The Legend of Norman Paperman

[Norman Paperman]

This is the Legend of Norman Paperman

Tales from the island we will tell

Chasing illusions can get quite confusing

As heaven can turn into hell

 

Five bucks (one heart reaction) to the frater in the crowd who knows the reference. But esoteric musical references from my childhood aside, I am delighted to have a project on my desk that I can share with the community here at B&C! My motivations for this project are simple, a new friend has invited me to play my first 40k game and I need a force that's ready for the tabletop. As I write this, I have ~800 points of Thousand Sons complete; time to push for that first 1000 (and beyond). I got into this hobby just over a year ago, but as a painter first and foremost I have painted models from three different 40k armies and 4 AoS. It took a long while to settle on a 40k army that's a "main" but the dusty boys are too much fun to paint. They're also a massive pain in the **** to get the trim right, but I guess that's the masochism and perfectionism combining into art.

 

Our adventure will begin with twenty Tzaangors from my recently purchased TS Combat Patrol, freshly assembled and ready to prime as I write this. In addition to having two squads of Battle Chickens ready to lose horribly to my buddy, I am excited to use this project as an extended exercise with my new airbrush. Purchased right after Christmas, I'm absolutely smitten with the painting power of this thing, and I want to get a lot of paint on a lot of figs. In particular, I want to work on developing a "tabletop ready" style for battle line units that's far quicker than my high-effort brush projects. The 10-squad of Rubrics that I painted up last summer took me 40 hours of brush work, my pre-ignition goal for these 20 Tzaangors is to come in under 20 hours and to look "pretty good" when they're getting blasted. Airbrush, drybrush, some contrast paint, and then using the brush on some high value details to make them look good without getting bogged down in shading armour panels. 

 

Enough of my braying, here are some pictures!

 

 

 

 

In general, I use spray can primers, but it's -20C outside this morning. O Canada! 

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

Looks like you're off to a good start.  

 

Airbrushes are fantastic tools, even if they're only used for priming. I spent 20-30 years priming models by brush before I got mine, and I now wonder what on earth I was thinking for that time.  What one did you get?

[Norman Paperman]

It's an Iwata Revolution HP-CR. It's revolutionized my painting, that's for sure.

 

 

Here's a family photo taken shortly into today's painting session.

Blues are based with Citadel Thousand Sons Blue. Yellows are Vallejo Sun Yellow, Reds are Two Thin Coats Demon Red, Pink was based with Vallejo Deep Magenta. All are sprayed with Citadel Druuchi Violet wash from a lower angle to give some darkness to shadows. Belts, loincloths, cuisses, and feathers/tentacles/hair are all Vallejo Deep Magenta. 

 

 

Blue, pink, and yellow are the (entirely traditional) colour focus of my Thousand Sons army. Red should fit in nicely, but truth be told I've just been wanting to paint some red Tzaangors. 

 

 

On the left is a blue after the Druuchi Violet, on the right is a blue after a spray from above (not quite a zenithal, but close) with Citadel Ahriman Blue to add some brightness to the upwards facing parts of the model. I love the airbrush's ability to quickly give lighting like this! Yellows were not given an above spray, Purple was given a mix of Deep Magenta and Citadel Pink Horror, Reds were given an orange I mixed in-cup with Demon Red and Sun Yellow. This step was particularly important for cleaning up their backs after the purple feather/tentacle spray. 

 

 

I sprayed Vallejo Toxic Yellow onto the tips of the horns, trying to achieve a quick blend. I have started doing metallics, such as sword blades, guns, and chainmail skirts with Vallejo Natural Steel. 

 

Have about a third of the metallics left to finish. Can clearly see there's going to be a lot of brush work to get the detail in those midsections defined.

 

 

I enjoy how gritty the yellows turned out from the Druuchi spray so I decided not to clean them up yet, it gives them an element of actively changing/mutating and the contrast really pops. Interested to see if I can develop this idea further. 

 

 

Total painting time so far: 3.25 hours. 40 minutes of airbrush troubleshooting not included! 

 

I'd guess that this is about 10x faster than if I had used the brush for all this work. I had a moment while doing the metallics that I was murmuring to myself, "this is the best ever!" I still have the metallics to finish, various cleanups (a few of the belts need their purple back) and I'll see if I can add in another high impact step or two with the airbrush, but it's probably on to brush work soon. Getting 20 dudes base coated with some colour value and gradients, in what will probably be around four hours has been 10/10 amazing fun.

 

Edited March 4 by Firedrake Cordova

[Firedrake Cordova]

The Revolution is a very nice airbrush - it was one of the ones I nearly bought when I was getting mine (I went with a different one due to local pricing - nothing wrong with the airbrush). It looks like you're off to a good start with it.  

 

 

[Norman Paperman]

Time for some progress pics! 

 

Total time painting with the airbrush was 3 hours and 45 minutes. I used the final 30 minutes since the last post to finish up the metal on the mail skirts, swords, and guns, then went back in with the purple to bring back the vibrancy to the belly belts and a few of the haircuts. 

 

First thing with the brush was to get some more of the metallics done. I used Army Painter Fanatic's Cobalt Metal on any of birds' faceguards and the blades of their daggers. Absolutely love this paint, terrific coverage with one single coat, easy to thin and work with, looks great. Second step was to do the gold trim, both the bane and joy of Thousand Sons painting. I had thought about trying to drybrush this for speed, but ended up doing it with the same brush I used for the Cobalt. The paint was Pro Acryl's Bright Gold, which I bought about 45 minutes before applying to these dudes. Great coverage, comes out of the bottle very thin so hardly any thinning required. Love the colour, but found that it dries on my brush very quickly. I really enjoy picking out the tiny details like this and I averaged about 9 minutes per model. 

 

(still gotta do this guy's gun)

 

The last couple of painting sessions have been working on colour for my blues. 

 

Tzaangors may get a bad rap from TSons players for being over-pushed and serving as the bulk of the Combat Patrol, but IMO they've been terrific fun to paint

 

Pro Acryl Turquoise - highlights on the hands, legs and as the principal colour for highlighting the head. Thinned down a lot to fill in the gun runes

Two Thin Coats Elysium Blue (most noticeable in the cheeks of the 3rd pic here) - gives a nice accent when building colour on the faces and necks.

Two Thin Coats Doom Death Black -The beaks and hoofs/talons

Two Thin Coats Trooper White - chest feathers and the eye spots.

Two Thin Coats Demon Red - eyes

Two Thin Coats Cuirass Leather - faceguard straps

Army Painter Fanatic Marine Mist - Shoulder feathers and topmost highlights on heads 

 

My colour choices were inspired by the Blue Jay, a common and popular North American bird that I never actually see outside. They're also an exceptionally mediocre baseball team that my grandfather used to fall asleep while watching, which I think is somewhat indicative of what I'll accomplish with Tzaangor's in game (heh). I was hoping that I'd get a bit closer to the actual bird colouration than I did, it's not readily apparent at all, but I would have had to make some fairly dramatic alterations to the basecoating to really get it to work. Oh well, perhaps that will be a project for some Tzaangor Enlightened or a Shaman! 

 

Family progress shot.

 

Still have four more blues left to do, plus my reds, yellows, and the pink. Everyone will need some colour on the dagger and chainsword handles and pommels, some texture and highlights on their skirts, plus basing of course, before I consider them finished. Total time spent painting so far is just shy of 10 hours. Based on my current rate of progress, I consider my goal of sub-20 hours to be well within reach and I'm very pleased with how they look. All hail the power of the airbrush!

[Firedrake Cordova]

That blue skin tone works well

 

For the Pro Arcryl paint drying too quickly, have you looked at drying retarder? (I like Liquitex Slow-Dri additive - the Vallejo & W&N ones are gels, which I don't like)

[Norman Paperman]

On 3/14/2025 at 2:26 PM, Firedrake Cordova said:

That blue skin tone works well

 

For the Pro Arcryl paint drying too quickly, have you looked at drying retarder? (I like Liquitex Slow-Dri additive - the Vallejo & W&N ones are gels, which I don't like)

I thought about some drying retarder, but this project is small enough that I can just make do. Since it's mostly picking out edges and small details I have to reload the brush pretty often anyways. 

 

And on to the update! Due to a couple of busy weekends, my wife's birthday, and general procrastinating (let's be real, this is the main reason), it was 9 days after my last update before I picked the brushes back up. A touch under three hours of work spread over three sessions in the last three days and I sit with the skin tones and feathers done. Still to do are the gold bits on the yellows and pink, figuring out how I want the skirts to look, and likely some weapon detailing/highlights. 

 

Colour parade, with their families milling in the background

 

 

Same photo with flash

 

This guy really came alive when I glazed some red back into his face

 

 

My phone is making the red on the body a fair bit more vibrant than it really is. The finish is closer to what you see in the first photo and in the background. 

 

 

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

I really like the colour graduation you got on the pink-skinned one's head feathers

[MetalFingers]

Loving all the flavors of the Tzangors. The gradations on the pink/purple one especially.