Imperial Fists Painting - A Noobs plea for advice.

[Slips]

As the title declares, I'm planning to paint a..few... Marines in the colors of the Imperial Fists.

While I do have a general idea of what I want to do and how to do it, I decided to email Forgeworld for their Paint Scheme used to paint their Fists.

 

Whereas most - if not all - of the guides I've read/ watched/ learned-by-osmosis say to Base White, and go straight to Yellow in various stages , FW's recipe has me scratching my head a bit, Here it is :

 

Imperial Fists 

 

 Undercoat Skull White 

Yellow Areas 

 Airbrush 50/50 mix Tamiya Flat Red/Yellow 

 Airbrush 25/75 mix Tamiya Flat Red/Yellow 

 Airbrush Tamiya Flat Yellow 

 Airbrush 75/25 mix Tamiya Flat Yellow/Flat White 

 Airbrush Tamiya Clear Yellow 

 Wash with a mix of Humbrol Clear, Agrax Earthshade and Seraphim Sepia all thinned down 

Black Areas 

 Abaddon Black 

 Highlight – Blend up to Mechanicus Standard Grey 

 Final Highlight with Dawnstone 

 

The first of my questions would be : Has anyone tried painting Fists by going from an orange to yellow to bright yellow before and what kind of success have they had?

 

Second: Would this be doable with a Brushes? How much would I need to change to make it work? I'm very keen on using the above scheme on one of my test marines to see how it works, but I'd rather not screw it up right out of the gate by going about it the wrong way.

 

Third : While Base coating with white is the best way of starting off, what kind of results can you look forward to with Black / Brown / Grey? The yellow will obviously be darker, but would it give a more Solid Yellow? (primarily with Black Base in this scenario)

 

That's it for now, really. Any comments will be tremendously helpful and greatly appreciated!

[S.k.i.t.t.l.e]

I've painted Fists from a grey primer, I thought it looked great. For me I think they'd be too bright if I primed white, using my painting technique at least.

 

I think that you could paint a similar looking scheme by brush, but you'd have to change the colors as these are mostly very translucent paints, and would take a long time to build up by brush.

 

I paint them with a grey primer, basecoat with Averland Sunset (I use an airbrush, but can of course be done by hand) I then spray a little white on the highest points (some chunky edge highlights would work here) before layering Yriel (?) Yellow on top. The white allows the second yellow to pop a bit more at the edges. I then shade with Dark Flesh, a few thin layers (or applied by airbrush as I do) adds a lot of depth to the yellow. A final edge highlight of perhaps a bone colour and maybe a pin wash of Dark Flesh/Brown should finish it off nicely. :)

[Antarius]

Interesting to see that FW don't use GW colours exclusively.

 

I haven't tried the above recipe, but I've tried both more orangey and brownish bases for my Imperial Fists. I've found that I personally prefer going for a look with a brownish/ochre base and shading, rather than orange.

 

My own recipe is something to the tune of this:

prime white

airbrush Vallejo Air "Ochre" (taking care to get the recesses and spray in an upward angle from slightly below the mini, if this makes sense to you?)

airbrush Vallejo Air "Gold Yellow" (spraying from slightly above the mini, taking care to leave some of the ochre in the recesses and the lower part of the mini)

airbrush Vallejo Air "Yellow" (spraying lightly from above the mini in places where the light would naturally fall)

 

I then do a bit of shading using army Painter "soft tone" wash and some highlights using GWs "flash gitz yellow".

You can see my results in my WiP thread in my signature.

 

It's not a terribly brush-friendly recipe, although I think you could do well with using a yellow spray primer (i hear good things about Army Painters "Daemonic Yellow" although it seems you have to be a bit careful not to obscure details when you prime with Army Painter sprays) a bit of recess-washing with either GW or AP wash ("Agrax earthshade" or "soft tone" respectively) and a few highlights with GW colours.

 

My scouts are painted in GW colours and Ap wash, using only a brush, come to think of it. It goes like this: White primer - Averland Sunset - Yriel Yellow - a bit of Ap "soft tone" wash - Yriel Yellow touch ups - Flash Gitz Yellow highilights,

[Imren]

Just stay away from black as undercoat, the rest is a matter of taste, do you want a warmer more bright colour scheme then yes go for a white undercoat and more orangeish basecoats, if you want a more toned down less "look at me" yellow scheme then go for grey undercoat and use those toned down yellow basecoats (GW iyanden darksun/averland sunset or VGC Heavy Goldbrown) and then highlight them up to almost whiteish or buff/bone colour.

 

I strongly suggest you consider getting into airbrushing if you're up to painting a space marine army due to the nature of their models, big flat surfaces of same colour. You can use brush to paint up your army, but if you want a good paintjob, you will have to spend around three/four times the time used if airbrushing to get nice highlighting without visible brushstrokes, also basecoating a whole space marine army is just waste of time by regular brush if you want good thin covering layers of basecoat, an airbrush does it in a farction of same time with much better result in terms of even thin coat.

 

As a beginner I advice you to buy a cheap airbrush and a smaller compressor, spend more money on the compressor than the airbrush, especially if you don't want to paint details with the airbrush. Check on youtube for good introductory tutorials and advices on airbrushing, also this page is very good on airbrushing:

 

https://sites.google.com/site/donsairbrushtips/

 

Good luck!

[S.k.i.t.t.l.e]

I'd be willing to basecoat them for you... :)

[Bung]

I prime black!

 

Here is how i do my yellow:

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/279231-fast-yellow-marines/

[Slips]

Thanks for all the helpful advice brothers! It will be put to good use and hopefully get me the result I want.

And now I'm also honestly considering an airbrush - might not be for a while still, but the ideas there.

 

Will update once I finally have time to get things underway!

[Phalanx Warder]

using the above method I produced these (I changed how I did the black), you can see the various shades of orange that this recipe produced on the cork board I have to say that the depth of the color is awesome, I think I used too much white in the mix and too much yellow ink but I am happy to try again once I get these finished up and will post what the result is. Also I do not recommend trying this without an airbrush.

hope that helps.

If not I have a very basic yellow recipe I used before I got the airbrush they looked like this:

[Slips]

Nice work on the FW recipe, might actually have to buy an airbrush now @_@ 

 

The scheme you did by paintbrush is one I would be interested in learning since it seems to be the shade of yellow I'm looking for.

 

At this rate Brothers, I might have to get considerably more test marines or have a vat of paint remover handy at all times for testing purposes, thanks for all the Ideas!

[chaplain mortis]

If you dont mind giving oil paints a whirl..you can achieve this sort of effect as pictured below..and I promise you will laugh at how easy this scheme is compared to forgeworld!

 

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y2/chaplainmortis/Mobile%20Uploads/Imp1.jpg

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y2/chaplainmortis/Mobile%20Uploads/Imp2.jpg

 

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y2/chaplainmortis/Mobile%20Uploads/Imp5.jpg

[Teetengee]

If you want to prime black, you will need to add at least one layer of brown or white over the black first before you move on to painting the yellow (I found this out the hard way recently). I will probably try some of these and let you know how I find them, please do the same if you get to it before me.

[Slips]

Please, Brother Chaplain, enlighten my uninitiated mind! What is an oil paint and what would you recommend? I've haven't had an arts class in a "few" years and forgot the different classes of paints :P

 

As it is right now I'm basically absorbing as much information as I can so I have as many different ways of painting yellow as possible so I can find my jam.

If you want to prime black, you will need to add at least one layer of brown or white over the black first before you move on to painting the yellow (I found this out the hard way recently). I will probably try some of these and let you know how I find them, please do the same if you get to it before me.

Indeed I shall Brother! Paint for the Paint God! Brushes for The brush Throne!

[War Head]

this is awesome...

 

If you dont mind giving oil paints a whirl..you can achieve this sort of effect as pictured below..and I promise you will laugh at how easy this scheme is compared to forgeworld!


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y2/chaplainmortis/Mobile%20Uploads/Imp1.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y2/chaplainmortis/Mobile%20Uploads/Imp2.jpg


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y2/chaplainmortis/Mobile%20Uploads/Imp5.jpg

[Hyaenidae]

I basecoated my test mini a light brown, and added a little to my yellow for the next layer to add some strength to the pigment. I was pretty happy with the results.

[Slips]

Thanks for the input everyone its really helpful and very much appreciated!