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Sunday, August 1, 2010

Tutorial - White Templars

The White Templars use the following GW colors:



Codex Grey
Astronomican Grey
Badab Black
Skull White
Chaos Black* (I used Black Grey from the Vallejo Model Color line, but Chaos Black will work as well)
Charadon Granite
Dheneb Stone
Devlan Mud
Bleached Bone
Mechrite Red
Blood Red
Boltgun Metal
Gunmetal Blue (from VGC)


I first applied Black Grey over the robes and shoulder pads.  Codex Grey was used as the first highlight of the robe and the highlight on the shoulder pads.  Astronomican Grey was used as a final highlight on the robes.  The robes and shoulder pads were then washed with Badab Black to tie the colors together and deepen the details.

The white armor was given a wash of Badab Black.  Astronomican Grey was painted over this, making sure to leave the darker color showing in the recesses.  Skull White was mixed 50/50 with Astronomican Grey to highlight the armor.  Pure Skull White was used to edge highlight the raised details.

Any skulls and parchment were painted Dheneb Stone before receiving a wash of Devlan Mud.  Bleached Bone was used to highlight the raised surfaces.  The purity seal and the models eyes were painted with Mechrite Red before being edge highlighted with Blood Red.  The arm and leg joints, bolter chains, and backpack exhausts were painted Charadon Granite. Codex Grey was used to edge highlight these details, and then a wash of Badab Black was applied to tie the greys together and deepen the details.

I paint my bolters black and then edge highlight the bolter casing with Codex Grey.  The detail piece on the bolter (skull, wing, aquila...in this case, it's a cross) is painted Codex Grey.  The clip, barrel, and other details are painted with Gunmetal Blue, from Vallejo's Model Color line.  Boltgun Metal is then drybrushed over the Gunmetal Blue, and the entire bolter receives a wash of Badab Black.  The detail piece on the bolter is then edge highlighted with Codex Grey.

8 comments:

  1. You doing some great stuff with your whites! Amazing contrast.

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  2. I wish you luck painting anything white! I painted a huge white consuls army last year, and it wasn't always fun! At times the White Paint became chalky

    Mitch
    http://ottawagamer.blogspot.com/

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  3. Thanks guys. The trick with painting white is to only use white for the edge highlighting. The bulk of the model will be a light grey. The model will look white from across the table, and look like you've done a lot more work than you actually did :)

    I learned this trick from lunchbox, a Golden Daemon painter on the Bolter & Chainsword forum. Ideally, you would blend your greys much smoother than I've done here, but I'm just looking for a good table-top standard for this force.

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  4. I really like the robes. They're so well done.

    How thin a wash are you doing with the Badab Black? I *BARELY* see it- did you water a wash down even further?

    All my washes come out muddy. I haven't figured out why. It's really frustrating.

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  5. @Loquacious: If you click on the pictures, you can see a bigger version, and can see the transitions a bit better. The second picture in the first series shows the robes with 2 levels of highlights over the basecoat of Black Grey. The third picture shows the difference that the wash makes, and how it helps to tie the colors together. The wash is painted on undiluted.

    On the armor, the wash is again applied undiluted over a white primer. Astromican Grey was painted over this to smooth out the shadows created by the wash.

    The washes I use are the GW washes. I've had the best luck with their new formulas. You may run into a defective bottle where the different elements of the wash have separated and started to dry. In this case, the different elements will never recombine, no matter how much you shake or stir. It's better to buy a new pot. I have tried other brands of washes as well, but I find that the GW washes work the best for me.

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  6. great tutorial and thanks for pointing me to it. your whites are more simple than what I'm doing, but looks great. I like your idea of painting a marine from each chapter and do a tutorial while you are at it! keep up the good work

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  7. I am currently painting up a White Templar Army and I played around with using really light greys, but the problem I ran into is that if they are ever around anything that really is white, they looked dingy. So I tried a couple of different methods of washing black or dry brushing white, and ultimately what I hit on is this.

    I take the white primered model and paint in the black areas like armor joints, shoulders, etc. I also paint black anything that is going to be metal. I then paint the purity seals, metal parts, etc. I next wash with Badab Black - the wash if applied to the metal etc. just like normal but I also wash every crevice in the armor. I try to be careful to not get it too far out of the crevice because that will mean more work for me later and being careful now pays off. Finally, I begin painting on the thin layers of skull white. I paint right up to the crevices or anywhere where I want shading but not into them. Any surface that is flat and white you have to really get a lot of thin coats on. I next hand paint the chapter symbol, writing on the purity seals, and do other touch ups. Keep in mind it is much easier to touch up over misplaced white than then to paint white over misplaced anything else. Then base as normal. You can use a gloss varnish on any white surfaces you want to be really shiny but I don't know that it is worth it. You can also use charred brown to paint carbon scoring on the white pretty easily.

    I haven't tried this with vehicles yet and I may want to try your grey system there again. I figure the vehicles might just be slightly grungy. I was going to stipple on some mud.

    Just my 2 cents.

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  8. @Dan: The method you've described would definitely yield cleaner, much sharper results. I'm afraid I don't have the patience required to apply that kind of method over an entire army. Good luck to you, the army sounds like it will look great when finished.

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