How to paint a Terrorizer – tournament gaming standard

My name is Jonas Faering – one of the owners of The Army Painter. As the name hints we are all about getting your armies painted quickly and on the battlefield gaming. In this step-by-step article I’ll demonstrate how to paint a Terrorizer from Hitech Miniatures to a good tournament gaming standard, spending a little over 1 hour of painting time on the model.

Since I'm surrounded by the stuff, I used only Army Painter Wargamer Brushes and Warpaints – including the new coloured Quickshade Inks and the Colour Primer Gun Metal which are to be released autumn 2013. A little inside teaser, if you like…



Tools of the trade:
Precision Hobby Knife
Superglue
Colour Primer: Gun Metal (out autumn 2013)
WP: Tanned Flesh
WP: Weapon Bronze
WP: Quickshade Dark Tone Ink
WP: Quickshade Soft Tone Ink
WP: Quickshade Red Tone Ink (out autumn 2013)
WP: Plate Mail Metal
WP: Shining Silver
WP: Barbarian Flesh
WP: Matt White
WP: Uniform Grey
WP: Ash Grey
WP: Pure Red
WP: Lava Orange
WP: Goblin Green
WP: Electric Blue
WP: Quickshade Green Tone Ink (out autumn 2013)
WP: Quickshade Purple Tone Ink (out autumn 2013)
Battlefields: Black Battleground
Battlefields XP: Swamp Tufts
Battlefields XP: Wilderness Tufts
Wargamer: Regiment Brush
Wargamer: Character Brush
Wargamer: Detail Brush
Wargamer: Insane Detail Brush



Step 1: Preparation
After cleaning the resin bits using my Precision Hobby Knife I glued the parts using Superglue. The resin cast from Hitech Miniatures was nice and crisp and needed little extra preparation. Next I washed the resin mini in soapy water to remove the release oily agent used in the casting process. The bath ensures your Colour Primer spray sticks to miniature.



Step 2: Resin
Leave to dry (or use a hair dryer).



Step 3: Spray primer
I primed the model using the Colour Primer: Gun Metal, a dark metal undercoat perfect for my Terrorizer – who will be part of my 40K Chaos Iron Warrior Obliterator squad. The Colour Primer is a combined primer and acrylic colour spray in one, meaning you only have to give the model one coat. Follow the guidelines on the spray closely.



Step 4: Flesh basecoat
Once the Colour Primer had dried, I basecoated the fleshy areas with WP: Tanned Flesh. At this stage I only use a Wargamer: Regiment brush (roughly equivalent to a size 1 or 2 brush). By sticking to a fairly large brush, you’ll speed up your painting no end.



Step 5: Gold basecoat
The rims of the armour and some of the tubes were painted WP: Weapon Bronze, still using the Regiment brush. The trick is to paint with a combination of speed and precision –you want the Gun Metal primer to be left as it is, saving precious painting time.



Step 6: Basecoat cloth
The loincloth was painted WP: Matt Black.



Step 7: Detail basecoated
The last bit of details were painted using the smaller Wargamer: Character Brush. WP: Dragon Red for the laser, WP: Daemonic Yellow and WP: Matt Black for the industrial stripes – that simply needs to go on any Iron Warrior miniature, WP: Greenskin and WP: Ultramarine Blue for the wires. Any mistakes made in the basecoat stages were touched up using the WP: Gun Metal paint, which is 100% match to the Colour Primer spray.





Step 8 & 9: Quickshade Ink wash
All bar the flesh areas, was painted in a 50/50 mixture of WP: Quickshade Dark Tone Ink and WP: Quickshade Soft Tone Ink. By mixing Soft Tone Ink in the black Dark Tone Ink I made the wash slightly more transparent without weakening the ink by thinning it with water. To any readers unfamiliar with The Army Painter Warpaints Quickshade Dark Tone Ink, it is very similar to GW Badab Black; a strong black ink. I applied my Quickshade Ink mix using my trusted Regiment brush once more.



Step 10: Red Quickshade Ink flesh wash
The flesh was given a wash with WP: Quickshade Red Tone Ink; a dark reddish tone – darker than your every day typical red ink, designed to give a solid shade with one coat. Please note, the WP: Quickshade Red Tone Ink is not available until autumn 2013.



Step 11: Metal highlight 1
The Metal was highlighted first with WP: Plate Mail Metal…



Step 12: Metal highlight 2
… and then with WP: Shining Silver. Even for these fine highlights I used a fairly large brush – the Wargamer: Character brush. Large brushes = fast painting.



Step 13: Flesh highlights 1
I highlighted the flesh using WP: Barbarian Flesh, still using a Wargamer: Character brush.



Step 14: Flesh highlight 2
The second highlight on the flesh was painted with a 50/50 mix of WP: Barbarian Flesh and WP: Matt White. This time I used the Wargamer: Detail Brush to keep the lines fine and neat.



Step 15: Black highlights
The cloth was highlighted first with WP: Uniform Grey, followed by a thin line of WP: Ash Grey.



Step 16: Details
I painted the laser like a gem stone using WP: Pure Red and WP: Lava Orange, the wires were highlighted using WP: Goblin Green and WP: Electric Blue using Wargamer: Insane Detail brush.



Step 17: Black base and ready for gaming
The base was painted black and the model is almost ready for the battlefield.



Step 18: Extra Quickshade Ink Tones
To add a few extra effects I experimented with the new Warpaints Quickshade Ink Tones; WP: Quickshade Green Tone Ink on the Bronze and a little WP: Quickshade Purple Tone Ink in the deepest crevasses on the flesh. I finished of with a bit of WP: Quickshade Strong Tone Ink adding a little extra depth to some areas of the metal armour.



Step 19: The base
The base was done using Battlefields: Black Battleground (which is basically pre-coloured sand, ready for drybrushing), highlighted with WP: Monster Brown and WP: Skeleton Bone. And lastly I glued in some Battlefields XP: Swamp and Wilderness Tufts.

So - there you have it. A decent looking tournament gaming miniature, painted quickly using Colour Primer spray and acrylic Quickshade Inks.