Lead Figure Painting Tutorial 3: Nurgle Marine
This was originally posted as a thread on the RelicNews 40K: DOW forum.
Read first:
1. I often use Vallejo paints in addition to Citadel ones, these will be indicated by "V paintname". For reference: Vallejo colour chart and relation to Citadel colours, and standard Citadel colour chart.
2. I'm aiming for a good, but efficient standard, neither an army standard nor a top-notch display standard, but somewhere in between. Perhaps an army character standard or a warband member standard, or in my case, an actually-getting-damn-figures-painted standard.
3. Photos won't be as clear as usual as I've needed to use a cruder set-up for the WIP photos.
Stage 0: Plan
This figure was chosen to be a contrast to both the previous figures i.e. the large clean areas and smooth lines of the Wraithguard, and the high contrast and varied detail of the Escher ganger. This time the focus is on mid-sized areas, a vaguely organic style, and a fair bit of metal. I'm hoping to capture the festering essence of Nurgle without being too messy nor having to spent too long created "neat mess" (i.e. when one paints something really well to look realistically messy).
Colour scheme planned is: Dull grey-ish green for the armour, fading into a more vivid pustulent green for where the armour is mutating, reddish coppery metal for the rims (just because I want to try this Vallejo colour), normal vaguely rusty metal for weapons and stuff, simple black/grey for the piping, the odd bit of bone, and that's about it. Might try layering up from darker tones this time.
Stage 1: Preparation
Preparation was more involved with this as there were a few changes I wanted to make...
0 - Scraped and filed off mould lines etc etc as usual.
1 - Filed down the tops of the shoulders on the main model so the shoulder pads would sit neatly, and drilled out matching holes to pin them as the joins didn't feel solid enough (the backpack was okay though).
2 - Carefully cut off the raised rim of the left shoulder pad that was obscuring the Marine's view - bit of a stupid design really. This was tricky as I wanted to leave the little studs intact, so I had to carefully cut around them, then file the new rim smooth.
3 - The knife had to go, too puny! Suitable for a Gretchin maybe, not a Marine sergeant. It was clippered off then the hand filed flat.
4 - The axe came from a giant communal bitz box at a local games store (great resource, could spend ages digging in there). It's a Dwarf Warrior axe I think. It was trimmed and cut to shape, a small strip of wine bottle foil made the pommel, then it was pinned in place with a length of thin wire straight through the hand.
5 - The head was detailed with a bit of Green Stuff to make it more Nurgley and match the armour - I'm pleased with the way this came out as I'm a GS n00b ;).
6 - Some slate (yes, again! but it's so useful) was glued under the raised left foot.
7 - I put some Polyfilla on the base and scraped some grooves in it when wet, to make a muddy effect.
Finally undercoated with Citadel Skull White spray and, as per Tinweasl's suggestion, washed with very thinned down Chaos Black to get some shading in the deeper recesses.
Speed: Slowwwwwwwww. But that's mostly the way I chose to do it with the minor conversion and stuff. Cleaning, gluing and basing alone wouldn't have taken long, except the arms might have still needed pinning.
Next: Base.
Stage 1: Base
Going for a muddy look rather than gravel or grass. But the slates crept in there somehow. They were undercoated with a mix of V Bone White and Chaos Black, and highlighted with a few drybrushes with an increasing proportion of V BW. Then...
Mud was undercoated with 3 thin coats of V Cobra Leather.
Then very thin Scorched Brown was painted into the recesses.
First highlight was thinned V CL + Skull White, roughly layered onto the raised areas.
Second highlight was V CL + more SW, again layered onto the raised areas.
Final highlight was V CL + more SW, roughly lined onto a few prominent areas. This was fairly pale to try to make the next step work.
The mud was then washed with a slightly thinned Black + Yellow Ink mix.
The idea was to get a more fetid look. This reminded me why I don't like ink washes, they are unpredictable and messy. This one didn't pool in all the recesses so I had to paint some more into the recesses. It's okay, hopefully varnish and a spot of PVA glue will even out the effect.
Speed: Okay. Mostly waiting for coats to dry. I tried to avoid getting caught up in spending too much time on it.
Next: Grey-green armour. A big stage.
Stage 2: Armour
A big mofo of a stage this since it's about 80% of the model and takes in a wide variety of sections. I had this cunning plan to layer up from a dull green, and keep the main armour a dull green and the more organic bits a slightly slimier green. This kinda worked. I also had a cunning plan to mostly do layering instead of blending. This sucked.
Basecoat: V Yellow Olive - which is not yellow olive at all, it's a dark camo green, and only needed one coat, and V Cayman Green on the organic bits.
First highlight layer: thinned V YO + Skull White mix on the armour, V CG + Skull White mix on the organic bits. This looked fairly sucky, scruffy around the edges.
Second highlight layer: thinned V YO + more SW mix on the armour, V CG + more SW mix on the organic bits. This looked even suckier, with a brighter colour the roughness of layering was showing.
Third highlight layer: thinned V YO + more SW mix on the armour, V CG + more SW mix on the organic bits. To try to reduce the suckiness, I mostly painted this layer by brushing thin diagonal lines away from the highlighted areas.
Fourth highlight layer: thinned V YO + more SW mix on the armour, V CG + more SW + Bad Moon Yellow mix on the organic bits. This went back to a bit sucky again as the highlights were too close to use diagonal lines. But at least it was showing some definition.
In a desperate attempt to salvage some smoothness, thinned V Yellow Olive was blended into the recesses, and V Cayman Green was painted in the recesses between the organic strands.
Final highlight lining of V OY + plenty of SW on the armour, painted down the upper edges of the armour, and V CG + plenty of SW + Bad Moon Yellow on the organic bits, done down all the sharpest raised surfaces.
Finally everything was carefully lined with thinned Chaos Black.
Just managed to get a decent result out of it, but I don't think it was the right choice to simply layer from a dark colour upwards, particularly not since a lot of the armour is recessed. Starting from a mid-tone and shading down as I usually do might have been neater. I'm pleased with the two shades of green idea, they are subtle but make the mutating armour more distinctive.
Speed: Slow and tedious. Due to various things: Firstly it being a huge area of the model. Secondly because painting the same colour all the time drove me mad and I had to take lots of breaks (near the end I was struggling to focus my eyes), and thirdly I wasn't happy with the crude layering so I had to keep tweaking it. Obvious for a more army style one could keep the layering simpler.
Next: Armour trim.
Stage 3: Armour trim
I wanted to try out this Vallejo colour I found, Beaten Copper, a nice reddish colour, which would contrast well with the armour and be a suitable chaotic colour. Unfortunately in GW's fantastic new "3 shades of yellow, 3 hundred shades of brown" colour range, there isn't a direct equivalent, but bronze or brass would be similar.
Base coat was one coat of V Beaten Copper, which covered pretty well.
Shading was with Tin Bitz, mostly just dabbed on around the studs, but also blended a little where the trim met another bit of the figure.
Final shading was Black Ink blobbed on the studs, and thinned Chaos Black lined where the trim met another bit of the figure. The black ink is a bit glossy so I only used that on the trim/stud boundaries.
Highlight was a V Beaten Copper + Mithril Silver mix, lined around the edges of most of the trim (where the trim was too thin, I just lined it onto the most prominent edges), and dotted onto the studs.
This worked pretty well, although the shading and highlighting did tone down the rich colour a bit. Choosing natural tones for these meant that simple painting techniques were suitable.
Speed: Slowish but that's because there's a fair amount of trim and one has to be really neat with it, as it's a thin line that's only just distinct from the armour beneath. The actual techniques used were as quick as they could be so I think that's efficient enough overall.
Next: Piping or metal areas or something similar.
Stage 4: Ribbing/piping
A short, simple step that I think is worth showing as such features are ubiquitous to many models. I tend to go for plain neutral colours to look more realistic and to avoid distracting the eye from the main features of the figure.
Basecoat of thinned Chaos Black.
Carefully lined along the ribs with V Cold Grey. This had to be done with the point of the brush as the whole area is recessed. Where the ribbing is raised, gently rubbing the side of the brush along it is quick and effective.
Carefully lined along the ribs, nearer the centre, with V Stonewall Grey. Just to make them a bit more prominent. This went over in a few places so I tidied it up with thinned CB. On the subject of mess you can see some authentic mess where I missed the armour trim on the left leg ;).
I had to leave the backpack ribbing until later as I'm holding the figure with that part. I also painted the axe handle in a similar way, but highlighted it with V Earth then V Khaki to give a more leathery look and make it different from the ribbing.
Speed: Quick although not as quick as if the ribs were all raised. No point wasting fancy techniques in these areas unless they're a major part of the figure.
Next: Metal axe etc.
Stage 5: Metal bits
Going for a grimy but not too rusty look, I want the metal bits to be distinct from the coppery armour trim. I followed the "longer" method that I posted in the FAQ for this, with a couple of tweaks. There's only a few other metal bits on the model that are simple to paint, the axe is a prominent feature and deserved more attention:
Basecoat of a mix of Chainmail and Tin Bitz to get a slightly browner look than the usual Boltgun Metal.
Shading with a thinned Black Ink wash, then with Tin Bitz blended into the recesses.
More shading with Black Ink blended into the recesses. This dulls down the sparkle of the Tin Bitz a bit.
First highlight of Chainmail lining the edges and blended towards the "shallow" edges in the middle of the blade. The outer edges are left clean for...
Final highlight of the Mithril Silver, firstly lined onto the blade edges, and also painted a series of fine (ish!) lines towards the edge on the outer blade part. This is to draw more attention to the blade and give it a crudely sharpened look. This technique is pretty quick, you just need a fine brush and practise a couple of times first.
Glaze of thinned Black + Brown Ink to add some grimyness and smooth out the colours a bit.
Seem to turn out quite nice. The green mutated bit on the axe will be tidied up later on, I'm going to spend a bit more time tidying up the armour near the end.
Speed: Quick. Apart from waiting for washes to dry. No awkward bits here. Metals seem to work pretty well with washes and just a bit of shading/highlighting.
Next: A few details and the bone bits.
Stage 6: Skulls
Another area where I have my own favourite method. This is one I discovered recently - in contrast to the bright, colourful bone of the Wraithguard's gun for example, this style is a duller, earthier look. I painted all the bone the same way, including the Marine's "head" - I wanted a link between the dead skulls on the armour and the "live" skull he has, making the whole concept seem yet more repulsive. A friend once ranted about Nurgle that whilst succumbing to most chaos powers is vaguely comprehensible, you've got to be a bit of twat to be seduced by plague, disease, and the eternity of rotting that Nurgle promises. Anyway...
Eyesockets and the edge of the skull was painted Chaos Black. Then it was basecoated with V Earth.
Layered with V Earth + V Khaki mix, leaving a little V E near the edges.
Layered with pure V K, more towards the raised parts.
Layered with a V K + Skull White mix on the raised areas.
The eyes, nose, and teeth were redefined with thinned Chaos Black. Then finally the very edges were lined with pure Skull White.
This looks a bit harsher in the photo than it actually is, but anyway at a relatively small size a bit of roughness doesn't matter.
Speed: Medium, I went through 5 stages to make it smoother (despite the pic) with just layering. However this style can be done in 3 stages (Earth, Khaki, White) with blending or indeed just layering, and will still look effective.
Next: Tidying up, some details, adding some pus and slime and general disgustingness to the armour etc.
Stage 7: Gribbly bits
DIY gribblage in two easy steps!
Normal armour after previous painting.
Paint a blob of Skull White in the middle of the septic orifice, and a couple of thin lines of Skull White streaking downwards from it. Make sure they go vertically down.
Carefully paint over the area with a thinned mix of Red and Brown Inks. If this covers the white and a tiny bit around it, it looks more effective. Then make sure a bit of the ink pools into the orifices.
Yum!
Delicious AND nutritious!
Speed: Quick. Though you do need to be careful to avoid messing up the previous painting with the inks.
Next: That's pretty much it apart from some tidying and neatening up - I spend a bit of time neatening and trying to make the figure look crisp, but if you're careful and not bothered about small mistakes it can be pretty quick to finish up.
Finished figure:
Mmmmm gribble gribble.
Well, I like it, I'm pleased with the colour scheme in particular (though it's a bit muted). I also have found the axe conversion has been crucial to defining the model - I didn't think that much of it at first, just "the knife sucks", but during painting I realised how big a difference it makes.
Painting-wise this was a bit of a mixed bag. The armour was quite tedious and I didn't do it very efficiently, layering didn't work so well so I had to spend time neatening it up. However the colour worked, and once that was done the rest of it was fairly straightforward although care had to be taken. Overall it didn't take any longer than the Escher ganger but I had to paint it in shorter spells. I think it could have been made more efficient by a better technique for the armour, e.g. shading down from a mid tone, and neater, simpler lining on the mutating bits.
Things I learnt or re-learnt during this:
- Using natural tones makes painting stages easier, this really is useful.
- Layering can be tricky to make look good on some painting areas, it may be best to make a decision to go for simpler layering or pure blending rather than somewhere in between.
- However layering works well (and quicker) on small details, especially with the right paint tones.
- When trying unusual ideas (e.g. the two toned armour), going for a subtle approach initially is good to keep them sensible.
- Colour scheme choice is important.
......
