The weekend allowed me to make good progress on the Wolf Guard Terminator that I’m painting. The armour has come out OK, not as smooth as I’d like, but it has been a learning curve without a doubt. The key thing I’ve learned is that I need to ensure that my highlights are thin enough else they have a nasty habbit of applying poorly. The other item is that I need to ensure is that the mixes with Fenris Grey are mixed well enough because as previously mentioned that particular paint separates very quickly.
I’ve now started painting the red on the Terminator. I’m using a recipe that was shown in White Dwarf a few issues back when Space Hulk was re-released. The biggest drawback with this is that it is taking quite a while to actually paint. Now in fairness the terminator has a lot of red on it – both wolf claws, a knee pad and a whole shoulder pad. The overall effect is really smooth though, so it’s worth the time investment.
Although this miniature has consumed upwards of 8 hours time so far, I currently believe that painting power armoured marines will take less time providing I paint them in batches of between 4 and 6. Many of the issues I’ve come across so far have been technique issues as well – how thin to make the paint, what area to cover to achieve a smooth blend, neatness etc – all of which will improve with practice. I’ll also mix up a bottle of the base red colour I use which will also save some more time.