Imperial Guard

The Imperial Guard are probably one of my favorite armies, both to field, and to paint. While the new lead models don't really allow alot of conversions, the tanks are a blast to paint. And the Idea of being able to field a fully motorized force on a blitzkrieg makes me want to stock up on chimerras!

Unfortunately, I dont have any pictures of my tanks yet, but don't feel bad... my arsenal is still quite small. But here are a few of my favorite imperial guardsmen, and some ideas on how I painted mine.

The Mordian iron guard are quite possibly one of my favorite units. Though admittedly they look somewhat rediculous on the field of battle. The night I got my white dwarf with them in it, I happened to be watching COPS or something like that, and I saw the Rhode Island State Trooper uniforms, Which are very sharp. This gave me the idea for my mordian unit. The light blue-grey pants with the two orange stripes going down the sides look great, and are easy to do. Black boots, a sharp blue uniform, and shoulder pads to match his stripes complete the effect. I did all the trim on him in bronze.

This is my assault squad sargent. I took the hand with the sword off a mounted horseman model, and the red bandana completes the effect. I used a marine backpack to give him a jump pack, because the normal jump pack looks absolutely rediculous on a puny imperial guardsman. If you look close you can see a number on his front patch. I've numbered all my guardsman squads with roman numerals.

These Are my catachan jungle fighters. These are by far some of the best miniatures GW has come out with to date. They are very detailled models, and look absolutely stunning when painted well. I used polly paints Grass Green to do the guns, and Testors Zinc Chromate Green to do the shirt and bandana. A dark green for the pants, and a leathery brown for the accesories. The skin look was acheived by starting with a skin tone base, and applying many many coats of washes. What I did was take the skin tone, and mix it up on a pallette with about 70% water. Then I add very light brown one drop at a time to the mix, and wash the skin after each drop. Finally I darken the wash heavily, and thin it out, and apply two more final washes. This gives the skin a very dirty weathered look to it.

The ogryn is possibly one of my favorite models to paint. This one took me a number of hours to do. I began with the skin, basing it all in flesh tone. Then painting all the leather for the clothing on. On this model, the leather looks like it is a variety of pieces sewn together hastily, so to give it that unkemp look, I tried to make each peice a different leather color, or shade, and I painted the threads a dark brown, to bring them out. The bullets were done with a simple steel color, and brass tips. The gun is Polly's Grass green. The sword is silver, and the blood was accomplished by thining red with water and painting in downward streaks across the smooth enamel of the silver. Using enamels for the silver is a great way to produce these blood or rust streaks, because you can wipe across it with a tissue and really make it look like it's sitting on the sword, rather than painted on deliberately. Enamels can be thinned with cleaner, and brushed over one another for a translucent look. One of my Ogryns sports a cool looking pair of oakly irridium shades made by brushing thinned bronze over the silver enamel. You cant accomplish this look with an acrylic, though it does take alot longer. The skin tone was accomplished in the same manner as the catachans above, and the patch on his shoulder was done by thinning red with white into a pink, and lightly dabbing it in with water, to give it the look of blood being absorbed by the cloth. This took a few tries, so dont get discouraged.

White dwarf seems to be notorious for not putting pictures of any inquisitors or grey knights in after the release of second edition. (Aside from golden demon winners that is.) This makes it very hard to paint these guys the way you are supposed to. Not that that has ever stopped me before... but hey.. So this is my inquisitor. I painted it a long time ago, but I still like it. I decided to go with light grey, and lighter grey for the armor, and simply went wild on all his icons and decorations. I love the hooded look to this guy, and had considered converting one into a terminator chaplain before they came out with them. You can't see it, but on the back of the legs, I used light grey for the panels, and dark grey on the ridges.. this gives it alot of depth back there.. and brings out the structure of the armor alot.

Assassins are some of my favorite models. I really love the way GW has come out with a whole slew of new assassins, and really hope more are on the way. Here you can see my vindicator, and my run-of -the-mill assassin. For the Vindicator, I used Bad Moon yellow for the eyes, doing them first, then painting the whole guy black over his white primer (to keep the eyes bright) His face was a simple drybrush.. Then I simply painted in the ammunition. One thing I tried to do here was keep the model realistic. His wargear card says he has three different types of ammo, so I only used three colors for the bullets. My other assasin has a kind of chameoline look to him with a white to black fade job from bottom to top. It really makes him stand out from the boring black of other asssassins.

Well, I hope you enjoyed your little journey into the world of my Imperial Guard and Imperial agents. I certainly enjoyed painting it.

Tim Rightnour.

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