Tutorial: How to paint an Imperial Knight of House Hawkshroud

This is a tutorial on how to paint a Hawkshroud Imperial Knight. It’s a painting guide for dark metals, yellow, blue metals and white. This is enough information to paint the most of the model. Check it out after the jump. 

If you’re familiar with Tale of Painters’ tutorials then you may have noticed this is a different format to what I usually post. Because I had already completed these areas without taking step by step photos I’m unable to post the tutorial in the usual format. 

This tutorial assumes you have a basic understanding of how to paint. For the beginners, I will explain the techniques as I go along. Each picture below shows four chronological steps. Underneath each picture are the corresponding instructions. Each step shows the paint I used during that step.

Paints you will need for this tutorial:

Black Undercoat

White Undercoat

Lahmian Medium (technical)

Warplock Bronze (base)

Leadbelcher (base)

Nuln Oil (shade)

Yriel Yellow (layer)

Skrag Brown (layer)

Flash Gitz Yellow (layer)

Ushabti Bone (layer)

Runefang Steel (layer)

Guilliman Blue (glaze)

Ceramite White (base)

Fenrisian Grey (layer)

Russ Grey (layer)

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. 

Preparation

Don’t assemble the whole model. This model is easier to paint in sub assemblies. Leave all the armour pieces off and undercoat these white. The rest of the model which is the skeleton of the model undercoat black.

Step 1: Dark Metals.

1.1 Basecoat: Paint all the skeleton areas with Warplock Bronze. You can apply this with an airbrush if you have one to speed things up. 

1.2 Highlight: Dip a large drybrush (fan shape) into some Leadbelcher metal paint. Then take the paint off of the bristles by wiping it repeatedly on a dry tissue so there is virtually no paint left on the brush. Then using a back and forth motion drag your brush tip repeatedly across the model. Do this several times building up the layers. 

1.3. Shading: Using a large brush (Citadel make a great wash brush) apply a hefty dose of Nuln Oil all over the metal areas. 

Step 2: Bright Yellows

2.1 Undercoat: You should have already undercoated al the armour panels white. There will be some areas that need to be yellow but are part of the metal sub assemblies, such as the toes and the engine casings on the waist. Yellow is quite a light, thin colour and doesn’t paint over dark colours so well so you need a white base coat to ensure the brightest possible yellow. Ceramite White is perfect for base coating. It just needs a couple of coats. Thin your paint with a touch of water to ensure a smooth coat. 

2.2 Basecoat: Paint over the white areas with Yriel Yellow. If you own an airbrush you could spray all the separate armour pieces individually. Otherwise a couple of watered down coats with a large brush will suffice. When painting light colours it’s easy to end up with thick paint and brush marks. So water your paints and try to paint on the coats in as few brush strokes as possible. 

2.3 Shading: Create a thin glaze of Skrag Brown. Using a mixing palette (clean, white ceramic tiles are cheap and perfect) mix Lahmian Medium with Skrag Brown. 20% of the mix should be Skrag Brown the rest Lahmian Medium. Apply the thin glaze onto the lower halves and around the trim and recesses of the yellow areas as a single coat. Try to do this in as few a brush strokes as possible. Go over this once dry to increase the intensity of the shading. 

2.4 Area highlighting: On the upper halves of the yellow areas, paint a watered down mix of Flash Gitz Yellow. Once dry increase the intensity of the highlighting with a second and possibly third coat. 

2.5 Lining: Paint Skrag Brown into all the recesses, next to the trim and around the rivets. A touch of water will make the paint flow from the bristles a little easier. You don’t want to have to drag the brush to get the paint from it as that will lead to wobbly lines. The smoother the flow, the smoother your lines.  

2.6 Edge Highlighting: Pick out all the edges using Ushabti Bone. You don’t have to do this to the yellow areas surrounded by trim (no edges, how can you edge highlight?) Also highlight the rivets with this colour. 

Step 3: Blue Silvers

3.1 Basecoat: Mix together Runefang Steel and Gulliman Blue. The ratio should be 3 parts Runefang for every 1 part Guilliman Blue. Carefully paint all the trim with this mix.

3.2 Lining: Use Gulliman Blue to paint around every rivet.

3.3 Area Highlighting: Create a glaze of Runefang Steel and Lahmian Medium. 75% of the mix should be Lahmian Medium. Apply this thin layer to the upper areas of the silver. You may want to increase the intensity of this highlighting by repeating this step.  Make sure you leave some of the blue silver showing through though.

3.4. Edge Highlight: Add a touch of water to Runefang Steel to aid flow and then paint all the edges of the trim.  

Step 4: Whites

4.1 Basecoat: Some of the armour panels would have already been base coated white. If not, then Ceramite White is perfect for base coating. It just needs a couple of coats. Thin your paint with a touch of water to ensure a smooth coat. 

4.2 Shading: Create a wash using a 50:50 mix of Fenrisian Grey and Lahmian Medium. Paint this on the lower halves of white areas and where the trim meets the white. You can increase the intensity of this shading by repeating this step.

4.3 Lining: Use Russ Grey to paint into any the recesses and where the recess where the white meets the trim. Add a touch of water to aid flow.

That’s it for now. Keep checking back for more updates on my Imperial Knight.

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