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How to Paint IG Guardsmen

As with all my articles in here, this is purely a guide for those that want to use it. It is by no means the best and/or only way to paint IG, and I look forward to seeing your versions as well!

This article concentrates on the Valhallan troops on the IG sprue, which I am using with my new City Guard regiment in a kind of Steel Legion scheme (unintentional , it was pointed out by the local GW guys when I showed them some!).

Please excuse the poor quality ofthe photos at some stages in the process, but you guys should all know how small these things are!

The Colours used are all Citadel standard paints. I am just starting to paint the infantry for this regiment, but I usually paint 10-20 pieces at one time, taking me 30-50mins using this technique.

Stage 1: Undercoat in black. I believe that at this scale all infantry pieces should be indercoated black. Leaving tiny section of the black undercoat showing through when you paint adds instant and much needed depth to the mini which is not achievable easily with a white undercoat.

Stage 2: Using your preffered flesh tone (I use Bronzed flesh in this scale) pick out the areas of skin on the model, noteably the face and hands. If you are working on a competition piece then you can obviously pick out the facial features and individual fingers if you wish, though for rank and file troops this would be ....well.....insane...... Note here that the painting on the face is not very neat, I got some paint on the chest area. However, rather than change figures I have stuck with the same piece throughout this article to show exactly how it comes together. I did not correct the mistake as in an army of hundreds its not noticeable, in fact its hardly noticeable when you view the figure close up on a stand of five men!

Stage 3: Now we move on to the main area of the miniature, the overcoat. This is painted in snakebite leather. A small rim of black undercoat was left around the edges of the coat to add an instant blacklining effect. As mentioned above this helps to ad depth to the miniature and also helps define the colours which on a miniature this size can seem to combine and get messy.

Stage 4: Using codex grey pick out the helmet and all webbing and pouches on the figure. I Forget the proper term, but the sash running over the minis back ill later be picked out in another colour but the grey helps to dull it down and give it a "realistic" look. Its not totally necerssary to paint it grey, but it takes a second. It is also important to remember to pick out the tiny areas of trouser visable under the coat.

Stage 5: The gun is picked out using Snot Green ( you've gotta love the names of citadel paints....) Don't overdo the paint at this stage, just pick out the raised areas of the weapon as if you were drybrushing it. HOWEVER DO NOT attempt to actually drybrush it! I would love to be proven wrong but I have yet to drybrush a figure of this scale and have good effects, it is only too easy to end up painting the wrong areas especially on a recessed detail such as the gun.

Stage 6: This is where we start to add the little details that really make these troops stand above the crowd, even though they're 6mm tall! Using Bubonic Brown, highlight the raised areas of the overcoat. Only tiny amounts are needed and be sure to always have a margin of Snakebite leather showing through all around the Bubonic brown highlights. At this stage I would also advise that you paint the inner area of the cloak with Bubonic brown. As you can see, I missed this point whilst painting this figure and had to correct it at the end. It helps tidy up any mess caused when painting the trousers and also once again helps with depth.

Stage 7: This has to be the quickest stage in painting any epic miniature. Simply paint the sash in goblin green. Its nice and straight so it is literally one stroke of the brush. Thats it...done...next stage.

Stage 8 (Final stage of painting!): Using Elf grey, pick out all of the trim on the overcoat. This sounds crazy, but because the pieces are so nicely sculpted the trim does stand out everso slightly from the model. By holding the brush parallel to the miniature (as opposed to perpendicular as you would most of the time whilst painting) just draw the tip along the edges of the model VERY lightly. You don't want to have too much paint on the brush when you do this, or to have it too thin or else it will run off the rim and onto the other areas. The same applies to the sleeves and shoulder cord. Neatness is the key, there is not real "painting talent" involved.

With that finished you miniature is complete!

Stage 9: Now, in order to finish the preperations for the table top, you should add the guardsmen to a base (either Old style square or New Epic40k rectangles on your preference) and paint/model it to suite your gaming table. I Painted these in Shadow grey, added some flock, washed them with armour wash and then drybrushed in Fortress grey so they would fit in with my Cityscape boards (stil being mae themselves!).
Whilst this sounds like a lot of work for a base, it does make the finished product stand out a lot more and also takes very little time. As mentioned above, I paint infantry in groups of 10/20 pieces and I do similar with the bases. Paint up 3 or four batches of infantry and then paint all the bases in one go, it makes the total time a lot faster.

Stage 10: Repeat until you have a unit/ army! The exact same process can be used to paint all the units in an epic IG force, with slight alterations to suite the model. For Instance, the same process was used on the command model featured below, with the addition of some Dwarven Bronze trimmings and the Power Sword (which is painted using layers of Hawk Turquoise, Jade Green, Scorpion green and Billious green in order with no mixes).

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