CoolMiniOrNot Forums - How to paint a vindicator (first article)
  • How to paint a vindicator

    Hi everyone. Here is my first article about how to paint a Space Marine vindicator in the colours of the Blood Angels. As I said, it is my first article here, but hopefully it might still be of some use to people. I painted it up before doing the article, so I have some Paint illustrations to help.

    Paints required/recommended:

    Blood Red
    Vomit Brown
    Blazing Orange
    Flesh (dwarf flesh/elf flesh if you have the man with gun)
    Dark Flesh
    Skorched Brown
    Chaos Black
    Boltgun Metal
    Mithril Silver
    Iyadan Darksun
    Sunburst Yellow
    Dneb Stone
    Bleached Bone
    Gryphonne Sepia (Wash)
    Ogryn Flesh (Wash)
    Baal Red (Wash)
    Badab Black/ Black Ink

    I very much went for the weathered siege vehicle look with lots of dirt and chippin on the paint. I think it turned out quite well.



    There were 3 main parts to this tank: the red, the metal and the weathering


    Painting the Red
    Because it is a Blood Angels vehicle it is red. I started with mechrite red as a basecoat. I then went over that with mechrite red mixed with blood red (1:1). After that I drybrushed up to the edges with pure blood red. The edges were painted in blazing orange then vomit brown. I also wash all the armour with Baal Red at this point, then re-highlight the vomit brown.



    Quite simple, and similar to painting blood angel troops.


    Painting the metal
    I was going for a very dirty metal look, so lots of washes.
    Paint it boltgun metal. Wash badab black or black ink. Wash with gryphonne sepia. Wash with ogryn flesh.Paint on some boltgun metal again, where there would be the most light. Highlight sparingly with mithril silver.



    The stripes
    The stripes were not too hard. Paint the dozer blade black then paint iaydan darksun stripes onto it. I then highlighted by adding in more and more sunburst yellow.



    Weathering
    To give it the beaten up and dirty look I weathered it considerably. Drybrush it liberally with black and browns and greys. Avoid getting 'dirt'above the third rung (see photo above).



    The other weathering is the chips in the paintjob. In chose to have some really big chips, specifically on the dozer blade. This is done after the rest of it is painted.



    First, paint a black spot in a ragged and non-even manner (figure 1).


    Figure 1:




    Then paint boltgun metal over the black, leaving an outline of black around it (figure 2).


    Figure 2: (grey = silver)




    At this point you will point wash/ink it as you did the rest of the metal. Experiment with making scar-like scratches on the surface or try to make it look like a shot from a las weapon.


    The details
    Finish up the rest of the tank's details, like the dude holding the heavy bolter (if you chose that option), the aquilas, lights etc. You might also want to use a transfer. I liked the name Annihilatum which means annihilated or something.

    And thats the vindicator done. Have fun bringing the pain onto the enemies of mankind in the form of large blast S10 AP2. Or just enjoy looking at it as part of your collection. Hope the article helped. For more articles and commission painting go to http://flagshipfigures.webs.com


    Cheers,


    Theo
    Comments 8 Comments
    1. Spongeboss Uru's Avatar
      Spongeboss Uru -
      Im sorry but vindicator at photo looks not so good painted. Paintjob looks pretty sleasy, especially metallics.
      Also bolters not drilled and I see a mold line at cannon.
      About article: it must include step-by step photos, IMHO.
      Sorry about my crticism and awful english.
    1. Flagship Figures's Avatar
      Flagship Figures -
      Yeah, fair enough. I think the flash is partly to blame - I must really get a better lighting set-up. Thought the 'sleaziness' of which you speak is somewhat intentional. It is meant to be oily and dirty. Anyways, thanks for the comment.
    1. locutus's Avatar
      locutus -
      i think it is a good example of how to paint one tabble top quality!!
    1. Flagship Figures's Avatar
      Flagship Figures -
      Yeah, I have no illusions about it being better than that. It is intended more for table-top gamers than for real dedicated painters.
    1. MikeLacey's Avatar
      MikeLacey -
      The article's a little brief but the Vindicator is NASTY - in a good way. Nice one.
    1. freakinacage's Avatar
      freakinacage -
      a good way to paint the chips and scratches is to use a piece of torn off blister foam. nice and ragged. it also pays to observe where wear and tear might occur (ie around edges of hatches etc) rather than placing it seemingly randomly. little things like this can make a massive difference
    1. Fuzzbuket's Avatar
      Fuzzbuket -
      id spray it blck first for an undercoat ( i think i can see plain plastic on the driver

      oh nad mask the stripes they seem rather wavy!
    1. RedStickStudio's Avatar
      RedStickStudio -
      While I realize this article was posted last year, I feel the need to point a few things out.
      1. Don't "cut out" the models when you're creating images to show examples of your work, or examples of the painting if you are attempting to write a how to. This gives a horrible white line around the model, and makes it look very shoddy. Try to work through, use proper lighting/lightbox, and a good background to take the photos as a solid item, rather than poorly cropping them out and adding them to a different background. Any of the images I've looked at, because of the cutting out and subsequent white line about the model make it very hard to see all the detail work close to the edge, and really make the quality degrade because of it.

      2. You need to add far more pictures, and explain this "how to" quite a bit better than you choose to do. I am a seasoned painter, yet when reading through your article, because you don't even give a hint of how it should look through areas you add multiple steps, there's a final product, and some brief bits of information saying, repeat this a few times and it should look right. This could have been a better article if you had explained the steps in depth more, and added a lot more images, and proper ones that show close up details to explain what you're telling someone to do, not white line edged ones that make it exceedingly difficult to determine what's going on in the image.

      3. Mould line removal...It's just a must especially if you want to show professionalism for examples of your work as a commission painter. I want people who wish to see examples of my work focus on the quality of the work, not the distractions caused by the mould lines, channels, sprue joins, and so forth.

      4. While I appreciate the attempt to show how to make weathered chips, doing it with paint program images doesn't help much, when trying to show how it would look on a model. Examples on a model would be far better.

      5. I recommend a high quality camera to do your shots (300dpi resolution and at least 12mp) as well as printing out a good, solid background colour. Posssibly a cloud style, as these images are fairly easy to find on the internet. It will help you a great deal if your works look very consistent in quality, both model painting and the photography. Macro mode on the camera is a must.

      6. Barrels drilled out, vindicator cannon filed flush...etc. It's not huge things, but the little things that really make a model stand out.
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