Larger versions of this photo and the other views are available on flickr.
Ok – I’ve stopped hating these guys enough to write a short painting guide. They are easy to paint, but there is a lot of fine detail that needs to be painted, so they are quite time consuming to complete. I’ll do this area by area as it is more or less how I painted them. The areas are in the order I tackled them –
Armour As red is the predominant colour and the miniatures are already moulded in red plastic I decided not to spray undercoat them. Instead I grab the GW Tank brush (the really big one) and the Foundation Mecrite Red and undercoated them the slow way. I was careful not to put too much paint on the brush as it would be really easy to obscure the detail. Next I drybrushed the miniatures (in downward strokes) with GW Blood Red. This was followed by a lighter drybrush of P3 Khador Red Highlight (an orange colour). I washed the whole miniature in the miracle wash (1:1 Badab Black and Devlan Mud).
Eyes, Purity Seals and Crux The eyes were painted Foundation Knarloc Green using my smallest brush. The purity seals parchment was based in GW Bestial Brown, then painted with GW Kommando Khaki and highlighted with GW Bleached Bone. The seal was painted with GW Gore Red and washed with the miracle wash. The Crux was based in GW Codex Grey, washed in Badab Black and then highlighted (very lightly) with GW Fortress Grey.
Pipes, Sensor Lights and Gems The pipes were painted GW Shadow Grey or GW Fortress Grey. The sensor lights are based in GW Enchanted Blue and dotted with GW Ice Blue. The gems are Foundation Hormagaunt Purple, then dotted with a 1:1 mix of this colour and GW Skull White.
Metals By this point I was well and truly sick of these miniatures. They are gorgeous sculpts, the the superfluous detail is over the top. Anyway, the grey metal is watered down GW Boltgun Metal applied over a GW Chaos Black Base and then washed with the miracle wash. The gold metal is a 1:1 mix of P3 Brass Balls (a light brass colour) and GW Shining Gold. It was then washed with GW Brown Ink.
I painted the shoulder pads ‘half and half’ on some miniatures using GW Chaos Black and GW Skull White. The black areas were highlighted with GW Codex Grey. Finally I painted the base GW Chaos Black. Phew! Six down, seven (including the dead marine) to go.
Owen
PS GW have a good painting article for the Space Hulk miniatures here.
Hey, not bad at all! I was planning to brown dip all mine after a basic prime + red coat…once I get around to it that is!
The Badab Black / Devlan Mud wash has a similar result to dipping, but not as extreme. I don’t like dipping 28mm miniatures as I think it looks blotchy. Though, if you are dipping you could consider priming them red then lightly drybrushing with an orange before the dip. I reckon they’d look pretty decent for very little work.
Owen
I take back what I said about the 28mm miniatures looking blotchy. I’d seen your Orcs in progress and they are awesome. The Zombies look great too. Have you tried the GW washes?
Owen
Nice work. You shouldn’t moan about the detail – it gave you a chance to make some wonderful looking miniatures!
Thanks Scott. It’s long enough ago that I can look at them as a labour of love. I don’t think a miniature needs to be very detailed to get a good paint job, though. The over the top gothic aesthetic of 40k Imperium isn’t for me, but thankfully Space Hulk is such a great game that painting them seemed worthwhile. That said, I haven’t attempted to paint the remaining seven yet!
Owen
Hi Owen,
I’m wondering if you’re interested in being hired to paint my Space Hulk miniatures. If not, do you know who I could look to?
Your set looks absolutely stunning. I appreciate your talent and the information you’ve shared. I just don’t have the painting skills or the gear for this kind of work.
Thanks!
Shane
Thanks for the offer, but I don’t take commissions (I barely have time to paint my own stuff). I don’t know anyone who does commission work either, but if you drop into your local games store they may know of someone. There are a good few model painting services on the internet too, like http://paintedfigs.com/, if you’d like to give one a try.
Owen
I’m relly impressed by the look of your Gold. Did you paint it with a braown undercoat or directly on the red ?
@Valmesh Directly on the red. I did two watered down coats to get coverage. The wash was pretty heavy I think.
Thanks Owen,
One last question, what color + wash did you use for the flesh of your captain ?
I think I used Tallarn Flesh as the base, highlighted it by mixing Elf Flesh into the base and then washed it with Ogryn Flesh.