Tactical Marine Painting - Details

This post is a continuation of the tactical marine painting.  Part 1 can be found here.

In the armor painting post, I broke the painting into steps that were each well defined and timed.  However, with detail work that is not very easy to do, as each model will have slightly different details that you need to paint on them.  So instead of breaking the painting guide into steps, I will try to briefly describe how I painted some of the major details.

Skulls

There are skulls everywhere on marines - the armor, backpacks, and helmets.  I painted the skulls on my marines with a basecoat of Scorched Brown, and then a coat of Bleached Bone.  For the large skull on the flag carried by the sergeant, I highlighted it Skull White.

Wing Crest

For the wing crest on the chest of the marines, I basecoated it black, then drybrushed it with a 1:1 mix of Skull White:Chaos Black.  I do a lot of small mixtures like this because I don't have that great of a selection of paints, so I have to make my own a lot (in this case, a grey).  The drybrush gave it a nice, highlighted look.

Purity Seal

I painted the seal itself with two coats of Sunburst Yellow.  For the parchment, I basecoated it Scorched Brown then did a sort of drybrush with Bleached Bone to make it look kind of like worn paper.

Weapons

I used pretty much the same paint scheme on all of the weapons - a basecoat of a 1:1 mix of Boltgun Metal:Chaos Black followed by a highlight of Boltgun Metal.  For the meltagun barrel, I used a basecoat of a 1:1 mix of Shining Gold:Scorched Brown followed by a highlight of a 2:1 mix of the same paints.

Eyes

I painted the eyes yellow!


That pretty much sums up the detailing painting, now I just need to finish up the basing and the tactical marines are complete!  As for timing, the detailing took on average 45 minutes per marine, bringing the total time spent per marine up to 105 minutes.