Kickin’ It Old School, A Gallery of 12 Lessons: Painting Space Marines

There was time when Warhammer 40,000 was not only, “not a thing”, but was actively collapsing. This would be the dark times of second edition between 1993 through 1998. Shock Force had been released and was actively sucking up the disenfranchised Warhammer 40,000 players. I was able to acquire a substantial quantity of the first edition “beaky” marines, second edition “corvus” marines, and the some plastic Squats (space dwarfs). I used these miniatures to learn some of what not to do while painting and photographing miniatures.

I was a Demonblade Stormreaver at the time, going by the handle of Scrym Blackmane. The Stormreavers were volunteers from the community to spread the game. The first edition of Shock Force is miniature-agnostic, any miniatures will do. I painted up three squads of twenty figures each to use in my game demonstrations. This helped convert Warhammer 40,000 players over to the lightweight rules system, as they did not need to buy new miniatures.

What follows is a selection of miniatures that, while tabletop quality, are admittedly not well painted. The camera work is some of my first miniature photography. The photos were taken with a Sony Mavica floppy disk camera, seriously old school analog to digital technology. There are, however, visual references of what to avoid when painting in general, as well as some tips of what not to do in photography. If you are a Space Marines fan, you may wish to look away. Otherwise let me present a selection of my embarrassing learning curve disasters.

Lesson 1: Contrast Control

Static Space Marines must appear bold on the table. From 1 meter way this looks like red dots and orange lines. The contrast is too high and jarring.

Lesson 2: Subtle Highlights

Harsh contrasting highlights, such as those on the chest and sporran, while visible from a distance, look terrible up close if they are not blended well to develop a smooth transition from the base color to the highlight.

Lesson 3: Shade Adds Depth

The Armor lacks shading and because of that looks “flat”. With 50% of the miniature appearing as though it is “missing” or un-painted.

Lesson 4: Thick Paint Is Not Thicc

The plastics of the time had minimal details and a heavy application of paint obliterated them most effectively. The face appears as though it is armor, as does the beard.

Lesson 5: Eye Control

Besides looking like an American toy gun, the red cap on the end of the launcher pulls the viewer’s eyes away from the rest of the miniature.

Lesson 6: Respect the Details

Blobs of paint on the glove’s bolts and belt obscure the details. The chest conduits have texture that would have benefited from a good thin wash and highlight rather than a once-over layer of paint.

Lesson 7: Lighter Over Darker

The flamer tank “bulb” and “igniter nozzle” both would have benefited from being primed black, with a white undercoat applied to the detail areas for the red and yellow.

Lesson 8: The Background

When photographing miniatures, a neutral-colored background is usually best unless high contrast is required. Here, the backpack and most of the miniature are almost invisible.

Lesson 9: Base Appropriately

Plastic miniatures are very light; sometimes a weight is required to keep the miniature from falling over. Weights under the base should remain unseen.

Lesson 10: Focus the Camera

Modern phone cameras auto focus unless it ist told specifically where to look. The same thing with the old Mavica, it would assume. “Fuzzy” has a control, use it.

Lesson 11: Even Finish Coat

Unless the “speckled in the rain look” is desired, an even application of finish coat makes the miniature look better. The base coat of primer can also result in this visual effect depending on the manufacture used and its age. The older the primer the more likely this will happen.

Lesson 12: The Shine

If the desired visual effect is to look wet or gooey gloss is best used on these sections of the miniature. Gloss coating is intentionally shiny, thicker, and adds scratch resistance to the pain job. However satin and matte coats photograph better with less hard light reflection.

There are many more lessons I have learned over the years painting miniatures and, depending on how this one works out, I may do a few more of these articles featuring my disastrous experiences. I hope that anyone reading this will take heart, and continue to paint. I know how hard it is to show pride when you have produced offences such as these but, its a process of learning right? If you can learn from my mistakes, then you are a rung up the painting ladder.

– Dru

Kickin’ It Old School, A Gallery of 12 Lessons: Painting Space Marines

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