Honsou's Guide to Painting Visually Improved Weapons

[Honsou]

Honsou's Guide to Painting Visually Improved Weapons

Now I am no great painter, but in order to disguise that fact I've picked up a few simple tricks that I use regularly. I have seen some wonderfully painted miniatures that seem to have given only very cursory attention to weaponry.

Most commonly I see bolters which have been given a simple coat of boltgun, maybe with a little detail on the eagle or a highlight here and there, so for this guide I will be using a boltgun to demostrate a couple of simple (and really quite obvious) tricks.

For the purposes of this guide I will be taking you through some simple steps to add some additional graphic details to your weapons, by contrasting two weapons that were painted simultaneously.

1. Spray or paint your weapon/model black. If you are painting a miniature you will likely have done this anyway - if you've got some paints on your weapons already while painting the rest of the mini you may want to just paint it over again, though this isn't strictly necessary.




2. Next, simply give the gun a heavy drybrush of Boltgun metal until it is entirely painted. This is the step where sadly people often stop, though I am assuming that we'll go a little further.




3. Next up, some very simple highlighting will add something to the gun, using a lighter metallic color. I have used mithril silver. In this case I admit I have not been hugely neat, but that isn't a huge problem. Alot of people miss this step out, but I've included it since it doesn't take a huge amount of effort, and it does help the look of the thing despite not being the "primary point" of this guide.




4. At this point, alot of weapons will have additional sculpted details such as eagles or skulls. Certainly both the Space Marine bolters I am using here do have these details - if your weapon does not, feel free to skip ahead to step 5. Because not all weapons have these details, I am going to summarize the steps in just one point.

You can paint your details up any way you want. Personally I am going for a very simple gold color, by painting the detail scorched brown first, followed by dwarf bronze and shinning gold. You can see these three steps in order below:






5. Now we get to the main, and final, point of this little tutorial. Although adding some highlights and painting up pre-existing details helps, this is still a very basic level. To really make the gun stand out, we'll add some colors and further detailing ourselves.

What we're going to do is pick out little details that might be colored (for example the gun safety, or some sort of electronic display or suchlike). You can use any colors you want, but for this guide I will be using red, yellow and blue.

Ideally, use foundation paints to put down the first layer, and follow this up with a brighter version of the color once it has dried. For my colors I used these combinations:

• Iyanden Darksun & Golden Yellow
• Mechrite Red & Blood Red
• Ultramarines Blue & Enchanted Blue

A good tip to remember is to try and differ the colors. Although a single color will add something, several (3 or 4, you don't want too many) will do even better and make it seem less monotonous.

Depending on the gun you'll have different details to choose from. On these boltuns there are a few details that appear to be various buttons or settings for the gun. As you'll see later other guns will have other details. Paint them as you see fit, the important thing is to get these details since they'll really make the gun stand out without having to put in very much effort at all.

Now for the picture. As you can see I have painted one gun and not the other, to show you how big the different really is, and how much more the gun stands out despite having put only minimal additional effort in.




Done. And you're done! As you can see, it doesn't take much effort at all. To demonstrate how this can work on other weapons, and how much choice you can have, I've also painted up a few other test subjects taken at random from my bitzbox. A little effort goes a long way!

[LutherMax]

Nice tutorial. I must admit I am guilty of neglecting weapon details, especially on Marines. Ork weapons scream out for creativity because they're all different but when you have a bunch of identical guns to paint you tend to cut corners.
I would maybe add that on boltguns in particular it's effective to paint the outermost casing in a non-metallic colour like black or dark grey.

[Skringly]

Good tutorial Hons. Can't help but think the red, blue and yellow looks a little clowny and not very realistic.

My personal preference is to keep the guns simple. Silver - highlight silver - black casing - highlight casing - gold iconorgraphy - scorch marks if needed. I don't like painting the little bumps and things seperate as they are made of the same material and most guns you look at tofay are all one colour, or have a single coloured casing that goes over a part of it. (Steyr AUG comes to mind here)

[Consadine]

Ew, primary colors.

I don't paint the casing silver. Usually it's the same color as the armor of the dude carrying it, or an accent (for my DA, that would be black or red, usually red). Then some quick scribbles with black or white paint.

Unless it's a chainsword. Then it's hazard stripe time.

[Skringly]

Unless it's a chainsword. Then it's hazard stripe time.

Black and white checkered pattern for me.

[UltraAdam]

Cool! Any more tutorials coming in the future?

[Honsou]

@UltraAdam: there will be, yes. I've already put up my leather guide, and I'm working on a couple of others. Mostly they're just "how to do x quickly/easily" types, but hopefully people will find them useful and interesting - at the very least I hope they encourage people. I am working on one or two other projects I'll most likely do guides for, but those are sikrit... so watch this space

@Cons: Absolutely, that's how it SHOULD be done. Bolters in particular come with a clearly defined casing, and painting this in a proper way is a great way to do it. Sadly a lot of people, even on this forum, simply drybrush it and call it done. If you're not looking to change that method, then this is a great way to add a little interest to it with minimal effort.

@Skringly: Perhaps so, but as I said it is "quick" rather than golden daemons. If you're going for a great painted mini then there are many better ways to do it. The thing is, it may look a little clowny like this but once integrated into the model it becomes a bit more "lost in the model" which means the colors just break up an otherwise very boring part of the miniature.

Like I said, it's not intended to be the be-all and end-all, just something to make people think that there's a little job that'll take them a couple of minutes to do and will make it that bit more interesting.