Hooray, another 6 minis painted, 24 done now and nearly a quarter of that Doom thing complete! I decided to make a little step-by-step illustration of the painting process here, to show the steps involved. I hope that some readers may benefit from this for their own painting, or give me ideas as to how to improve my own technique – feel free to comment!

First, I painted a prototype, and only then I went into “mass production” of the other 5 minis. Here it is, and more after the cut.

Revenant Prototype

As usual, I’m using exclusively Citadel paints. Not because I’d have any kind of agreement with Games Workshop, but because the paints are really good, have a wide range of available colors, and with all supplies from one hand I’m somewhat certain that I don’t get nasty surprises. And of course, because I’m used to them from my Warhammer 40k days. I also prime all my minis in (spray) black, as it gives them a darker tone from the outset than a white prime.

Oh, the happy woman you see on those pics, I have no clue who she is but she graces the newspaper I’m using as underlay. As Beat pointed out when he saw her, she’s certainly not afraid of monsters.

Red Armor

Silver Armor

First off, base paints. I went with Mechrite Red for the arms and the armor base, and Boltgun Metal for the shiny bits of the armor. I prefer darker colors as bases, because they allow for better highlighting later on, and personally I just love Boltgun Metal anyway.

As for the order of painting steps, it’s easiest to paint the things that are hardest to reach first (as I’m sure you know), this allows to correct mistakes and bloopers in those first steps when painting the outer layers.

After laying the foundation with those two colors and the black undercoat, off we go to add structure to the mini already: The next step was drybrushing the lower arms with Dwarf Flesh. I wasn’t sure at this point whether I’d drybrush the final step in Dwarf Flesh as well when I painted the prototype, but after looking at the really skinny tone I decided against it.

Arms Brushed

Body Brushed

Next, I started brushing the body. I knew from the outset that I’d add more than one layer here; the Bleached Bone on the black undercoat really doesn’t add a lot of depth and looks somewhat bland. I also made sure to brush liberally, as the next brush would then only cover some of the underlaying color and allow for some smoother transitions.

Armor Washed

The next step was both easy and produced great effects: I washed the armor with Badab Black. This is a step every painter should give the silver bits of his minis, it does make a world of a difference, and it nearly completes the armor already.

Body Washed

After the armor was washed, I let the minis dry a bit, because the next step now was another wash and I didn’t want the two washes to interfere with each other. The entire body, including lower arms, was washed in ample Ogryn Flesh. Ample because I wanted the black bits to take some color as well, and the bones would get another cover anyway.

Body Brushed Again

And here is the “other cover”: The body was brushed with Bleached Bone again, this time including lower arms. This pretty much concluded the base looks of the miniature, and on I went to paint details.

Details

So here the details are added. They’re quite a few: Thin Blood Red lines in every single red pipe of the body armor, and Mithril Silver lines in the silver bits. This was done both to accentuate the armor a bit more with color, and to make the bits look slightly more metallic. Then I went to paint the green search light thingies, including a tiny white spot for added shininess, and the red eyes.

Additionally, I went and tried to cover up all the spots where one color went into the other or was visible on an inappropriate spot.

The only thing left to do after that was painting the bases in Boltgun Metal and adding the bloody splatters.

Complete Revenants

That’s it, please let me know what you think of the tutorial-like nature of this post, and if you see any points where I could improve my technique. Or of course if you have further questions.