Step By Step: Painting a Predator

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All right, this is my first attempt at creating a page just for a tutorial.  We'll see how this goes!

As most of you have seen the "Tainted" World Eaters army, I won't bore you with those details.  I did find these step by step images which I took as I painted one of the predators.  It takes you from the assembly stage:

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To the finished result above.  The specific colors are not so important, especially since they don't exist anymore under the new GW paint set recently released.  I will be pretty general about that description.  The focus is about the approach to laying down the colors, and how to work the glazes, weathering, etc.

Here is step one, where most colors are "bulked out".  I don't care about neat edges or anything like that.  I just want to get all the surfaces covered.  No primer showing, as that will make it more difficult to tell how light or dark the next layers need to be.

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You can see that I am already lightening my colors from a middle tone.  Still not trying to be neat at this point.  It is all about establishing how I want my shading to work.

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At this stage I am working even lighter.  On vertical surfaces, I am trying to create that "dark to light" shading that denotes the reflected light from the ground.  This is commonly used when doing NMM painting.

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I think this is where the "shaded basecoate" technique you keep hearing me talk about starts to diverge from what everyone else does :-)  I am continuing to work lighter, but now I am also lightening the horizontal and angled surfaces.  It is important to note that I have tried to keep the amount of colors used to a minimum.  For example, I have only used 2 different blues, and 3 different 'whites'.

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This is about the peak of the lightening.  I have even gone so far as to mix some white in both the blue and 'white' mixes.  At this point, it is time to begin shading things darker.

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Now we begin to shade.  I use very controlled glazes.  This is a crucial term.  These glazes are done with very small brushes, many layers upon many layers.  In fact, the initial layers of glaze (typically a GW wash) is watered down a bit.

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The shading continues.  As I work even darker, I will even begin to add regular paint to my glazes.  When you add GW washes to regular paints, it is like adding glaze medium, thus making them stay wet for longer peroids of time.  That can even give you a chance to do some wet into wet painting.  I have also begun to do my weathering.

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In the previous image, I had been doing my initial weathering.  I was trying to establish where the paint chipping would be, and the rust/staining.  I had not discovered weathering powders at this time.  I was using a GW foundation paint, calthan brown, as the start point.  I only mention the foundation paints as they can become very god for rust and stains when thinned with water.  The water breaks down the color a bit, making it streaky.  What better for streaks of rust that streaky paint? :-)  This paint chips were done with a dark brown, trying to follow a logical pattern along the outlines of the vehicle.  However, it is also good to have a few to break up large open spaces.

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As you reach the final stages, you can work "backwards" for a bit, adding in some highlights where they are needed.  The paint chips get highlighted (always on the underside of the paint chip), and a shadow on the top rim.  I have carried the streaks of rust even further, and finished the lighting effects of the headlights and the little diodes on the hatch.

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Hopefully, this provides some insights and useful tips for everyone!

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20 comments:

  1. Very interesting, but a color break down ( once you move to the new colors ) would be helpful.

    Also perhaps a more detailed step by step or layer by layer of the painting of rust would be nice to see.

    You jump from initial color to final product. Although you state that there is more lighter colors to the inside, and darker to the rim, but exact showings of how you pull that off might be useful?

    Aside from that, thanks for the tutorial. Will you be doing more? Such as how you go about and do NMM for the tracks for example? Or OSL like on the lamps?

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  2. Hi James!
    Permission to put the tutorial on www.warzoneminis.com?
    Of course, with your name and a direct link to your post!

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    1. Hello!

      Sure things :-) Thanks for craeting the link and for the creds! I hope it is helpful, at least in some small way!

      This is realy more about ideas, and thinking about painting in a different way than what is normally taught, etc.

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    2. Here it is James!
      Thanks for a GREAT tutorial! Helpful? A LOT!

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    3. Looks great! Thanks for takikng the time to do that! Cheers :-)

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  3. How do you do the glazing, specifically? It's amazing to see how smooth you make it look in the end. I know that glazing is watering down paints, but does it require more thinning than what you normally use to block paint? I'm still struggling with glazing and I find that my attempts to do shades/highlights ends up with too harsh of a transition, I end up with lines than a smooth gradient. Am I not adding enough to thin the paints down, or the colors I'm transitioning into are too harsh to start with?

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    1. The Glazing is not always watered down paints. In fact, I almost exclusively use various glaze mediums and products such as the GW washes.

      Those tend to not be as streaky as watered down paint. I also mention in the article that you can mix regular paint with the washes and glaze mediums to create a semi-transparent mix which can be controlled with those smaler brushes that I mentioned.

      The only way to master the glazing technique is to do it over and over :-) Remember, my training is as a watercolor painter, so I spent many many years painting exactly the way I do now! Don't be upset with yourself if it does not work out right away...

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  4. Great article, thanks for sharing.

    You manage to turn out models at an amazing rate, how long did the pred take?

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    1. I could not tell you exactly how long it took, since I worked on two of these at the same time, along with the usual dozen or so other projects at any one time!

      A basic estimate would be around 55-58 hours for each one.

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  5. How many time should I paint to reach this level? Your work is fantastic!

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    1. Thanks!

      Hopefully this will not be too discouraging :-)

      Some things to keep in mind... I have been painting 2 dimensional art (wtarecolors and pastels) for over 30 years, and painting miniatures for about 11 years.

      However, if you look at the minis I painted 11 years ago and compare them to today, it is hard to even make a comparison. Year after year, you could see the mina getting better and better (and taking less time to paint!)

      That's what it all comes down to... lots of practice! :-)

      Over that time, I have painted thousands of minis.

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  6. Really awesome!!!!!!!! Thanks!!!

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  7. Hi there,
    you really do some amazing work. I really like the way you paint white.
    I`m just wondering how you do that? I`m thinking of starting a Pre-Heresy World Eaters Army but I don`t want the plain white thing.
    Maybe you could give me some advice.
    Cheers
    Phil

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    1. For warmer whites such as this, I like to start with something like a dheneb stone, working up to pure white. I will tint and shade that darker with glazes of a cooler brown color. If needed, I will go back to my white to bring back the lightest highlights.

      I hope that is helpful!

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  8. A great stage by stage selection of photos, you make the impossible seem possible! Very inspirational.

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    1. Many thanks for the kind words, and taking the time to check out the blog! Best of luck with your painting!!

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  9. Hey, this was an awesome tutorial. I was wondering, on the second picture you have the missile rack / gunman on some kind of stick? For easier painting/airbrushing I assume... What are they, they seem really helpful!

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    1. Thanks for the kind words! Those are dowel rods, to which the various pieces are pinned. I paint all of my figures in this way (no airbrush, it just makes it a lot easier to hold and get to the undersides!).

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