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!

2014 in Review

Hello all! I think it's fair to say I painted one or two models in 2014; in fact, I painted just shy of 150 models overall. Given that I must have painted less than 50 in 2013, I'd call that a pretty marked improvement! I think it's a mixture of developing my ability to paint quickly, and also getting better results from the time I am putting in - nothing is less motivating than putting a lot of effort into models for a pretty low reward.

By far the project that was the most rewarding and took up most of my hobby time was my Warriors of Chaos. I think it's time to start drawing this project to a close - there's one unit of 18 Chosen and an Iron Daemon (which I will use as a Skullcannon) to do, and then I will rest them for at least six months. I am incredibly proud of how cohesive the whole army looks together - even more so after it came second in the Best Painted nomination at Raze and Ruin. I'm aiming for first place next year, even if it means sabotaging every other army there!

A shot of every model done for the army in 2014 - 104 total.

A small unit of 3 Skullcrushers. I mostly use them as charge redirectors and as a cheap chaff unit.

A unit of 10 Chaos Knights plus a Lord on Daemonic Mount. I try and sneak these into the backfield to kill War Machines and lone Wizards.

A unit of 5 Warhounds. I like to send these straight at my opponents toughest unit. They wreck house on the charge - I've yet to find a unit they can't handle in combat.

30 Marauders. Whilst not as effective as the Hounds above, they can hold their own in combat with the best of the Warhammer World.

The only other project I worked on last year was an Anglo-Danish army for Saga. Again, I am really happy with how they turned out - especially as they were a complete reboot of a previous army. New figures, new paint job, everything. They were easy, and fun, to paint - especially the chainmail. The fact that a mere 41 models makes a full army was quite nice too!

All 41 models. I think we can all agree their bases blend in much better with the terrain!

This pose is a very simple conversion to do with the Gripping Beast dark age plastics.

The shields were definitely my favourite part of the model to paint.

I would recommend the Gripping Beast models to anyone looking to start Saga.

So, that rounds off my recap of 2014! Looking forward, I have several projects I would like to work on this year:

• Eldar
• LOTR Dwarfs
• LOTR Easterlings
• LOTR Mordor Orcs
• Pre-Heresy Iron Warriors
• Scots for Saga
• Vikings for Saga
• Jomsvikings for Saga
• Sorylian Fleet for Firestorm Armada
• I'd also like to do more tutorials for the armies I paint - I have had a surprising number of requests for these!

Embarrassingly, these are all projects I currently have fairly sizeable unpainted (or even unbuilt!) armies for already, which brings me to my pledge for 2015: for every one model I buy, I will have to paint two I already own, and I won't buy a single model until at least the start of April. Hopefully 2015 will be another big year for my hobby! Wish me luck!

Thanks for reading (the longest ever blog post I've done, apparently. At least I broke it up with pictures!)

The Return of the King (Of Painting Blogs)

Hello all! Goodness, but it feels like a long time since I have done this. I'm sure I could write plenty of excuses to explain my lack of painting, and some may even be believable, but in the end it comes down to a simple lack of motivation to paint and distraction from other hobbies. I think I am over that hump now, and I should be back to my usual bi-weekly blogging from now onwards! :)

So, this post will focus on the new additions to my Warriors of Chaos army. I will do a post next week (two in a row!) with a review of my painting in 2014, and a look ahead at what I want to accomplish in 2014. The first thing that I have added to my Warriors of Chaos army is 14 more Marauders to bring my unit up to a horde of 30. I also repainted the banner for the unit as I thought it looked pretty bad! I do really enjoy painting Marauders, they just take such a long time compared to the Warriors of Chaos.

The 14 new marauders I have painted. They took a painfully long time to do...

I truly cannot overstate how much of an impact the Horsemen heads have on the look of this unit.

The full unit of 30 as it stands now. I'd like to add another 10 Marauders to bring the unit to a full horde of 40, but perhaps I'll work on something else in the meantime!

The repainted banner. It looked better in my mind, but I'm happy enough with how it worked out!

I have also finished building and converting a new Chaos Lord. The body is that of the armoured rider from the Chariot kit, the head from the Warshrine kit and the arm & shield from the Skullcrushers kit. As conversions go, it isn't particularly exciting, but I do think it's enough to make him stand out (especially with the huge horns!). I find that I really enjoy painting one off models like this, and it cane serve as a nice distraction when other units or projects get a little stale.

I absolutely love this helmet. It really fits the whole Chaos aesthetic.

I often prefer resting poses like this to those that are mid action. I think they allow for a little more personality to be shown.

That's all for this week! I will be back next week for my review of 2014, and I'll discuss what I achieved, what I failed and what I want to do in 2015. It will be absolutely riveting reading, I assure you. I'll try to break it up with plenty of pictures!

Here's a sneak preview of my full Warriors of Chaos army for next week!

"Hello, we're here to talk to you about our lord and saviour, Khorne."

Chariots of Fire

Hello all! I will more than happily admit that I am relieved to see the Chariot done. It's one of my favourite models in the whole army, but goodness did it take an awful long time to finish. It's similar to the Marauder Horsemen in that respect - they are also one of my favourite units, but they took a very long time to finish. Both models have a lot of different textures and elements to them, and both are packed full of detail, so that probably has a lot to do with it.

I did really enjoy painting most of the model, and there is a lot I am proud of on there. For instance, there is my first attempt at edge highlighting hidden away on parts of it. Edge highlighting is a technique I have always been afraid to try, but unless I start doing it I will never get the hang of it. With each model I do now, I am looking for surfaces or areas that don't really matter and can't be seen very well to practice on - that way, it doesn't matter if my painting is sub-par. I doubt anyone will be able to spot the areas I've tried it on in the pictures! Speaking of which...

A mysteriously off centre shot of my Chariot.

I am particularly happy with the way the flesh came out on the driver.

I think that adding a bright red for the horses' eyes helps draw attention to their heads, and also adds to the brutality of their look.

I think this shot really shows of the dynamism of the model.

The 'wet blend' style effect on the whip was incredibly easy to do, and stolen straight out of this Games Workshop painting tutorial. If you have not looked at the painting tutorials before, I would highly recommend one. Even if what you collect has nothing to do with the models being painted, there will be at least one technique to pick up.

And that's all for now! I have started work on another Chaos Lord and 14 additional Marauders for my unit of 16. I will definitely have the Lord done by the next post, and hopefully at least 10 of the Marauders. I think I may also work on a tutorial for how I paint my Marauders as well, so do keep an eye out for that!

Thanks for reading! :)

The Knight Train

Hello all! :) Raze and Ruin has now been and gone! I would love to tell you about all my victories, and about how my Warriors of Chaos stormed across the table, but really they were pretty solidly crushed in four of five games and I came a mighty 35 of 43. However, it wasn't all doom and gloom as I got a pretty impressive second place in the battle for best painted. Given that all 43 armies were fully painted, and there were some proper stunners there, I will take second place as my victory! Maybe first next year! :)

I have to say that having people take the time to look closely at my army and make comments on it was one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me. It's probably comparable to hearing people say nice things about you at your own funeral!

I am currently making painfully slow progress on a Chaos Chariot, so this post will focus on the remaining five knights I did for my huge block of Chaos Knights. I really like the models - they have so much character in each one, they are just a horror to rank up! I'm still really enjoying working on the Warriors of Chaos models, so I think I'll keep it up until I get tired of doing them. I've definitely enjoyed taking a much needed break from painting this month - I've not actually finished painting a single model - but I am keen to get right back into the flow of it :)

Anyway, onto the pictures! (Of the second best painted army at Raze and Ruin 2014 :P)

The five new knights.

The flesh covered shield is definitely my favourite of the lot.

Of course, as any Fantasy player knows, the real stars of any cavalry unit are the horses!

The full train of 10 knights and a Lord on Daemonic Mount. This is the only way the unit ranks up!

The Lord definitely makes a good centrepiece for the unit.

Definitely one of the cooler shields in the unit.

They would never have ranked up without the cavalry bases in between them!

That's all for now! :) Next post should showcase my chariot :)

Thanks for reading!