Requesting suggestions

[dswanick]

Thank you for checking this out and any suggestions you may have. My friend Al passed away and I inherited his Warhammer 40,000 stuff, including this Space Wolves army.

http://i52.tinypic.com/5yvp5s.jpg

My goal is to keep Al's paint job but add some finishing touches to his work. As you can see from some of these close ups, Al was not an "awesome" painter but it is done to a fair table-top standard.

http://i54.tinypic.com/1t6636.jpg

http://i51.tinypic.com/eldxf6.jpg

http://i54.tinypic.com/2gsmusn.jpg

http://i56.tinypic.com/2z7o50j.jpg

http://i55.tinypic.com/vryhoz.jpg

My current plan is:

1. to use a light grey wash on the whole model (I'm partial to a grey Space Wolves scheme over the blue grey), with the aim of toning down the blueness and giving the recess details some visibility.

2. then hit the highlights with a light grey dry brush.

3. Re-touch the details.

4. Add pack markings, and apply transfers.

5. Clear coat and be done.

 

What I'm looking for is any advice you may have on how to do this in an efficient manner. Also, if you have any alternative suggestions to the above steps to maximize the final look or minimize the labor they would be appreciated. A couple of things I am unwilling to do - completely strip and re-start the army and make major modifications to the base coat. I want this army to stay fundamental "Al's army" as a tribute to the guy who got me into 40k. Thanks again for reading my post and for any suggestions you offer.

[Jacinda]

I think your biggest challenge is going to be working with the quality of the paint on the models and not from the painting. Be careful with the wash and only put it where needs to be so that it does not accentuate the texture of the old paint.

 

If it were me, I would work on putting them on snow bases and leave the painting alone. But that is something I am more comfortable with. I hate re-touching other peoples work because it never blends for me.

[Lorenzen]

if you plan on using washes to improve the paintjob, might i suggest an oil wash as they are easier to control?

 

essentially satin coat the model, then use oil paints and a whole lot of white spirit to create a wash, you can move around the oil paint more than a basic arylic wash and clean up anything you dont like by rubbing it with white spirit on a cotton bud after its dried.

 

some people use this as a finishing technique, but i dont.. only problem is you need to recoat it with a light varnish before you can do any acrylic work over the top.. but it gets the job done with some quite satisfactory results.

[Gurth]

My first thought would be dipping. The models are already fairly well-painted, they just lack shadows (and highlights). This would not change much about the way the models look, except for adding shadows (and perhaps darkening the models a little, but you could add some highlights afterward to brighten them back up, if this is a problem.

[winterdyne]

As they were painted by your friend before he passed away, the first question to ask is do you *really* want to change them?

 

If you do:

From the looks of it they're set for dipping (overly light base colours, neat block application, if a bit rough).

Finish the pack markings, gloss and decal then gloss the chapter insignia.

Apply sand and grit to the bases. Paint this fairly lightish brown.

Dip with a strong brownish tone.

Paint the base rims.

Matt coat (Testors dullcote etc)

Then apply a bit of static grass and if you want some polyfilla snow.