Painting Warmaster Fell Bats Step by Step

As I've been "speed painting" some Warmaster Vampire Counts models I thought I might do a step by step to show the process I go through.

This is intended to be a way of getting units painted quickly but effectively. It's not how I paint *all* my Warmaster armies, or even all the units in this army but it is pretty quick and looks good at a tabletop distance. With a horde type army like the Vampire Counts a speed painting aproach may be what you need to get it finished.

I'll be using Fell Bats models, sculpted by Forest Dragon and available from White Dragon Miniatures.

So first, clean up the models and then glue both strips, yes, that's right both strips on to the base.

At this point people will be saying, "that's madness, how will you paint the models when you can't get your brush in the gap between them?"" The answer is that we won't be doing that. I think it was Graham Davey in a White Dwarf article at the time Warmaster launched who pointed out that if you can't get your brush in there you're not going to be able to see it at 10mm scale when it's on the table, so don't even bother trying to paint it. Will this make the perfectionist miniature painter in you twitch? Yes, but we're after speed, not perfection here.

Next, apply sand. 

Apply PVA, dip in sand, leave to dry.

Then spray black.

Bog standard black primer spray over the whole model - they're mostly black so that's the best colour to use, also you need it dark to hide the bits you can't paint in the middle.

Then paint the base brown.

You could try and do this at the end, but then you risk getting the basing colour on the bits you've painted - so best done first.

Next up, drybrushing. A reasonably heavy drybrush of a dark bluey grey (I used the long OOP Fenris Grey from GW)

Then paint the metal railings bits - I used Leadbelcher I think.

 

Next up apply a mid grey in an overbrushing style on the stonework (more OOP Paint -  Adeptus Battle Grey)

Then a final drybrush of a light grey on the stone  (OOP Astronomivan Grey)

Paint the tree stumps with browns

Then, to finish cover the whole lot (apart from the base), with a black wash (Nuln Oil)

Then drybrush the base to taste (I used Vomit Brown followed by a Bone colour)

Add static grass

Job done. Drying times (for the wash and the basing materials) were probably the longest bit of the whole process.

Perry Plastic Afghan Tribesmen Step by Step

I'm speedpainting some of the lovely Perry plastic Afghan Tribesmen models for games of The Men Who Would Be Kings and so I thought I'd capture the process in a step by step stylee.

I did it a bit quickly on my phone so a couple of the pics are a bit blurry - but you should get the idea.

I'm painting these as Ghazi Fanatics so giving them all white clothing - which speeds things up a bit.

First spray white.
I just used some cheap white primer from Boyes.

Paint the flesh bits with a flesh colour of your choice. I used the OOP GW Tanned Flesh which gives a ruddy darker tone that I think works for Afghan tribesmen.

Then cover the whole model in Vallejo Sepia and leave to dry over night.

Same stage - no idea why i took two pictures.

Most time consuming stage - highlight all the white clothing with white.

Paint the metals - GW Leadbelcher for the swords and other steel shield studs and rims and GW Retributor gold for the pommels, guards and other shield bits.

Then Contrast Snakebite Leather for leather straps and a couple of the shields

Contrast Wyldwood for the other shield, the insides of all the shields, sword handles and one of the beards.

The other beard is Contrast Goregrunta (which gives a nice "henna" look - popular with some Afghan tribesmen).

Then some washes. Agrax on the skin, Nuln Oil on the Steel and Gryphonne Sepia on the gold.

And that's it, job done. 

I'll base them when I've finished the unit of 16.

Very quick and dirty, but gets them bashed out quickly.

For non Ghazi versions I've previously used the GW Contrast Wyldwood, Goregrunta, Templar Black and Skeleton Horde to give some variation to the clothing.

Not going to win any prizes, but they'll look fine en masse and at tabletop distance.

Painting Kallistra Late War British Step-by-step

I thought I'd do a step-by-step guide to how I've been painting my Late WW1 12mm British.
Much of what follows is based on advice from James Morris and is done to ensure my models at least make a basic match with his when we use them on the same table.
Also a hat-tip to Over Open Sights blog, who kindly sent me his painting guide for 28mm models last year, which also informed my pass at these much smaller miniatures.
Most of the paints I used are OOP GW ones, but there are various conversion charts out there that should allow you to find an equivalent.

First, glue your models to bases:

Then apply PVA to the base and dunk in chinchilla sand:

Next spray the entire model with Army Painter Leather Brown spray (which I got from Nice Mr Nick at Northstar)
It appears I forgot to photograph this stage. Imagine the same models as above. Only much browner. Or the ones below with less greeny uniform colour on.

Then paint all the uniforms with Vallejo British Uniform. You don't need to be too neat at this point as most of the subsequent stages will tidy up any over-spill onto other areas, but try and not paint the rifles.

Then paint the gas mask case any covered helmets and assorted other pouches with Kommando Khaki:

You can hardly see what I've done here, so it's possibly not even worth it, but I painted the puttees with Graveyard Earth:

Next I added skin with Tallarn Flesh:

Followed by helmets using Orkhide Shade:

Another optional step - footwear with CDA Chestnut Brown and then I painted bayonets with Bolt Gun Metal (not optional):

Finally I tided up officer's sticks and leather pouches and holsters with Bestial Brown:

And painted the Lewis guns in Chaos Black:

Then the final stage was to cover them all over with CDA Dark Brown Super Wash.
Hey presto - six stands painted (though I appear to have only taken pictures of five):

The key, I think, with these small models is to pick out the contrasting bits that will help them pop a little on the table from four or so feet away. So the helmets are probably greener than they should be and the cases and pouches probably a shade or two too light, but at wargaming distance they'll make the models distinctive on the tabletop.

The blank spots on a couple of the bases are created by adding blobs of Blu-Tack to the base before applying the PVA, then removing before the glue has dried. These will be later painted with Storm Blue and given a Black Ink wash and coat of Gloss Varnish to create dark shiny pools in the Flanders mud.
You can see the finished models against blue backgrounds in the post from earlier this week