For the Ginger Dwarf: A Charity Painting Project in the 41st Millenium

Obviously, in normal circumstances, painting models to match a force would be a bit time consuming but perfectly doable. These aren’t normal circumstances though… the painted models are miles away at Blackjack HQ and the unpainted ones are here, north of the wall.

Oh, and I only have a week to paint them up.

Best get the recipe then! Andy sent me through the paint list and I already had all but one of them.

“I did them with an airbrush though and it might be hard to do it without” he said.

“Not a problem,” said I. “I bought one of those cheap ones you talked about in a video last year. It’ll be good to use it for something other than just priming.”

Dominik had built and primed the impulsor before offering it to me and then very kindly built the space marines before sending them on to save me some time. A quick bit of mould line checking, barrel drilling and mounting for painting and we were good to go. Time elapsed, about 30 minutes.

First instruction, prime black. Easy peasy. Mostly. Maybe I have the paint a bit thick, the airbrush isn’t loving it. It’s fine though, all done. Time for lunch and giving the compressor time to cool down. This is a cheap machine and so I don’t run it longer than 30 minutes to prevent overheating.

Next instruction is to hit them from underneath with Screamer Pink (GW). Okay, straight forward. Must remember to thin it more than the primer. Hmm, by the forth model, the airbrush is playing up again. Now I remember why I only prime with it when I have to! It’s just too cheap an airbrush and compressor to really cope more than a few minutes use at a time. Oh well, in for a penny as they say…

Third step, and the last one with the airbrush thankfully, zenithal Averland Sunset. Okay, this looks cool and there’s no way I’d have done it with a paintbrush but, in the name of the Emperor, am I glad to be done with the airbrush.

Next it’s time to pick up the paintbrush and work on the bits that really make a space marine pop.

The instructions were:

– shoulder trims painted Mephiston Red
– aquilla painted Khorne Red
– silver parts are Leadbelcher (I switched this with Gun Metal by Army Painter)
– pouches and belts etc are Abaddon Black.

Stopping these here. Until I have the original models in hand, I don’t want to put them on bases. Fingers crossed they won’t need many tweaks but it’s a waiting game.

Now to turn my attention to the tank Dominik sent me.