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Painting: Ultramarines - BigJim | |
| Ah, Autumn, and all that it brings with it! Brown leaves on the floor, children poking holes in conkers, chestnuts roasting over flame wars about 2nd, 3rd & 4th Editions and, oh yes, and a new Space Marine Codex. Drop your conkers lads, it’s time for a little preparation perhaps... Knowing that many are going to be starting a new Marine army, even many of the anti-Marine old guard (y’know the kind, that have green blood & haven’t rolled for a 3+ in twenty years), it’s this point Dy suggested an article on painting the buggers might be useful. Well, if you want to paint like a freak that is, if so come this way, & let us begin. The most basic unit in the Marine army is the humble Tac squad, 5 or more fellas with a heavy and/or special weapon. How hard can it be? What could possibly go wrong? Will Shaggy & Scoob’ ever figure out it was old man Withers at the spooky funfair all along? With this in mind, I decided to go over painting up a 5-man Tac squad, with heavy weapon & get them to a basic table-worthy standard, or at the very least so your opponent doesn’t sit down, and as you lay out your forces for battle, comment in that oh-so casual manner that they have, & say; “WTF? Like, OMG! STFU n00b! – Tinboyz!1!!” Yeah, I hate it when they say that too, there’s just no comeback is there? Step 1Undercoating, not very exciting, & not much to say here really.Personally I use Halford’s white car primer spray, but GW’s or anyone else’s will probably be about as good. I use white, but in this case black would be just as useful, if not a slightly better choice (see below), but really it’s entirely up to you. Since my trim is painted white, I use white, but if you’re going for gold or any other metallic colour then black’s your best bet.  A quick note here; In this case I’ve used one of the old 2nd Ed Devastator troopers. These guys can have odd-shaped weapons & so I’ve taken the opportunity to glue his gun-arm on before undercoating, having tested the fit with blu-tac before the spray. It pays to iron out any ambiguities before you spray, it’s easy to file something down or insert a pin, but it’s very difficult to do without ruining a good paint job. Step 2First basecoat.What’s this? More than one basecoat? Yup, the point here is to get a very dark blue undercoat, at it’s darkest points almost indistinguishable from black. We’re going to be using the same technique that many black under-coaters use, black-lining. This is using the black to leave some areas shaded & lined with black (hence the clever name), by leaving the undercoat showing in some places and painting over other areas. However, this can give a really over the top comic-book effect, and while this can be a good thing, personally I prefer to use a much darker version of the eventual basecoat, instead of plain black. This gives pretty much the same effect as black lining, but at the same time a very slightly more natural look, as the darkest tone is still in line with the basecoat, being just a darkened version of the same colour. At this point, mix some Midnight Blue with Blue Ink, no need to water it down, but make sure to use plenty of ink, as much as if it were water. Water/ink it down so it’s a runnier liquid than your normal, watered down paint would be, and splash it all over the model. It needs to be watery enough to run into all the cracks, but thick enough so it doesn’t all just run out of the recesses. You have lots of lee-way here, so don’t be afraid to experiment with different thicknesses, & find the best compromise of coverage & colour depth for you. You can always use 2 or more coats if it’s not thick enough right away, so there’s no need to risk having it too thick, & clogging up the detail.  It pays to double check once you think you’re done, as the ink/paint mix often looks like it’s covered the cracks but then you find white bits later on where it hasn’t quite covered properly. Just go back over each one quickly & see you haven’t missed any. A big white splotch half way the paintjob is going to ruin your day. Here’s where black undercoat is helpful at times, since it shows mistakes much less than white does. Don’t worry about making a mess, in fact the more mess you make, the more of a man you are. That last bit is especially true. I live by it. | |
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