Sunday, October 20, 2013

Heresy Era Iron Hands - Firing up the batch painting machine

While I naturally want to dive in and paint a mess of new tanks (Sicarans and Caestus arrived, woo hoo!), I know that I will regret leaving the infantry for the end and have vowed to get a good chunk of 'em polished off before I work on the fun stuff. In a heresy army, there's usually a fair wedge of infantry to do - big units are the order of the day and the Iron Hands are no exception. I'm still waiting on bits to make the sergeants, vexilla and vox bearers, but there's still a goodly chunk of basic marines to be done. 31 of 'em, in fact!


Started off with a basic black primer, followed by a shadow grey drybrush to catch the upper edges of the armour.


After that was done, all the metal areas were picked out in boltgun metal and then the whole model was given a black wash. Helps to tone down the grey highlights and gives the metal a little definition.


Rather than go entirely black with the armour, I decided the loricated rear leg sections would also be done up in metal. Gives them a little extra visual interest beyond just the basic black armour plates.


Next up was to lay down a basecoat on all the areas that will end up being white - the weapon housings and the legion symbol. As a little reward I'm also painting the two dreadnoughts at the same time, giving me something different to look forward to every 15 models or so!

So far so good!

7 comments:

  1. It's interesting to see a 'step-by-step' for batch painting. That's always the big drama for me, deciding which details to sacrifice and consolidating everthing down into one or two steps.

    Oh, and they look great by the way!

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  2. I wish I had the time to start a heresy era force. I absolutely love the details of the FW models. When it comes to painting black I would recommend using at lest two, but still better, three shades of grey before applying the black wash. This is my experience form my pre-heresy DA. This will give the model more depth in the black and it will look smother. I really think the highly detailed FW models would benefit from this. Dont worry if the model actually looks grey before the wash it will turn black again.

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  3. @Colonel Scipio: Thanks! It's always a bit daunting to lay out all the models and lay out all the paints, but that up front organizational step really helps keep the process flowing smoothly. Is it fun? Not really, but it is efficient. Heh.

    @Agis: I ended up going with two shades of grey on it, a dark shadow grey and a very light fortress grey on the extreme edges. I think you're right that a third would probably help. For the character models I'll definitely be giving them more attention, but for the rank and file it's less of an issue I find.

    Cheers, guys!

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  4. Massive progress. Good idea on the dreads too. I used to give myself reward minis when batch painting. Will you do much weathering or powders?

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  5. @Zab: Thanks, they're coming along nicely! I'm planning on doing some mud and dust on the lower legs of the infantry, though it'll all be done with paint. While I like the look weathering powders give, it really seems like sealing them tends to wipe out the effect. Great for display pieces, less so for gaming pieces...

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  6. @The Eye of Error: Hah! Only fitting, given the legion in question! :)

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