Moar Tanks! Imperial Guard Leman Russ

On the wave of er.. something (delirium?) I've decided to finish off a Leman Russ I had half painted some years ago... I don't even remember doing it... That's how long ago that was...

Well -Anyway- I've done one long ass post already and that's enough of that for now. Here are the pictures:

How to Paint an Imperial Guard Chimera

Here I shall try and make my first proper painting guide.

Since this is my 1st one I am going to make it a simple one. In fact it will involve drybrushing! :)

Still hopefully it will be an interesting read for those of us who are relatively new to this "painting" business and maybe even to some of the vets (I know who I'm talking about at least :P)

What you will Need:
A Chimera model kit (doh!)
Some paint brushes (Look at the very bottom)**
Chaos Black Spray
A set of citadel paints (also look at the very bottom!)*
A really old dead brush (preferably big)
Plastic Glue/Liquid Poly etc
Chaos Bits (optional)

Here's my Chimera Assembled (Note all the chaosy bits - guess what? Its a traitor chimera)

And here's the same chimera (I can see myself saying that a lot) but sprayed chaos black (EXCITING! - You know what else is exciting? CLICKING on pictures will show you a fullsized version :))

  

Now on to the painting.


I am going to aim for a similar colour scheme to my Basilisk which appeared in this blog earlier (Here) And this means drybrushing red.


First things first. I am not going to go into insane amount of detail and tell you exactly how you need to prepare your work desk. I'm not going to reiterate at every step that paints on clothes will stay on clothes forever. That spray paint tends to produce black dust if used indoors etc etc etc. Sometimes common sense is key ;)

However I will advise using either some specialised table (which you don't like and is cheap) and better still covering that table with some sort of a newspaper (or 3) :)

Neway back to the painting business.

Layer 1 involves a very straight forward and simple drybrushing process. Drybrushing involves "drying up" your brush on some surface or some tissue paper and then using the minimal amount left on the brush to actually paint. DO NOT try to drybrush with a brush loaded with paint. DO NOT try to do it with a wet brush. Drybrushing also has one major negative side. It kills your precision brushes and thus you need to have a separate brush for this technique.

So at layer one the paint to use is Scab red. Simply Drybrush (using the biggest and cheapest brush you have) the whole of the tank with that colour. Keep it light-ish. As stated before lots of paint is BAD.

Additionaly try to keep tracks and detailed bits (spikes in my case) relatively clear. Its NOT a big deal if they get covered. But don't make an extra effort to paint them. However what you should care about is getting a lot of paint on a spot. Be sure to wipe it off with liek anything (your thumb? some bog roll? etc etc)

Try to keep brushing in the same or very similar direction across the whole tank as that will give it a much more uniform look. If you're doing it sideways do it sideways everywhere. If you're doing it length wise then keep it this way. Sometimes you may want to try some more "advanced" choices of direction but in the end try to keep the direction similar.

 

Things to remember: You don't need to cover the whole tank. You don't need to be perfect. This stage is quick so keep the strokes quick and don't worry about the black gaps.

Layer 2 is only marginally more complicated. Pretty much the same things apply to it as to Layer 1. Its also a simple drybrush here. The paint this time is Red Gore.

Another thing to remember is "try to keep every layer lighter than the previous one". This is generally the case with most painting projects else you end up with a model devoid of detail and looking terribly loaded with paint. KEEP PAINT THIN :)

From the pictures you can see that a) my camera skills are not good enough to show you enough difference between 2 reds and b) this layer simply is the same but with a somewhat different shade.

Layer 3 is still very simple. This time you Red Gore and Blood Red mixed in equal parts (this means roughly equal parts not "precision to a milligram") is once again drybrushed on to the chimera (You're starting to "love" drybrushing now aren't you? ^^). Still this is the final major drybrushing stage so keep to it ^^.

The other thing is the colour choice. I personally dislike Blood Red quite strongly. I think it is already past the red spectrum and happily into the Orange territory. I believe one must not make a mistake in using that colour in any other way except 2. A mix up for red gore. (To make it brighter), or a final highlight where it just there in minimal amounts. I even think that blood red Khorne berzerkers look stupid... But that's just me :)

And that's that we're done with red drybrushing. Well done. On to more fun parts :)

Mud + Tracks. No tank looks cool without at least nominal mud and the tracks of a tank which is muddy itself cannot be clean either :)

So here is how we do this. Keep your drybrushing brush close. Since we're doing mud and mud gets everywhere this may be as rough and uneven as you like. 

The stages are as follows:

Paint all of the actual tracks boltgun metal. This only needs to be an overbrush so some black left out don't matter so much.

Drybrush some scorched brown on to the bottom of the sides of the tank.

When the tracks are dry - drybrush them Scorched brown. Try to keep some but not a lot of silver shining through.

Mix equal parts scorched brown and bestial brown.

Drybrush the above mix on to the bottom of the tanks' sides.

Drybrush the above mix on the tracks.

This is what you should be getting roughly. The rougher the sides the better. Mine arguably are bit too neat.

Fine Detail. This is the stage where you need to make the decision yourself. It is entirely up to you how much fine detail you want to do. But I'm here to give you the low down of how I would do it on a good day :)

Also to note the more detail you do the better. The more interesting your model will be the cooler it will look etc etc. However for tabletop quality (i.e. something u would actually take out to play with) you REALLY don't need to dig in every nook and cranny of the model and paint every millimetre.

Still back to the painting. Stage one of the fine detail is basically setting up the colours. The brush needs to be a lot more precise and you can happily put down your drybrushin brush. (Forget it now :))

The metal spikes, part of the gun, the heavy flamer on the front, the lasguns on the back and a few other little parts were painted Tin Bitz.

The skulls on the spikes were painted dheneb stone.

The Marine helmet (here u can have fun with your most hated marine chapter ^^) in my case is dark angel green. Try not to go for red. Something different to make a contrast to the rest of the model is good.

The demonic growth/face thingy is covered with liche purple.

Basically this sets up the background for the rest of the layers for the small detailed stuff. As I said you are completely free to paint up as much detail as your willpower allows.

Stage 2 of final detail goes like this. You simply need to run through all the sections of the tank and see if you still wish to add anything or define anything else. But more importantly you need to finish off the bits you have done in stage 1 of final detail.

So since I have found that I'm missing my pot of Dwarf Bronze I ended up using Shining gold for tips of the spikes.
Since the skulls weren't such an important part I've simply washed them with devlan mud and left them at that. (I would usually also highlight with bleached bone but its hardly necessary here)
A layer of snot green and a few small highlights on a marine helmet.
The weird face got an overbrush of Warlock purple.
A few small details got a few touches of Boltgun silver.

And that's about it. This is the end of my 1st guide on painting. I hope you liked it :)

P.S. Next time I promise I'll keep the White balance on the photos the same... I promise ><

* Paints Used in this guide:

Scab Red

Red Gore

Blood Red

Boltgun Metal

Scorched Brown

Bestial Brown

Tin Bitz

Shining Gold/Dwarf Bronze

Dheneb Stone

Devlan Mud

Dark Angels Green

Snot Green

** Brushes I have used

Citadel Large Brush (Or Tank Brush) for drybrushing

ProArte Brushes Grading 2, 0, and 00. (Look in your closest art shop and ask them if in doubt)

Ogres are scary...

Had a fun battle vs ogres tonight. Fun for me anyway ^^

In my relatively short gaming history with the Chaos Warriors I have to say that I never had them actually do well. Yes I managed to win - sometimes through guile sometimes through clever positioning but never through directly winning combat... And definitely never before via wiping out the whole of the opponent's army...

In any case a short report:

I get the 1st turn and once again fail to get Hellshriek as one of my spells. Marauder Horsemen ride forwards as outriders and prepare to spend their time irritating the enemy. In the first turn everything I have (pretty much runs forward ^^ and magic does nothing to speak of... Well except causing 16 wounds (o.o) on a gnoblar unit. Still they passed their panic test and stayed.

The warhounds and marauders happily screening the army from any charges that could occur. The Charges do in fact occur. His massive unit of Ironguts (6x3 with a Battle Standard Bearer and Skrag o.o) charge at my dogs who held and a unit of his Ogre Maneaters charging one unit of marauder horsemen who fled.

Dogs obviously died. Very quickly. No surprise there... And he rolls for overrun aaaaand gets far enough to reach my marauder unit... Which was almost according to plan. Would be better if he didn't but "it'll doooo".

In my turn 1st thoughts " LETS HAVE EVERYTHING CHARGE THAT MASSIVE UNIT!" then clarity and sense restored its place and I actually looked at the battlefield to see that my marauder unit can charge the giant. Marauders with flails I thought, and with a character too! shoooould do it... So they charge. Being slaaneshi (all army is in fact slaanesh themed) they charge...

Marauder Horsemen unit 1 charges the remaining gnoblars (all 4 of them) and then the fun charges (Unit of knights with BSB hero) and a unit of Warriors (altho risky with a Sorc Lord) charge in the front and the flank respectively.

Magic phase doesn't go all that well. Well Lore of slaanesh does squat all to ogres anyway...

In combat was pretty much where this game was going to be decided. (This is turn 2 of 6 by the way). So being chaos I have to challenge (with a champion who gets quickly mauled by Scrag) and and the knights have a go at ogre iron guts. Killing two along with two ranks of chaos warriors (and that's 7 wounds against toughness 5 ogres yuck). He kills all my Knights (but not the BSB) and causes a few wounds on the other 2 units. a total of 8. Still having had the flank charge and having had 3 ranks and same banners and BSB's as him I win by two. He fails his leadership even after a re-roll and gets caught and the whole unit is gone.

Well after that it was a matter of technicalities. Altho to make it funnier the marauders with flails cause 5 wounds on the giant who the Shouts at them and they flee and die...

But frankly after the death of the ironguts and scrag it was really the matter of moping up the rest of his army. And I even had a full unit of Knights left spare! :)

At the end of the game I have lost a unit of knights and 2 units of marauders and he had nothing left on the table. How effing rare...

There you go a much condensed battle report which hopefully wasn't too boring to read :)

I will post some pictures a little later tonight ^^

P.S. All pictures linking to GW website are the property of GW and the rest of the bla bla. I don't own them etc etc. Let it be known that I'm only linking them as I haven't got ogres of my own.

Another tuesday game

Today my chaos (having been seemlessly bolstered to 2500 points) met a bunch of Ogres. Well I have to say. If there is an army... that got boosted by the new rules.. Well they would be the one.

Dirty DIRTY gut magic. Incredibly tough units. Multiple wound monsters with a) gut charge b) multiple attacks and finally c) a stomp. Oh and fairly hitty characters.

Still the game was full of amusing incidents. My marauder horsemen kicked ass and took names. I swear those are the units that did the most damage in the whole game >.> Having singlehandedly killed the Giant (by charging it - beating it in combat and running it down) and then the scrap launcher.

Chaos Knights need some sort of a rethink... Maybe two ranks of them in the future... Then again my luck really turned the 2nd half of the game... Although my opponent's face kept me amused since he was really worried by my knights all the game ^^


And now the usual treat of some random pictures.

 

This Imperial Guard basilisk (traitor ofc!) was painted quite a long time ago but I still love how it turned out. The reds blended pretty well even tho the model was mostly drybrushed. Still it looks pretty good considering that it was painted a LOOONG time ago.