I've been getting asked fairly frequently how I paint my warjacks, so I figured I may as well knock out a tutorial. I apologize for the poor pictures but it was the best I could do. I really wanted my Gorgon to be useful in some way (since they're horrible in the game) so he got volunteered for tutorial duty. Having said that, this is my first ever painting tutorial so please bear with me.
If you follow this guide you can get your jacks to a tabletop level very quickly. The total painting time for this gorgon was about an hour and a half excluding drying times. Normally I paint several of my jacks at once, but for the purpose of this guide I just did the Gorgon by himself.
Enjoy! I hope this helps someone out there.
STEP ONE: Prime that sucker black. I use vallejo surface primer with an airbrush, but you can use whatever black primer you like. You want to get pretty good coverage. If you like to add gravel to your bases before you prime, go for it.
STEP TWO: With the airbrush I then give a fairly solid coat of Vallejo German panzer grey surface primer. You can cover up most of the black or all of it really. If you don't have german grey, any dark grey will work.
STEP THREE: Using vallejo's Grey surface primer I do a zenthial highlight. You want to make most of the grey and black disappear from most angles. It's not a true zenthial from a 45 degree angle, just spray till you feel he looks good. This step is probably the most vital in painting the model. As before, if you don't have this color available you can use any light grey. I would suggest purchasing this if you intend to paint a lot of retribution, I use it quite a bit for everything.
here you can see the undersides of the model after the grey primer.
STEP FOUR: The final airbrushed highlight is done using Vallejo white surface primer. I thin it a bit to keep it from being opaque. THIS IS IMPORTANT you don't want to over power the grey from the previous step, only lighten it. This was sprayed sparingly till the grey was tinted a lighter color on the raised areas.
STEP FIVE: This part is optional, you can skip it if you don't have an airbrush (which makes me wonder how you got to step 5) or if you don't like the look. Using heavily thinned vallejo model color Blue Green, I punch in where I want some glowing. You want it heavily thinned so it is still a bit transparent and it will be easier to control. PRACTICE THIS ON A SCRAP PIECE FIRST. If you aren't careful, you will blast this color all over your white and have to start over! That's not fun!
STEP SIX: Switching to a paint brush, I paint Blue green into all the lines where there are the metal nodes. After that, I wash all of the node's cracks with Asurman blue from GW. This wash is no longer available, so any dark blue wash you have will work just fine.
STEP SEVEN: I lined all the cracks between the armor plates with Dawnstone. Any mid-tone grey will work fine. Codex grey, Neutral grey and so on. You can be a bit messy with this step, the next one will clean up any mistakes you make.
STEP EIGHT: Using a pure white, I then line all edges of the armor plates. This is the reason why we didn't want our final airbrushed highlight of white to be opaque.. If it was, you wouldn't be able to see the highlights at this step.
STEP NINE: Now it's time for all the metal bits. I painted all of those using plate mail from army painter. It's fairly new to me, I find it pretty close to chainmail from GW. You can use whatever metallic you like at this point. If you make any mistakes and spill onto the white, leave them for now and fix them after step 10.
STEP TEN: Give those metals a bath. I washed them with a 50/50 mix of secret weapon's soft body black and blue-black. I then added an equal amount of matt medium from liquetex. This should give the metal a dark blue tint without turning it blue. If you made a mess of the white in any areas, you may clean it up once the wash dries.
STEP ELEVEN: I painted the inner rim of the shoulder pads the same olive green I use elsewhere on my retribution. I used the 4 greens from the new games workshop line. Once they were highlighted, I washed them to tone it down a bit.
STEP TWELVE: I painted the face plate and blade housing's black. Some people prefer a metal color. It's up to you!
If you have your own way of basing your models, you're done! If you would like to base yours the same way that I do mine, continue reading
STEP THIRTEEN: Glue down your sand. Get annoyed with how long it takes
to dry. Be sure you let it dry completely. Remind yourself to glue it
down before priming next time. Use rubbing alcohol to thin the white
glue in the hopes that it dries faster. It still takes forever... I would suggest taking a break and doing something else at this point.
STEP FOURTEEN: After waiting 230982098 hours for the white glue to dry, paint your base black.
STEP FIFTEEN: Realize it takes a zillion years for paint to dry on sand as well. Once it's dry paint all the sand battlefield brown.
STEP SIXTEEN: Once the brown is dry, drybrush all the sand with menoth white base. Any bone or tan color will work as well. Go bonkers. This step takes about 5 seconds. I spend longer cleaning my brush after this step than I do drybrushing.
STEP SEVENTEEN: Paint the cork and any large rocks a dark grey color. Anything will work, if you don't have a dark grey just mix some black and white together till you have something that looks good to you. Once that dries, highlight it by adding in white and drybrushing or just highlighting. I often switch between the two from model to model depending on how patient I'm feeling that day. The effect is pretty much the same either way.
STEP EIGHTEEN: Glue down a couple army painter tufts. Or whatever tufts you use. Or some static grass. Grass is grass, right? You're almost done now, so you're probably at the point where you don't care anymore like me
STEP NINETEEN: Make sure there aren't any children around, or priests, or elderly folks for the amount of swearing you are about to do. Glue down secret weapon leaves. They come in a variety of colors, I think I have the summer pack. They run about $5 a bag and will last you forever.. I only put a couple on a base, I feel less is more when it comes to these. You want just enough to break up the sand/rocks/grass. Try not to get glue on your model, or your fingers, or all over the place. Needle nose tweezers are extremely useful here.
At this point, paint the rim of your base and your front arcs in a way that you normally do and you are done! Thanks for coming along, I hope you found this helpful.
