Painting: Salamanders

[Julgolax]

I dont do Sallies at the moment but, my buddy down at GW does have a solid 2000pts force and I will tell you how he paints it.

 

Step 1. When painting the salamanders chapter you want to honor the fluff as much as possible, so I recommend keeping the black undercoat very clean and even. Apply the undercoat with, what I recommend, Krylon's Black undercoat matte finish. This goes on like a dream and will dry itself into an even layer. Use a hair dryer or another heat source with moving air to truly dry the undercoat, this will ensure the undercoat dries evenly and firmly, it also further activates the matte finish in the paint.

 

Step 2. When painting the power armor of a Sallie, start with a thin layer of Scaly Green to enrich the later colors and set a base layer for the next. at this step it does not matter if it gets everywhere, black is very easy to touch up when painted over a matte finish.

 

Step 3. To begin covering the Sallies cleanly, layer on a layer of Catachan Green mixed with Dark Angels green, a 1:1 mix should be fine, keep it thin and layer it on a few times until thorough coverage is achieved. This layer is in place to further enrich the last layer, giving it a warmer tone, this is the final goal, to keep the colors ALMOST even, being a little warmer.

 

Step 4. Nextly, you want to begin to get that ever classic snot green on there, but not yet, next we apply a very thin layer of green ink, very thin at a ratio of ink to water, 1:5. Make sure this does not pool too much but cover the entire green surface, wait for it to dry and then move on.

 

Step 5. For this step we begin to add some cleaning to the black areas, especially the areas that we are not going to add metallics to. Paint on chaos black that is at the consistensy of nail polish, that will give you a huge amount of control as to where the black goes.

 

Step 6. Yes, now add Snot Green in layers of 1:1, the last layer however is special, this last layer will ensure a clean look to your expertly crafted power armored marines, it that is the look you want. On that last layer, apply a TINY bit of 'ard coat, or a similar gloss to the paint, at a gloss to paint ratio of 1:8, a very tiny drop. This will add a light sheen that will make those marines look like professional warriors of the Emperor, and of Vulkan. I like the look of it after the green is done with a thicker than usual layer of green ink, this makes the recesses very dark as well as warms up the tone of the rest of the green.

 

Step 7. Now for the metals, this is easy, base all of your metals with Boltgun Metal.

 

Step 8. Highlight with a dry brush of Chainmail, then Mithril Silver, keeping your brush clean before and after each layer.

 

Step 9. Make a thin layer of black ink mixed with an unusual red ink, ill tell you why, the steel of Vulkan is unique and is said to have a light hue of red when heated so, yea, plus it looks nice. Water to ink to ink ratio is 5:(1:1).

 

Step 10. You all should know how to do eyes, right? Along with those, pick out the details that are going to be gold, lay down some shining gold, highlight with burnished gold, chestnut ink it thinly, then a further highlight of Mithril Silver drybrush.

 

There you go, 10 steps, good looking guys, depending on your skill.

 

Oh, and if you want, Step 11 is the weathering step if you defy the fluff. just take a bit of Boltgun Metal mixed with black ink and drybrush the areas that would physically receive scratches and or weathering, add a bit of brown in to that mix for the boots for mud if you'd like.

 

So there, try it, if it dont work for you, well, try it GW's way, and see how badly that comes out... lol, damn 'Eavy metal team, alla bunch of selfish artists, they paint their demo pieces <DELETED BY THE INQUISITION>tily so no one ever replaces them lol, j/k people, its just those steps are general and are for speed painters, not good ones.

[Bannus]

I posted this as a reply to a question in the PC&A subforum a while back, here it is again for convenient reference.

 

I don't have a lot of time to commit to painting and modelling. So it takes me a while to get my armies put together. However, I do try to find ways to cut corners without sacrificing much in quality. Here is a method to "speed paint" Salamanders that people may find helpful. While it does cut some corners, the quality was still good enough for the Terminators to win Best Squad for the Citadel Celebration painting competition.

 

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb150/bannus/zsaldread1.jpg

 

 

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb150/bannus/zsalsquad.jpg

 

This is how I paint mine. Warning - use old brushes for painting green with this technique.

 

1) Spray Chaos Black undercoat and let dry.

 

2) Do what I call a "heavy drybrush" (also called "overbrushing") of snot green over the entire model (areas that are to be green anyway). The idea here is pull the paint as thin and even as possible using a bare minimum of paint so I effectively drybrush the mini until the whole area is covered.

 

3) Repeat the process only covering the larger areas and ignoring the recessed and most shaded areas.

 

4) Repeat again, only covering the large areas easily accessible to light (hint: only use downward strokes at this stage).

 

By this point you have three coats of Snot Green covering most areas with increasing amounts of transparency in the shaded areas.

 

5) The next step is "season to taste" - some players prefer the bluish green of the Snot Green, others prefer a more 'yellow" green for their Salamanders.

 

If you prefer the "bluer" version, just highlight the very edges of the armor with Scorpion green.

 

If you prefer the more "yellow" version (as I paint my Sallies) then also highlight the larger and more obvious "light catching" panels. The more Scorpion Green you use, the more "yellow" the armor looks.

 

This is a very fast an easy way to paint the green. The green on the Terminators in the photo above was finished (except for touch up) in about two to two and a half hours. The end result is five different layers of highlights using the weak and transparent qualities of the green as an advantage instead of a disadvantage.

 

 

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb150/bannus/zsaltermies.jpg

 

Examples painted using the technique described.

 

 

Gold areas:

 

1) Paint Shiny Gold.

 

2) Flesh Ink Wash.

 

3) Burnished Gold highlight.

 

 

Silver areas:

 

1) Paint Chainmail.

 

2) Watered down Black Ink wash.

 

3) Highlight with Chainmail again.

 

The gold and silver areas are pretty straight forward. In order to get a very distict "line" between the green and the gold, I usually paint the gold "almost" to the edge of what I am painting (like the Chest eagle for example) and then paint the ink just a hair width beyond the gold onto the green where is makes a nice, natural dark line to really seperate the areas. This really makes the colors stand out against each other.

 

Flames:

 

1) Paint panel white.

 

2) Paint a "fade" pattern from the center bottom of the panel outward (in concentric rings) starting with Skull White with just a hint of Sunburst Yellow, moving quickly to pure Sunburst yellow (the white should only cover a small spot in the center bottom of the panel), then gradualy moving to Firey Orange with just a spot of Blood Red.

 

3) Paint the "negative space" black.

 

I have found this to be - by far - the easiest way to paint flames as you avoid the whole issue of trying to get a difinitive edge between such weak pigments like yellow or orange and the black.

 

 

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb150/bannus/zsalsergeant.jpg

 

 

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb150/bannus/zsaldread4.jpg

 

The flames were painted using the technique described above.

 

 

Black areas: Highlight with a mix of Chaos Black and Shadow Grey.

 

 

Applying transfers:

 

When it comes to applying the trransfers, I find it helpful to actually make a few cuts into the transfers so that they lay down easily on the rounded panels. I place one cut right behind the eye ridge and another between the "spikes" and the jaw-line. On really curved or difficult panels, products like Micro-Sol and Micro-Set come in very handy. I then paint over the decal with a light drybrushing of Codex Grey to kill the bright white quality of it and then go back in and paint the black around the trasfer so there is no hint of the transfer material remaining. I sometimes will change the nose or spikes or something to make one or two look a little different.

 

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb150/bannus/zsalamanderdecal.jpg

Example of where to make cuts so the transfer lays down properly.

 

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb150/bannus/zsaldread3.jpg

 

I lengthened the spikes a bit on this particular transfer to make it better fit the panel compositionally.

 

 

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb150/bannus/zsalflamer.jpg

 

This transfer was applied using the method described above.

 

"Burnt" nozzles:

 

1) Drybrush entire nozzle Tin Bitz.

 

2) Drybrush a "fade" of Shiny Gold starting at the rear of the nozzle to about 1/3 forward.

 

3) Drybrush a "fade" of Scorched Brown starting at the front to about 1/2 back.

 

4) Drybrush a quick "fade" of Chaos Black at the very front edge of the nozzle.

 

5) Black Ink the front facing of the nozzle.

 

6) Pick out the end of the barrel with Tin Bitz again.

 

 

Hope this helps.

[pootleberry]

I have not pictures to add unfortunately, but my system produces quick and very good looking results.

 

Step 1: Skull White undercoat spray

Step 2: Paint armour Goblin Green, weapons Boltgun Metal, piping Boltgun Metal

Step 3: Apply a non watered down Green Ink wash over all Goblin Green areas

Step 4: Apply a non watered down Chestnut Ink wash over all Boltgun Metal areas

Step 5: Black Ink/Chaos Black onto shoulder pads and backpack. Also do this to the weapon housings

Step 6: Apply transfers

Step 7: Gloss varnish and base model

 

This is really simple and produces really good looking miniatures.