How to Paint… an Imperial Guardsman

Last weekend I was in the middle of painting up my small Space Wolves army (I’ll throw photos of that up when I’m done sometime in the near future) when I decided I needed a break from painting all that grey and yellow. You’ll find that happens whenever you’re working on a lengthy project, especially one with continually uniform colours – you’ll just want to paint something different for a change. Well, anyway, I had a rummage through my bitz box and found that I had a fair few pieces left over from the last Imperial Guard army I put together. That being the case, I opted to create an Imperial Guard Veteran Sergeant and write a ‘How to…’ article around it. So here goes.

Okay, here’s a shot of the Sergeant all assembled and undercoated, ready to go. If you’re interested in what parts I used, here’s a list, starting from the bottom up.

• Base: I cut a circle of plasticard (I’ve found that a nickel is a perfect template for this as its size almost matches the top of the base) and then cut it into three lengths. I then cut thin strips off these so that there would be gaps between them when I stuck them on the base. Then I cut the lengths across to make square paving slabs (or the illusion of square on the curved edges). After distressing the plasticard a little (beveling the edges, cutting holes and cracks) I superglued all the pieces onto the base.
• Legs: These are the standard running legs from the Cadian sprue. I pinned up through the right leg to give the miniature some more stability. I also added a Kroot knife to the left ankle armor, with a thin strip of greenstuff folded around it to represent a leather strap. I would have preferred a straight bladed knife but GW’s sizes are always off and even the smallest Imperial knife I could find was way too big.
• Torso: Standard Cadian torso, although with a pouch attached to the right side of the chest armor. This pouch is from the curving set of three pouches you get on the Space Marine sprue; I just cut one off carefully.
• Left Arm: The standard Sergeant arm from the Cadian sprue.
• Right Arm: This is the Missile Launcher arm from the Cadian Heavy Weapons sprue, with the hand cleaned up a little and the gap in the shoulder pad filled in with greenstuff (although I’m not too happy with the end result). I used this arm because I wanted a different pose than the normal arms offered and although the regular Sergeant’s right arm would have been similar, the actual angle between the forearm and the shoulder pad is too tight to fit another weapon in there instead of the Laspistol. Speaking of which, the Bolt Pistol is just a Space Marine Bolt Pistol with the hand removed, glued and pinned to the Sergeant’s right hand, with greenstuff covering any gaps. I drilled the barrel out (as always) and added a purity seal (again from the Space Marine sprue).
• Backpack: The backpack is the Catachan voxcaster, which is such a better looking version than the Cadian version. I added some Kroot grenades to one side – they look more old-timey than regular Imperial grenades and I figured a Veteran would have picked up odds and ends of equipment, scavenging from the battlefield.
• Head: The head is the Cadian Sentinel Pilot’s head and as such is the only metal component in the entire miniature.

The overall impression I wanted here was a grizzled old veteran soldier with a variety of weapons and gear, but which was also still identifiably Cadian.

Onto painting. I decided to stick with the basic Cadian colors. Surprisingly, given that I’ve now built and painted three Imperial Guard armies, I’ve never painted the traditional Cadian color-scheme. So this would be a new experience for me and would be a more reliable guide for new/struggling painters (it’s better to stick with familiar/common paint schemes when you’re starting out, as they tend to be the simplest).

I always paint the base of a miniature first. The only reason I do this is because this usually involves drybrushing, which is a messy process and I tend to get paint over the feet of the miniature. That’s not a huge problem at this point, as you can use touch up the undercoat with black paint. But if the miniature was fully painted it would obviously be a lot more difficult.

This base was easy to paint. I made up a 50/50 mix of black and Codex Grey and heavily drybrushed the entire base. (‘Heavy’ drybrushing is exactly the same as regular drybrushing except you do more and more of it, so that you get almost an even color.) I then drybrushed over the base with regular Codex Grey. Finally I lined all the edges of the paving slabs with Fortress Grey.

Note that I left the edge of the base untouched, however. This is because I need to hold the miniature by the base while painting it and my fingers would rub off any paint there over time and continual handling. I always paint the edge of the base as the very last step.

And the reason I went for a grey, urban base? Because the base has to contrast with the miniature in order to make it stand out more. If the miniature is painted in browns and greens, then a grass/earth base would look awful (if sensible). Likewise, if the figure is painted in an urban camo scheme, then you actually want to shy away from grays and blacks on the base. You can do this, but you have to be very talented or very lucky to pull it off.

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Now, depending on what you read, painting guides will often tell you to start from the outside-in (i.e. paint the armor, then fabric, then flesh) or the inside-out (i.e. start with the skin, then fabric, then armor, etc.). Neither of these ways are wrong per se but I just tend to paint the easier and larger areas first. That being so, I started with the armor (helmet, chinguard, chest plate, shoulder pads, greaves, and Bolt Pistol casing).

I paint using the 3-Paint system, which is not only quick but very simple to master and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s starting to learn to paint. Basically, as its name suggests, this system involves only using three paints on any one given area of the miniature (although I do sometimes use four or five or more, depending on how much detail I want – but three is just fine for tabletop rank-and-file miniatures). These three colors are similar but are broken into shade, basecoat, and highlight. For example, if you were painting Ultramarines’ armor, you’d want a dark blue, a blue, and a light blue.

Although this is an easy way to paint (trust me, it really is!) the complexity lies in choosing the right colors for your shades and highlights. After all, the basecoat can be whatever you want it to be, but the others have to be a darker or lighter variation of that basecoat. And how easy that is depends on how limited the range of paints you’re using is. (Some paint systems, such as the Wargames Foundry’s, are actually marketed to appeal to 3-painters – you buy a three pack of paint which includes the shade, the basecoat, and the highlight.) Unfortunately, and believe it or not, Games Workshop’s range is a little limited in places.

On their website GW recommend Dark Angels Green for the basecoat of Cadian armor but I thought that was too… well, too Dark Angels-y. I chose Catachan Green instead (which is what GW recommends in the IG Codex… why two separate painting instructions with the same results? Who knows?). And that’s when I ran into a problem. There was no shade color. The only darker green in the GW range (ignoring the Foundation paints, which have the Knarloc Green, which might have worked) is Dark Angels Green and the two don’t work together. Dark Angels Green is a bright color, despite its darker hues, and looks very unnatural. Perfect for power armor, but not for regular armor. Catachan Green is a more natural green color, that’s duller despite being lighter in hue.

So I had to mix paints to get the darker shade of green I wanted. Again, be careful here. You should know that you can’t just add white to something and expect it to get lighter (try adding white to red, for example) and nor can you just add black and expect the same color only darker. The best way to darken greens is to add a similar brown, believe it or not, and so I rustled up a 50/50 mix of Catachan Green and Scorched Brown.

Here’s where the 3-paint system really shines. You slap the shade color all over the area first. You then carefully paint the basecoat color on the area too, but making sure to leave the shade in the recesses (the shade also helps build up the color when using a black undercoat, by the way). You then highlight the edges of the area with the highlight color. You see how easy it is? With this method you’ll find you’ll hardly ever use a wash or drybrush (both of which can be messy and daunting for newbie painters) and the end result is great (at least for tabletop quality).

So you see here I used the 50/50 mix to shade the armor first, then used straight Catachan Green to basecoat the armor, leaving the mixed shade in all the recesses (mostly on the chest plate). I then mixed up a 50/50 mix of Catachan Green and Camo Green and applied that as a highlight. (Some practical advice for newbies – don’t mix paints. Trust me, it’s not worth it. I’ll explain my reasoning if you’re interested but for right now suffice it to say, don’t do it.)

I actually don’t highlight per se. The technique I use is often called ‘extreme highlighting’ or (I prefer) ‘hard edging’. Basically, highlighting involves picturing where the light source is coming from and thus where it would hit the miniature and painting the correspondingly raised areas a lighter color. That looks great if you can do it but it is time-consuming and requires a lot of experience. Hard edging instead uses a single lighter color on all edges, not just where the imaginary light is hitting. Obviously this is much easier and quicker to do, and when combined with black-lining (we’ll come to that later) it gives the miniature an almost cartoony look, which I find ideal for the silliness that is tabletop wargaming.

Once the armor was done, I double-checked the miniature all over and retouched the undercoat wherever I’d been a little messy with the painting. You know how GW articles on painting also tell you neatness is the most important thing? Well, that’s true to an extent. But relax a little – neatness counts more as you go along and it’s a lot less important at the start of any paintjob. After all, if you’re using a black undercoat you can just paint black straight over any errors. When you start adding more colors, however, you will need to be neater as any mistakes will be harder to fix. So don’t worry at the start, just get the paint on the miniature. Try to be neat, but if you make mistakes, don’t panic.

The next step was the fabric of the soldier’s uniform. Again, I chose the base color first. You always want to do this, because the base color is obviously the final color you’ll see. For the tunic I chose Desert Yellow as the basecoat.

First of, however, I painted all the fabric with Graveyard Earth. It’s a nice, mild brown that has a yellow-color to it, and so it is perfect as the shade color for Desert Yellow. Unfortunately, Graveyard Earth is rather a thin paint and so you may have to do more than one coat to get an even finish. (I did three!) I actually made a couple of small mistakes here, splashing the Graveyard Earth color over green armor on the right should pad and the backplate. To fix these mistakes (which is harder, remember, than fixing mistakes over the black undercoat) I painted over them with Catachan Green and then re-highlighted the edges. Pretty simple, quick and easy.

And here’s a good opportunity to talk about black-lining. You’ll notice in the shots above that I left some space between the fabric and any other areas it meets, so that a thin line of the black undercoat shows. That’s called black-lining (although an alternative method with the same results is to paint the black lines on after painting the miniature) and it gives the miniature a more unrealistic, cartoony look. As a result, it’s not popular but it is an effective method of painting and helps miniatures stand out on the tabletop.

I then carefully painted the tunic with Desert Yellow (again, another thin paint, so I did several coats). As this was the basecoat I made sure to leave the Graveyard Earth shade in all the recesses. Patience and carefulness is the key here. This is tricky to do even with one coat but when you have to do several coats because the paint is thin, you really have to take your time and be as precise as possible. But always remember – if you screw this part up, just let the paint dry and then paint the recessed area again with the shade color. Let that dry and start where you left off with the basecoat.

Finally, I mixed a little Skull White into some Desert Yellow (about a 25/75 mix) and highlighted the fabric. Again, I edged everything, but fabric is harder to highlight that flat surfaces, so I also highlight any raised areas of cloth and bends (elbows and knees). When you’re doing this, just look at the miniature and follow the lines of the folds in the fabric. Keep the amount of paint on your brush small and paint thin lines. You can always add more thickness. And again, if you mess up, just repaint the area with your basecoat and try again.

Next up was all the leather areas. Basically this meant the knife strap, the variety of pouches, the goggles straps, the chinstrap, and the backpack. These were all painted with Bestial Brown first as the shade. I then painted Snakebite Leather as the basecoat, carefully leaving the darker color in all the recesses. Finally, I added a tiny bit of white to the Snakebite Leather (probably a 10/90 mix at the most – from experience I’ve learnt that Snakebite Leather is one of those colors that really changes the more white you add) and highlighted all the leather areas.

After that was completed I moved onto the metal areas. I usually paint the metal areas first on miniatures, because I’ll drybrush them (so as to speed up the painting process) and this is messy and gets the metallic paint everywhere. However, I intended from the get-go to be more careful with the metallics on this miniature and not drybrush, so I left it until now.

I started by carefully painting Boltgun Metal on all metal areas (the teeth and motor of the chainsword, the pommel, guard and blade of the knife, most of the Bolt Pistol, all the voxcaster, the goggles’ edges and clasps). With metallics, I always use the black undercoat as the shade. The alternative is to use a Black Ink wash on the metallics but not only is that time-consuming and potentially messy, I also think it doesn’t look as good.

You’ll note that I took a few seconds to tidy up any metal button areas (mostly on the pouches but also on the voxcaster) with black. This will make the metal button stand out more (blacklining again).

I then edged all the metallic areas with Mithril Silver. I also dotted all the buttons with Mithril Silver.

At this point I went back to the hilts of the two Close Combat Weapons – the knife on the boot and the chainsword. I shaded these with Scorched Brown, and then painted them with Bestial Brown. Adding a tiny bit of white to Bestial Brown made a highlight color, which I very carefully applied to just the “top” areas of each section of the hilts. I could have painted these in similar colors to the leather areas but doing different colors helps break the miniature up a little more.

The chainsword covering was going to be left black but I needed to highlight it. I mixed some Codex Grey with black (about 50/50) and very carefully lined all the edges of the chainsword. I then used Codex Grey on its own to highlight the corners very slightly. You’ll note that earlier I highlighted the Guardsman’s boots in the same manner.

Okay, onto the skin of the Veteran Sergeant. Before we actually start painting any flesh areas we have to paint the eyes. Now, sometimes I’ll paint the shade flesh color before doing the eyes – this gives a more natural look – but generally I find it easier to paint the eyes first, straight over the black undercoat. This enables me to fix mistakes more easily.

Eyes are simple and just take a steady hand and a small brush. Get a tiny bit of white paint on your brush tip and paint a horizontal line on each eye. If the eye shape seems too weird, large, or really bad, use black paint to shape it correctly. If you use too much black, try again with the white. Once you’re happy with the basic eye shape, use a little bit of black paint and either dot the eye (which can be tricky) or paint a vertical line. Usually you’ll want to do this in the center, although you can have your miniature looking left or right, or whatever.

Now you’ll want to paint the skin of the Guardsman. Start by applying a shade color – I invariably use Tanned Flesh (it’s less dark than Dark Flesh and looks better for Humans) – to the hands, face and neck. You have to be really careful here, making sure to get the shade color in all the recesses (including between the fingers) but also making sure not to get it on any other already painted part. On the face, be sure to leave a thin black line around the eyes and at the edges (wherever the skin meets another part, such as the interior of the helmet or the neckline).

I also tend to leave a thin black line between the lips of a miniature; although you can just use the shade color if you like (I just don’t think it looks as good).

Once the shade is done, move onto the basecoat, for which I use Dwarf Flesh. Again, you want to paint the entire area, avoiding the recesses.

For a highlight, I use Elf Flesh and I apply this to most of the skin, avoiding the recesses a little more this time. Personally, I add one more highlight for flesh, which is a 50/50 mix of Elf Flesh and white and which I apply only to the highest raised areas (nose, cheekbones, knuckles, etc.).

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You can relax, we’re almost done. And from here on in its all easy stuff.

Because the remaining areas are so small, I painted several of them at one time (this saves paint in the long run, honestly). So I started with a button on the back of the voxcaster and the wax seal of the purity seal. Both of these were going to be red. I painted them first with Mechrite Red (it’s one of the Foundation Paints and a fantastically good red, especially for basecoating over black). I then basecoated them both with Blood Red (although on the voxcaster button I painted the button more like a lens, so just a crescent shape of Blood Red and the bottom) and then highlighted them with a 50/50 mix of Blood Red and Blazing Orange (on the very top of the purity seal and a very thin crescent line on the bottom of the voxcaster button).

The remaining buttons on the voxcaster I painted using the same method but with blue instead of red. I painted the lenses of the goggles at the same time and in the same way (although because of their different shape you have to be more careful), using a 50/50 mix of Enchanted Blue and Regal Blue for the shade, then Enchanted Blue as the basecoat, and then adding increasing amounts of white for several subsequent highlights (the color gets lighter and the line gets thinner the closer I get to the bottom of the lenses).

I shaded the parchment of the purity seal with Graveyard Earth, and then painted it with Kommando Khaki. I then edged the parchment with a  50/50 mix of Kommando Khaki and Bleached Bone (and with just Bleached Bone for the corners). I then took a very thin brush and painted very thin lines of Graveyard Earth horizontally down the parchment to represent text (remember to keep them thin and even but of different lengths – that way they look more like words at a distance). The eagle on the chainsword was painted in the same way.

The Sergeant’s stripes on the left arm were both painted with Fortress Grey (leaving black lines between them), merely to act as a bright undercoat for the white paint. I then painted the stripes and the eagle on the chest plate with white. At the same time, I put a dot of white (or two) in the upper right corner of the lenses on the voxcaster and the goggles.

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Nearly complete now. All I had to do was to apply any transfers. These are pretty tough to do (at least on the Cadian armor, as more curved areas make transfers impossible to use, I’ve found – Space Marine shoulder pads are the worst). Once the transfers were in place, I used Catachan Green to paint over the glossy clear parts of the transfers. This helps blend the transfers in and makes them look more realistic.

Finally, I wasn’t happy with the highlighting on the armor – it seemed too subdued to me. So I went back and added a very thin highlight of Camo Green to the edges and then a 75/25 mix of Camo Green and white to the corners. I was also tempted to add some battle damage to the armor but decided not to in the end.

So, a quick splash of Codex Grey on the edge of the base and, once completely dry, a couple of coats of matt varnish, and we’re completely done!

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So there you have it. How to paint an Imperial Guardsman. All you need is a steady hand, lots of patience, the right paints. Anyone can paint this well, given time, believe me. And once you get this method down, you’ll be able to branch off into more complex techniques.

As always, comments are welcome. If you have questions, I’ll do my best to answer them. I’m always more than happy to help teach people paint (as best I can, I know I’m not the world’s greatest painter or anything).

Also, if anyone has anything that they’d like to see a ‘How to Paint…’ guide on, I’d be happy to hear suggestions. It depends on what bitz and miniatures I have lying around, of course.

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