Assistance painting/highlighting Imperial Fist Space Marines

[Infernal352]

Hi Everyone!

I've been painitng for roughly 2/3 years now, but I'm quite stuck on actually how to get my Imperial Fists looking good. I was wondering whether anyone could help me out with highlighting/basecoating techniques etc. Also any colours/paint ratios would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Infernal

[Dante]

yellow is a horrible colour to work with. Im sorry but it is.
wait imperial fists are the yellow ones right?

From my experience....

Prime the Sm white. Then wait for it to dry. Then wash it with yellow ink. Then paint it the kinds of yellow you want (like a darker goldenrod, or a sunburst yellow, or bad moon yellow...but for Imperial fists i think sunburst is the norm...)

[Infernal352]

I agree, yellow is an awful colour to try and work with, but it looks good when it's done! Heehee! Thanks for the tips dude, will try it out on a few 'practise models' before making an actual stab at it.

Infernal

[Sons of Russ]

I'm currently painting up the Imperial Fist 9th (Devastator) Company. Use multiple washes of ink. Mix a little soap in your ink to even it out. THen apply thin coats of inks. It wont look very good after the first coat. Keep going. You'll start to see a deep rich yellow after about 4-5 thin coats.

[Fiend]

Hmmmm, personally I'd steer clear of relying too much on ink washes, too messy and less reliable.

I'd go for this route:

1. Undercoat with white spray.
2. Paint all non-armour parts first as it will be easier to touch up mistakes on those than on the yellow.
3. Repaint any mistakes on the armour with white.
4. Paint on a standard yellow i.e. Sunburst Yellow - might take two thin coats to get a good colour.
5. (optional) Shade with Golden Yellow.
6. Line with Snakebite Leather.
7. (optional) Highlight with a mix of Sunburst Yellow and white.
8. Line edges with a lighter mix of SY and white (or maybe Bleached Bone on it's own).

[CaseyTheBrash]

The thing with yellow is, after you shade and highlight it, a nice ink wash will blend the colours together and make it more subtle. Reds, yellows and mixtures of tend to look better with some inking.

[Fiend]

Yeah, fair point, I'd agree AFTER a proper (even if simple) highlighting job, a GLAZE (not a full wash, that can obscure it particularly on lighter colours) can work well....then again if it's an army standard it might not be necessary, and you risk messing up other areas if you're careless.

[@licomb]

You should have a look in the "How to paint Citadel Minitures" book, you can get from GW, despite having quite a few horrid looking model as examples, it does have a very good section about highlighting, shading etc..

[Infernal352]

Thanks for the tips guys!

Infernal

[Civik]

also, try bringing it from yellow up to white... white is about the only thing you can highlight yellow with.

[self biased]

your base color ought to be bubonic brown, followed by golden yellow. wash with 2:1 orange ink to water.