know thats prolly a lot of work, but say some stills at the end of the vid would be nice.
thank you John for the video.
I would like to see 3 styles of videos…
1: Basic paint, quick and easy enough for even Darrel to have a go at it 😀
2: More of an advanced style for the Heroes and Characters
3: Competition level almost… something that once a month focuses on specific techniques and how to get the best results out of them… (i know for a fact I love washes but have never even tried a glaze or an ink… and could not pick them out even if someone was holding a sign telling me to pick this example :P)
I like the paint job you did on the dwarf. But I must say I was surprised that you left the eyes black.
John, you should be banned from fantasy games for painting a dwarfs face with elf flesh!!!
No, seriousily, nice video and thanks a lot for mantic weekend
Dwarves grow beards to hide their girly elf complexions 🙂
What was the mini primed with John?
Priming info given at approx 17:40
i would like to see a 3 colours up fo mantic elves please 🙂 i really like there elves, and mabye you could use it additionally as a tutorial for usinf white underdoats
Nice balance between speed and quality
Yeah a 3UP would be quite helpful to all who ordered some over the weekend <3 ya John! ;D
nice vid, I’m looking forward to finally paint my undead in October 😀
but a 3UP about skeletons or only about bones would be awesome, ’cause bones and skeletons and generally white colours are my eternal nemesis,
Do Undead, the Armored Skellies
Looking good! A couple of (big) things to mention (as well as a negligible one): make sure to let people know that you are only leaving grey bits showing because you’re trying to bit quick and get the idea across, rather than do it as you would normally and normally you would tidy all of the mistakes up (a little brass went onto the barrel of the gun, the grey showing, etc). Also, something to note is that you should have different water for when you are rinsing a metallic paint from your brush, otherwise you leave the metallic pigment particles in the water and they get picked up when rinsing it and get mixed into your matte colours (not likely to effect much, but it could 😀 ). Lastly, the paint seemed to be going down VERY thickly with the brown and (to a lesser extent) the blue. Even if you just put less brush on the paint (scratch that, paint on the brush, lol), it would help prevent the blocking of detail that can occur: I accept that you may not want to do several coats (which watering it down would cause), but less paint on the brush means more detail is revealed and it should cover it just as well.
Excellent work and it’d be nice if, at the end, you place the completed model (even if the base is unpainted and “incomplete”) in an otherwise complete unit (or part of a unit) to show the effect of it in larger numbers. Keep up the great work and I can;t wait to see more!
Oh, just had a random thought: maybe suggest Tamiya/Citadel/Vallejo equivalents of each paint, so the “Brass” could be Brunished Gold from Citadel and something else from Tamiya…
Nice job! I also do a similar quick paint and wash too. I too wouldn’t mind seeing how the Army painter washes work out compared to the Citadel/GW washes. I would like to buy the Army Painter wash, but plunking down $20 or so for a can has kept me hesitant.
Very nice colour scheme. At first I was a but spectacle as to how the model was going to turn out but after the washes I think it looks pretty good. However I would dip the model instead of all those washes
I think I would have watered down the Badab Black when for the cape. To me, the contrast of the blue was lost when it became so dark.
You could always wash directly into the shadow areas / recesses and leave the rest in base coat colors – plus I would recommend a quick dry/overbrushing of the cloak after washing with basecoat and maybe a lighter bluetone as it stands out enough and it’s not difficult to do, but results will surely add to the overall appearance.
Very helpful video. It’s inspired me to start a mantic dwarf army. I think I shall be dipping the models instead of using the 2 different washes
Nice Vid; though the washing part seemed a little redundant.(Actually, finished model looks pretty nice!)
Well maybe redundant isn’t the word to use but if your looking to get an army out fast.. especially if it’s a huge force seems to me like Mantic and ArmyPainter sprays/quickshade are going to be a match made in heaven.
Ever though about using some Army painter techniques in the vids John?
22 minutes, give or take, to paint one mini. That’s fairly quick. But…that kind of time will kill you in an Iron Painter competition. I’d have primed with the leather color, or the blue, and gone from there. Also, (not meaning any offense) John, you use a boat-load of paint. I prefer a lighter load on my brush (but then, I use a 1/4″ brush for dang near everything). Overall, a nice presentation, but I think the times could be a bit quicker. One isn’t bad. but 40 or 80 minis will take a while.
Take into consideration that he’s doing it to show others and is talking at the same time. Chances are that painting them for yourself would get them done much quicker.
Something I meant to mention in my original comments: may have been an idea to show us one of these using the Dwarf painting box that you can get 😉
Holy crap yes
love the mantic dwarf minis they look great and would suite a warhammer fantasy chaos dwarf army perfectly.
liking the vid 🙂
loving the paint scheme, might use it on my own dwarfs 😀
“Let us know if you fancy seeing a series of these where simple to follow schemes are developed for each of the KoW range?”
Yes.
Very simple, yet brilliantly effective color scheme.
grate vid very usful know i can paint my 125 dwafs
Anyone think John will name the dwarf Gimli?
Hi there! I’d like to ask also for more Mantic Miniature painting videos, especially elves please. You know another fun topic, just a little related, would be to show us half a dozen easy to paint shield designs for each race. I love the Mantic stickers, but if we all use them, it might get a bit repetitive?
How do you make friends on bow site?
Nice to see this video – I still maintain that these dwarves are pretty hard to paint in terms of how fiddly the definitions are between layers. I have simply just gone for drybrushing them mostly and then colouring a few key bits. Nice technique for the model.
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I have to say I was a bit skeptical at first as the initial paintjob seemed a bit sloppy but the end result is pretty darn good for just basecoating + washes.