Before starting any new army or project, I highly recommend that you approach it with a paint scheme already in mind. I feel that this goes double for GSC, where you have a large amount of highly detailed models that you need to speed paint your way through, lest you get bogged down by the hobby gremlins. This goes double for non-hobbyists like myself who paint at a glacial rate. Seriously, it's embarrassing. 

 

As you all can probably tell from the blog title, I decided to base my Genestealer Cult off of the Salamanders Space Marine chapter, set on the planet Nocture. This helped ground my paint scheme right off the bat, focusing on green, white, gold, and black as my base colors. As my cult is made up of random citizens, I opted for black skin, as befitting the homeworld of the Salamanders chapter. I flipped the script a little bit and went with white armor and green cloth as opposed to the typical green armor of the Salamanders chapter.

 

The other advantage of having a theme in mind is that you are able to start brainstorming how you want to mock up bits and pieces for conversions. For me, this takes the form of focusing on skulls (salamander creatures) and fire….because fire! Fortunately this is a faction rife with flamethrowers!

 

However! 

 

Once you have those cool conversion ideas in mind….shelve them. For me, at least, the most important part of starting an army is getting that army to the table as quickly as possible, then fleshing it out. I’m buying game pieces, so if I’m not playing the game, then they aren’t really accomplishing anything for me. So all conversion work holds off til after the first 1,000 pts or so are done.

 

Speed Painting

 

My paint shopping list was:

• White Primer (I use Rustoleum. And yes, you read that correctly.)
• Dawnstone Layer
• Agrax Earthshade Wash
• Praxeti White Dry
• Iron Hands Steel Base
• Skrag Brown Layer
• Black Templar Contrast
• Karandras Green Contrast
• Iyanden Yellow Layer
• Red Layer
• White Layer

 

Test Model

 

The other thing I always do is paint up a full test model first. For this I built an Acolyte Hybrid, I figured they were a bit larger, so it would be easier to see how all the colors worked out.

 

Started with white spray primer.

 

 

Gray layer for the base.

 

 

Wash the whole model in Agrax Earthshade.

 

 

Drybrush the armor white.

 

 

Metal and brown layer.

 

 

Wash the skin in Black Templar contrast. I avoided the fleshy tears in the arms and the bony ridges on the foreheads; as well as the claws and bone swords on the leader models. Also any cloth wrapping I left as the original white with earthshade wash.

 

 

Wash the cloth in green.

 

 

Wash the armor and holder. I started with washing the metal bits with Black Templar contrast as well, but that came out too dark, so I swapped back to Earthshade. This is why we test!

 

 

And done!

 

Almost…

 

At some point I decided that all the colors were too dark. So to offset this, my army is now adding snow to its theme. They shall now be banished from the city centers of Nocturne to live in the mountainous regions. 
 

 

Also, I’m just drybrushing some white onto the bases to make “snow”. Then a few extras like the tongue, teeth, and lantern.

 

Now to take my test model and extrapolate my lessons!
 

 

 

Voila! Easy as that!

 

....right?

 

 

All the infantry from the Combat Patrol and Boarding Patrol, ready to hit the tables!

 

In reality, all of this took me from May 17th - June 2nd to paint all the infantry, at roughly 30 mins per day. The goal is to not get bogged down in details, but try to pick good colors from the start and let them do the talking for you! I will said I was very grateful to not have to do another 20 Neophytes after doing 20 Neophytes, it does appear that my tolerance limit for mass painting caps out at about 15 models.

 

Next time…list building strategies for 1000 pts at the dawn of 10th edition!!!