Collecting an army in one month (Part 3): painting the force!

Oh hai and welcome to the 3rd instalment of my "Collecting an army" series!

In this article I will showcase the painted models and explain how I painted them. First though a few points:
1) I purchased the bits from http://www.letthedicedecide.co.uk/, this is the site I always go to first as their service is exemplary and they are based in the UK so there are no import duties etc, they are also very well priced, I strongly reccomend them! (Just don'y buy the bits I want!)
2) The whole army plus display base (which I will post up in the last article) was painted in 5 days and to a gaming standard, this isn't Golden Daemon standard sorry!
3) Due to time constraints I replaced ALL the unhelmeted heads with helmeted ones.
4) The army is painted brown as it is a more natural tone and I was heavily influenced by the last of the mohicans!

So without further ado:

Fig 1 - HQ - Logan Grimnar.
You will note the head swap and the addition of the storm bolter onto the fist.



Fig 2 - ELITES - 3 Lone Wolves.
For some reason these guys were hard to photograph, it's nice that you get 3 different large storm shields so each one looks somewhat different although the wargear is identical.



Fig 3 - TROOPS - 10 Wolf Guard /w 2 CML and 1 Combi-plasma.



Fig 4 - TROOPS - 5 Wolf Guard /w 1 CML.



Fig 5 - TROOPS - 5 Wolf Guard /w 1 CML.



Fig 6 - TROOPS - 5 Wolf Guard /w 4 Combi-plasma and Drop Pod.
I had a couple of the Forge World Drop Pods hanging around and my oh my, Forgeworld really confuse me. The prices seem high to me yet the quality of the resin and the casting is lacking, anyone who has ever built a Forge World vehicle will tell you that invariably the parts are warped, have bubbles in etc. Now having got over the drama of building the pod I had to paint the thing.. the surface area is HUGE, it can't be far off a Land Raider, anyway in the end I was happy with the outcome but the road was an irritating one!



Fig 7 - TROOPS - 5 Wolf Guard /w 4 Combi-melta and Drop Pod.
And another of the irritating to build and paint drop pods!



Fig 8 - HEAVY SUPPORT - 6 Long Fangs /w 5 Missile Launchers.



Fig 9 - HEAVY SUPPORT - 6 Long Fangs /w 5 Missile Launchers.



Fig 10 - HEAVY SUPPORT - 6 Long Fangs /w 5 Missile Launchers.



Fig 11 - MISCELLANEOUS - 5 Objective Counters.
This tournament awarded a point for having 5 scratch built objective counters so I thought I'd try to make some looking like painted animals on rocks. Each counter took about 20 minutes to paint which I was impressed with. They are meant to resemble (from L-R) Wolf, Bear, Eagle, Bison, Elk and each one has the animals footprint included. If I'd had time I was going to replicate the footprints on the right shoulder of the troop choices but time was against me! (These counters are on 40mm bases NOT the little ones!)



So how did I paint this army some of you may be wondering?

Well I will let you in on something of a secret as far as speed painting is concerned, it is all about minimalism surprisingly! Most parts of the models have 1 shade and at least one highlight.

Step by step painting Guide (if there is demand I can make a video or something along those lines).

1) Spray the model with Army Painter: Leather Brown.
2) Paint all the bits which will be black with GW Chaos Black.
3) Paint all the bits which will be silver with GW Boltgun Metal.
4) Paint all the bits which will be gold with GW Dwarf Bronze.
5) Paint the the model with Army Painter: Dark Tone (this is similar to wood varnish and shades the model.
You then need to wait overnight for the toner to dry!
6) Line highlight GW Snakebite leather onto the brown power armour.
7) Line highlight the GW Snakebite leather with GW Vomit Brown.
8) Line highlight a mid shade of GW Chaos Black and GW COdex Grey onto the black power armour/weapon parts.
9) Line highlight the previous step with GW Codex Grey.
10) Line highlight GW Mithril Silver onto metal parts.
11) Line Highlight GW Gold (whichever one gives good coverage, can't remember if it's shining or burnished) onto any gold parts.
At this stage the majority of the model is done, it's just details to go!
12) Paint all the furs GW Chaos Black.
13) Wetbrush GW Codex Grey onto the furs.
14) Drybrush 50:50 GW Codex Grey GW Skull white onto the furs focussing distally from attachments.
15) Paint small parts of skull white onto the most prominent parts of the furs for definition.
16) Paint the eyes and some of the gems with GW Red Gore.
17) Highlight the eyes with a dot of GW Skull white.
18) Paint some of the gems with GW Regal Blue.
19) Paint some of the gems with GW Snot Green.
20) Paint bones areas with GW Bleached bone leaving the dark tone in recesses as a shade.
21) Highlight these bone areas with GW Skull white.
22) Paint power weapons with either GW Regal blue or GW Liche Purple.
23) Line in progressive layers of base colour plus ever increasing amounts of GW Skull white.
24) Paint flesh areas with GW Dwarf Flesh.
25) Paint the base GW Chaos Black.
26) Drybrush the slate GW Codex Grey.
27) Drybrush the slate 50:50 GW Codex Grey/Skull White.
28) Gloss Varnish the rim of the base.
29) Mix Woodland Scenics Snow 50:50 with GW Water effects and slap it on the base.
And with that you are done!
30) Have a well deserved rest and re-arrange your back QQ.

Well, after writing it out there seems a lot more to it then I had thought, I will endeavour to make a video of myself painting one of these models to make it simpler to follow and to better explain some of my self-invented terminology.

In the next and final instalment I will show how the conversions were done and answer any questions anyone has, feel free to post them here or email me via the authors section.

Until next time, ta ra! xx