Seeking advice in quick drybrushing of my entire army.

[Ordo Xenos Inquisitor]

Okay, I decided to start getting my entire Deathwatch army painted as quickly as I can. But I need to amass the funds I need to get started. I wonder if you guys can help me downsize my shopping list so I don't have to spend more than needed for drybrushing. This doesn't include additional paints for Chapters as I intend to keep them black for a while until I decide what chapters I want.

 

 

 

If it helps, here is what I have right now: 

 

1 Librarian

1 Terminator Librarian

1 Terminator Captain

20 Veterans

4 Terminators

1 Rhino

1 Land Raider

[Macabre Slanneshi Prince]

I don't think marines look particularly good drybrushed, but:

 

Black: Abbadon Black + Eshin Gray drybrush + Fenrisian Gray drybrush, super light

Silver: Leadbelcher + Nuln Oil wash (stop here for steel) + Necron Compound drybrush + Gulliman blue glaze

Gold: Retributor Armor + Seraphim Sepia wash + Liberator Gold

Red: Khorne Red + Evil Suns Scarlet

Parchment: Rakarth Flesh + Agrax Earthsade wash + Palid Wytch Flesh

Robes: Rakarth Flesh + Seraphim Sepia wash + Ushabti Bone

 

That should get you through the basics.

[SnakeChisler]

I agree about the drybrushing I'd line highlight to a level then you can go back and elevate it as and when, Black drybrush tends to look smudgy

 

I use Stormhost instead of Necron compound just dab my brush on kitchen towel so its not too wet

 

Also use a wet Palate and a Tile

 

and I have a large bottle of Liquitex medium as I use a lot of it and its a lot cheaper than small pots, if you thin with water it can loose its flow and colour  

[Major_Gilbear]

Um, that's a lot of expensive stuff for drybrushing black and silver!

I'm assuming that you are a fairly new painter, and that you don't already have lots of stuff handy for painting with. I may be wrong, of course, but I'm going by the brushes, palette pad, and many many paints in your shopping list.

A few things that spring to mind:

- Assuming you are looking to save money, have you considered buying a cheaper brand of paints? Vallejo for example are very high quality (the equal of GW), and much lower cost.

- Assuming you are looking to save money, have you considered buying a cheaper brand of brushes? For basecoating and drybrushing work, you can get away with student-grade art brushes quite happily.

- Working on the assumption that you want to get the basic model colours and basing done, and that you will return to paint other colours and details at a future point, I think you will need very few colours at all.

Based on the advice above, I would suggest as follows:

- Get some basic colours. Something like Vallejo Paint Set: Game Colour Intro gives you 16 colours for $44. That's $2.75 per paint, and the pots are about twice the volume of the Citadel ones.

- If you only want to do the armour, bases, silver, and red areas, then I would just get the paints I mention further down below. This will save you a lot of money in the short term.

- Get some Army Painter washes: Light Tone, Strong Tone, Dark Tone, and Blue Tone. There's a Red Tone which you may find helpful too, but it's not essential.

- Get a small flat hog-hair artist's brush for oil painting. This is your drybrush.

- Get a small round pointed sable artist's watercolour brush (size 2). This is your wash and basecoat brush. NB: you don't need Kolinsky Sable here!

- Get a small round pointed sable artist's watercolour brush (size 0). This is your detail brush. NB: you don't need Kolinsky Sable, but if it's a good price then it may be worth a go.

- For basing, you can mix some fine sand, white PVA glue, a little paint, and a little water. Make up a batch and do all your bases at once. This is startlingly cheap and easy to do, and you don't need to buy any special products. Use a crappy old brush or a coffee stirrer to apply the paste to the bases.

- For priming, I would see what matte black automotive primers you can get locally for cheap.

- Finally, for a palette I would use an old white ceramic plate. Cheap, easy to find, easy to clean off with some hot water, and much better than paper. Some people suggest a wall or floor tile instead of a plate, but I find the plate scratches the table less, and has a rim which stops runny paints from getting everywhere (which is bound to happen sooner or later).

In terms of technique, my thinking is:

- Build models, and glue to bases.

- Spray prime black, and allow to dry.

- Put some black paint on your palette, and add a little bit of blue and little bit of water. Plaint the whole model with this.

- Put some grey on the palette, and add a little of your blue-black mix above to it. Drybrush the whole model carefully, and allow to fully dry.

- With some plain grey paint, do a second very light drybrush to catch the highest areas on the model. Again, allow to fully dry.

- Wash all over with a mix of Dark Tone and Blue washes (half and half, mixed on your palette). Let this dry, and your black is done.

- I'd do the basing next, with the sandy paste pix. I'd add a little colour to the paste (probably a brown), but you'll be painting over it again later, so a little bit to help tint will be plenty.

- When the base is dry, thin a little brown paint on your palette and apply fairly generously to the base. Let this dry again.

- Drybrush the base with a little ivory. I prefer this to be a little uneven personally, as I think it looks more realistic.

- Wash the base with plenty of Strong Tone, and let it dry really well.

- Next up is the silver arm and shoulder pad. Paint these dark silver all over.

- Drybrush the arm with a brighter silver.

- Wash the arm with a little Strong Tone to shade it.

At this point, all the basic areas are done. There's a few details to take care of next, including the base rims, the guns, and the eyes. For these and other small details I would either do a base colour and single highlight (like the eyes, and any insignia), or I would do a bright basecoat and then wash them (like the boltgun, pouches, and grenades).

Power weapons can be silver > blue wash > drybrush silver > thinned Dark Tone washed over the details.

Flesh is a bit trickier to get looking right. If you have the odd head here or there to do, I would use the flesh colour in the basic paint set, wash with Strong Tone, and then highlight by adding a little white to the flesh colour. This won't be perfect, but it's a pretty decent start, and it's also pretty quick. Of course, using helmets is even quicker!

Hopefully that helps you, and at the very least gives you a good start. :)

[SnakeChisler]

I've an airbrush to put on an initial coat but I wouldn't recommend cans as even the GW ones put too much on in one go and you can clog detail very easily.

 

For the odd model I don't use the gun on I do the following

 

Abbadon black with small amount of paint medium all over the model with a standard brush

 

While its wet I take my tank brush (no paint on at all) and brush all over the model working in all the creases and cracks it gets rid of any pooling and tends to leave a very thin coat then repeat when dry.

 

My method anyways and my opinion on Cans

[Irbis]

Instead of buying citadel palette for 9$, you can make wet palette for pennies, that will also keep your paint fresh saving you money on that front too:

 

[Prot]

Ordo,

 

I beg you to reconsider this.

 

If you do insist, I would go with a darn good dry brush and a pretty dark grey with Nuln Oil wash.

 

I really think the GW primer is quite good this go around (all my non characters were done with it)

 

Consider doing a nice light primer job and just paint all you arms silver. That will help tremendously then when you have time or more confidence consider getting some line work in.

[Major_Gilbear]

Well, Ordo Xenos Inquisitor asked to drybrush the whole army, and so I responded accordingly above.

 

However, I would agree that drybrushing space marines doesn't normally give you a very good result; drybrushing is for areas with heavy close texture, and space marines are all about big clean armour panels.

 

An alternative is to choose a very dark grey fro the initial colour, do arms in silver, and then wash the whole lot with a generous coat of black or blue-black wash.

 

I had a very similar discussion recently with kirat1 here along these very lines, and so I thought that it may be helpful to look through. :)

[Vel'Cona]

I find that drybrushing tends to be highly influenced by the base colour.  I've had decent luck with drybrushing "layers" of green for the Sons of Medusa, but with black it's too easy to end up with a muddy or "dirty" looking finish.  In either case, OXI has a lot of things to consider before he steps forward with his paint scheme, and I'm eager to see the results regardless.  :)

[Ordo Xenos Inquisitor]

Ordo,

 

I beg you to reconsider this.

 

If you do insist, I would go with a darn good dry brush and a pretty dark grey with Nuln Oil wash.

 

I really think the GW primer is quite good this go around (all my non characters were done with it)

 

Consider doing a nice light primer job and just paint all you arms silver. That will help tremendously then when you have time or more confidence consider getting some line work in.

 

Hmmm..... I am aiming for just the bare basics. I have already primed them up with black spray and the finish seems smooth enough for me to just go for the other fundamental colors. I just want a game-ready army when I go for tournaments that looks nice.

[Boyadventurer]

Check out Lostrael's dark Angels thread here on B&C (I'd link it but am on my mobile, should be easy to search though). He pulls off a very nice black by wet drybrushing and then drybrushing a wash to give it a little tint.