Tutorial: How to Paint Salamanders Space Marines

This is the first of three tutorials voted for by the Tale of Painters Facebook group. This is a tutorial explaining how to paint Salamander Space Marines using the latest Games Workshop paints. The model above was painted in 15 steps. I break each step down with a high resolution picture and detailed instructions. Read the full tutorial after the jump.

I’ve designed this tutorial so established painters find it interesting but also so new comers to the hobby can learn some basic and advanced techniques. I will use terms such as glazing and washing, don’t worry if you don’t know what these mean because I will elaborate and explain during that step.

Paints you will need for this tutorial:

Black Undercoat spray 

Caliban Green (base)

Abaddon Black (base)

Moot Green (layer)

Gehenna’s Gold  (layer)

Leadbelcher  (base)

Agrax Earthshade (shade)

Runefang Steel (layer)

Eshin Grey (layer)

Storm Vermin Fur (layer)

Dawnstone (layer)

Evil Sunz Scarlett (layer)

Fire Dragon Bright (layer)

Yriel Yellow (layer)

Ceramite White (base)

Armageddon Dust (texture)

In case you need to expand your paint collection, head over to Wayland Games or Slave to Painting, which both stock a huge selection of paints at competitive prices.

1. Undercoat the model black and then basecoat the model with Warpstone Glow. This will take two or three coats by hand. 

2. Use 3parts Lahmian Median and 1 part Caliban Green to create a glaze and use it to shade the lower half of the armour segments. Do this again once it’s dry to increase the intensity of the shading. A third time is good if you want really dark shading. This method of glazing produces nice blends. 

3. Black in all the detail such as chest eagle, bolter and backpack. Then add some water to the black to thin it down and paint all the armour gap lines carefully with a fine detail brush. 

4. Edge highlight all the armour panels with Moot Green. Thinner the better, use your smallest brush. Thick lines can look unsightly. 

5. Paint the chest eagle and bolter icon with Gehenna’s Gold. A touch of Lahmian medium really smooths out this paint.

6. Paint the metallic areas of the bolter with Leadbelcher.

7. Wash the metal areas and the gold areas with Agrax Earthshade. 

8. Edge highlight the metal areas and the gold areas with Runefang Steel.

9. Highlight the upper areas of the black with a Eshin Grey. A touch of Lahmian medium can really soften the layers and aid blending into the previous layer. 

10. Highlight the Eshin Grey areas using Stormvermin Fur and a touch of Lahmian medium.

11. Edge highlight the Stormvermin Fur layer with a fine detail brush and Dawnstone.

12. Paint half the eye lens with Evil Lens Scarlett. Then paint the flame symbol on his right shoulder pad. You can do this freehand, or mark it out with a pencil first or even paint over a transfer.

13. Use Fire Dragon Bright to paint a smaller flame icon within the previous red one. Also paint a line of orange following the bottom line of the eye lens. 

14. Paint another flame icon this time using Yriel Yellow and ensure you can see the orange layer still.

15. Using Ceramite White paint on the Chapter Symbol. it’s quite tricky so feel free to use a transfer if you’d prefer. Then paint on a final white flame within the previous yellow layer on the right shoulder pad. Then add a dot of white in the corner of the eye lens and paint a hairline white line along the bottom of the lens. 

Finally, base the model in a way which fits in with your own army or gaming table. I’ve used Steel Legion Drab for the rim, Armageddon Dust for the base top and then drybrushed with Screaming Skull. Drybrushing is a way of picking out raised detail quickly usually with a lighter colour. To dry brush you need load up your brush with paint and then wipe it off the bristles on a tissue until virtually no paint remains on the brush. Then rapidly and repeatedly drag the side of the brush back and forth over the area to be painted.

Keep checking back regularly as I still have an Sons of Horus, Minotaurs and Ultramarine tutorials still to post.

You can view other Space Marine tutorials using these quick links. Imperial Fist, White Scars, Iron Hands.

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