Recently, GW published their process for painting Flesh Tearer Space Marines. This could not have come at a better time for me. I was planning on starting a small squad and seeing this article pop up in White Dwarf was absolutely perfect.
The picture above is from that issue of White Dwarf and explains how they go about painting their models to get the appropriate look.
A quick look through the process and it didn't appear to be too difficult. I did question the order they did some of their steps in though. I've talked about this before when it comes to painting certain things first and the order things should go in to make it as painless and as easy as possible. The Back to Basics series covered this in depth, but the Light colored primer post really outlined why things are painted in a certain order.
So, I took their process and changed it around slightly to accommodate my needs and came up with this process for the armour.
While it may look like it has more steps and is more work, it's because broke them down to show the differences between each step involved.
1. Basecoat the red areas with Mechrite Red.
I decided to start with the red as well with this guy since it covered more of the model. This means I would have to finish the metal and black areas carefully. If I'd gone the other way, I could have done all the metals and black portions quick at first but would have had to work with the red areas carefully. It comes down to your preference.
2. Go over the Mechrite Red with Red Gore and then clean up your work with black.
The Red Gore is a bit darker and cooler than the Mechrite is and really gives them that dark feeling in the end. If you're looking to just get close and keep the steps to a minimum, you could cut out this step and still end up with something close.
3. Silver over the metal areas.
4. Now wash the whole thing with GW Badab Black. Instead of having to do the red areas at one time and the metals at another, the whole thing is done right now. I was a bit more careful in my application of the Black wash and tried to keep it to the recessed areas on the red armour.
5. Add your Bleached Bone highlights.
Boy does this guy look funny at this stage. You would think whoever told you to do this was wrong when you look at the model after this step. Try and keep them thin and clean, it helps with the final look of the model.
6. Wash the highlights with Baal Red. I made two passes over the highlights in oder to get them to blend in nicely.
After that, it's a matter of finishing off the details like skin, iconography and such with whatever formulas you may use.
The base on this guy was done just as quick with a focus on good results in a few steps.
1. Basecoat with a light grey color.
2. Wash with thinned GW Charadon Granite.
3. Add shadows to the recessed areas using a variety of 3 GW wash colors. Badab Black, Devlan Mud and Gryphonne Sepia. Once that dries, take your original light grey color and do a quick drybrush to pull some of the details back out.
And the finished model:
Not bad for quick tabletop results and he matches the "Official" GW scheme as well. I'll be honest, I really like the color scheme these guys have. I'd go so far as to say they are up there in my top 5 color schemes.
My Project Link: Flesh Tearer Squad
