How to Paint Iron Warriors Without Breaking a Sweat

Hello everyone! I used to blog here, I think I should do that again. I've been painting Iron Warriors recently and really enjoying it! Hopefully I'll get some nice pictures up in the next post of what I've got done so far (which is actually a fair bit!). I've put some pictures up on various Facebook pages and got some requests for a tutorial, so here it is!

It's really very easy to do and gives great results for the amount of effort put it, hence the 'without breaking a sweat' part. I've been able to use it on everything up to a Contemptor size, but I wouldn't recommend using it on vehicles. I've got a 30k Predator on my desk at the minute, and I am trying to work out how to adapt the scheme for a vehicle. I'll maybe post a tutorial when I've figured that out! Anyway, onto the tutorial!

Firstly, basecoat your whole model with Leadbelcher. If you have a basecoat spray, use it. If you have an airbrush, use that instead! I did this step by hand simply because I didn't have access to either.

Pick out all the bits you want to be copper with Hashut Copper. I usually go for trim and ammo.

Give the whole model a wash with Agrax Earthshade.

Then a drybrush of Iron Breaker.

Paint the areas you want to be black in Abaddon Black. I go for the shoulder pads, weapon casings and the kneepads of the Mark IVs.

Now, paint the hazard stripes.

This is the trickiest bit. I use a fine detail brush, starting with Averland Sunset, then correcting with Abaddon Black, the correcting with Averland Sunset, etc, until I am happy with them. My advice when painting the stripes would be keep a very good point on your brush, paint your lines in a single movement to keep them straight and hold your model in the same position to keep them parallel. You'll also improve a lot with time, so just keep trying with it. By the 4th or 5th shoulder pad, you'll really start to notice an improvement.

Don't forget that you can also hide a lot of the inadequacies of the stripes with weathering, which we'll cover later...

The hard part is now over! Give the model another wash of Agrax Earthshade.

If you like your Iron Warriors clean, you might want to leave them here. I like mine to look battered, and weathering them is fun, so I keep going!

Grab yourself a little bit of foam from a model case. Get some Typhus Corrosion on your palette and dip your foam in, rubbing off the excess onto some newspaper. Apply it to your model using the same motion you would use if you were drying to clean it - small, downward strokes with a reasonably amount of pressure.

Flip the bit of foam you've just used over and get some Dryad Bark onto your palette. Get some onto your sponge and dab away the excess. You really don't want too much on there at this point as it's easier to add more than take it off. Dab the Dryad Bark onto your model as desired. If you've messed up the stripes a little bit, focus the weathering on this area to compensate ;)

For the eyes, paint the whole eye in Hoeth Blue. You can do this on the MkIIIs, it's just hard to see. I have done it to the Mark III, but I've bought along his friend in Mark IVs to demonstrate better.

Now, I didn't get pictures of the rest of these steps, but what you need to do next is paint the eye with White Scar, leaving the blue in the recesses. Give the eye a glaze of Guilliman Blue and a coat of 'Ardcoat.

Base your miniature as you like, and you're done! Easy to do, and it looks great! Colin Farrell is not necessary, but would make a great addition to any 30k army.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to get back to a schedule with my blogging this year. Hopefully I'll be able to get something up within a couple of weeks! Cheers!