Warmachine – Thunderstruck #2: Cygnar Paint Test

4 Minute Read

May 9 2011

Work on my Cygnar army continues. I’ve managed to piece together the entirety of my 35-point force, save for the Stormblade Unit Attachment, which is currently in the mail, so I’ve begun painting up test models. Have a look:

I started with one of the Trencher models. When I worked out my paint scheme, I settled on drab earth tones, leaving out the standard Cygnar blue and gold. My reasons for this are many. First, if you’re job is to crawl around in the mud all day whilst avoiding enemy fire, you’re probably better off wearing something that will blend in better than blue and gold. Second, I’m also a Mercenary player, and I can use Trenchers with Magnus. In order to avoid “faction confusion”, I figured that generic earth tones were appropriate.

Starting from a black primer, all of my non-metallics were done using P3 paints while metallics were done using Citadel paints and washes. For the coat I painted several gradual layers starting from Battlefield Brown highlighted up to Gun Corps Brown using a wet palette. The leather pouches and backpack were painted from Battlefield Brown up to Bootstrap Leather. The wood grain was done by painting lines of Gun Corps Brown and then going back over them with Battlefield Brown again to make it look more broken up. I painted the boots by highlighting black gradually up to Coal Black, one of my favorite colors (very similar to a darkened version of Citadel’s Shadow Grey). Skin tones were Battlefield Brown to Khardic Flesh to Midlund Flesh with just a hint of Ryn Flesh. The silvers were done using Boltgun Metal with a Badab Black wash and some quick reclaiming work again in Boltgun Metal. They’re not exactly striking models to look at, but they really shouldn’t be anyway.

The Stormblade test model was going to decidedly use the standard blue and gold, starting with Exile Blue and highlighting up gradually to Cygnar Base Blue, Cygnar Blue Highlight, and finally a mix of Cygnar Blue Highlight with a litte bit of Frostbite to give it some pop on the table. The “arcane glow” was achieved with Meredius Blue highlighted up to Arcane Blue, and then to Frostbite. The brown padding was painted using the same formula as the Trencher’s coat. The golds were done with Dwarven Bronze washed with Devlan Mud, then gradually highlighted up to Shining Gold. To create some contrast, all the rivets were picked out in Thamar Black and then given a little dab of Shining Gold.

When I moved onto the Charger, I noticed that the same techniques for blue wasn’t really working. Starting from Exile Blue and working up produced to stark of a contrast for such a large surface, so I went over the model a second time starting with Cygnar Blue Base up to just a smidgen above Cygnar Blue Highlight. Luckily, I really watered down my paints so I was able to avoid a chalky finish after painting over the previous attempt. I’ve found that the P3 paint line really goes on well even when watered down. If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a look. Silvers and golds were done in the same manner as earlier.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with what I have going here. I managed to snag some little gears from the local Hobbytown to put on bases. You can usually find a few in the discount bin in the R/C section. I’ll be putting them on all my warjack, warcaster, and a few solo bases.

Next step: paint the 35-point army. I hope to have it done by the end of the month. Big thanks to Damien (aka Augustus of Dakka fame) for helping me with the photos!

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Author: relasine

Relasine is a veteran tabletop wargamer with over 10 years of experience. His specialty is Privateer Press' Warmachine & Hordes gamesystem. He began writing for BoLS in 2010.

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