So many games, so little time #1: Simple painting to good effect - Part 1

Hello everyone,

My name is Damian Caulfield and I am a plasticrack addict.

Like most wargamers I have a mountain of unpainted minis and am too easily distracted by new shineys to make much of a dent in it. I will be writing a long series of posts on the new T.C.O.W blog detailing my never ending journey (wah-oh-ah-oh-ah-oh-ah-ee-oh) of getting things painted. This should help keep me on track and hopefully impart some wisdom to newer painters. I don't claim to be a great painter but I do find that I get decent results using very basic techniques that anyone with basic brush skills should be able to pull off.

For my first lot I will be painting the Axis Super Heavy Walker Sturmkönig from the Dust Tactics game made by Battlefront.

I have picked the colours Red Brown, Green Ochre and Green Grey from the Vallejo range as the main colours of this force so I will be using these heavily on any Dust related posts.

So here we go...

1, First step I decided I was going to airbrush all of the armour plates so I removed the armour plates off the legs (Dust minis come pre-assembled) and primed the large metal areas black (Vallejo Black Surface Primer).

2, Next I used a technique I call "wet brushing(tm)" which is similar to Damian Reids infamous "dry brushing(tm)" but I use it to cover large areas with a solid colour but leaving some of the recesses the base colour. If you follow any old drybrushing tutorial but actually load up your brush with paint and not get rid of it all you follow the same method of mostly trying to only hit the raised areas with large sweeps of a big brush (I use Army Painters Monster brush in this article). You don't need to be too careful as this will be followed up with a heavy ink which will bring back any recesses you painted. 

3, I used the P3 colour Pig Iron on the legs and radar followed by a heavy wash of Army Painter Strong Tone Ink (not their dip) over the entire area. Leaving it overnight to dry.

4, I then picked out some details on the legs, in this case it was the hoses and pistons. The hoses were painted up with a few shades of blue/purple/magenta and the pistons were painted with P3 Cold Steel. The body was painted with Red Brown.

5, I then took my airbrush to the main hull and guns giving them a solid Red Brown coat all over.

So that's where it is at currently. If you are a new painter you should be able to tell there is nothing scary there, no wet blending, no enamels, oil washes etc... I do a little bit of weathering at the end t get rid of the factory new look but even then you will see how keeping it simple can be very easy and effective.

Keep the paint flowing.

-Damian