Tutorial: How to paint Space Hulk Genestealers

In this exclusive Tale of Painters’ tutorial I share the first in a series of three Space Hulk tutorials, today it’s the insidious alien threat, the Genestealers! More after the jump.

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

Leadbelcher (base)

XV-88 (base)

Karak Stone (layer)

Iron Breaker (layer)

Agrax Earthshade (shade)

Abaddon Black (base)

Kantor Blue (base)

Teclis Blue (layer)

Temple Guard Blue (layer)

Xereus Purple (layer)

Genestealer Purple (layer)

Emperor’s Children (layer)

Druchii Violet (layer)

Screamer Pink (base)

Pink Horror (layer)

Russ Grey (layer)

Fenrisian Grey (layer)

Flash Gitz Yellow (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. 

1. Undercoat the model black. I use Vallejo Surface Primer. 

2. Drybrush the base parts with Leadbelcher. To dry brush take a large brush (old brushes are great for this). Load up the bristles and then wipe the paint onto a tissue until there isn’t much paint left on the brush. Then using a rapid backwards and forwards motion brush apply what little paint is on the bristles to the model.

3. Paint any skulls with XV-88. Leave the eyes and nose sockets black. 

4. Highlight the skulls with Karak Stone. 

5. Drybrush the metal areas with Ironbreaker. You can actually do this before step three and it will mean you don’t have to be as neat. 

6. Using a large wash brush load the bristles up with Agrax Earthshade and give the skulls and metal  areas a good coating to shade and dirty up the ancient hulk.

7. Tidy up the Genestealer by painting Abaddon Black over any areas that got accidentally drybrushed with silver. 

8. Highlight the Genestealers carapace (main body armour) with broad wide strokes of Kantor blue. Be sure to leave plenty of black showing. Use the images as a guide. 

9. Using slightly thinner strokes, paint over the previous layer using Teclis Blue.

10. One final thin edge highlight of Temple Guard Blue is now applied over the previous layer.

11. Paint the hands, feet and head with Xereus Purple. Make sure you leave the eyes, teeth, mouth and claws black. 

12. Highlight the hands, feet and head with Genestealer Purple. Make sure you leave Xereus Purple showing through in the recesses. 

13. Mix some Lahmian Medium (or water if you don’t have any) into Emperor’s Children to make a thin glaze. Apply this translucent glaze as highlights to the purple. You don’t want to paint the pink on thick or straight from the pot. It needs to be subtle and look natural. You don’t want it to look like bright pink thick lines. 

14. Wash over the purple areas using Druchii Violet.

15. Paint the tongue using Screamer Pink. 

16. Highlight the tongue using Pink Horror. 

17. Paint some edge highlights of Russ Grey onto the claws. For the smaller claws or teeth just paint them with Russ Grey.

18. Paint thinner edge highlights of Fenrisian Grey to the claws and highlight the teeth and smaller fingertip claws with Fenrisian Grey. 

19. Finally, paint each eye with Flash Gitz Yellow. 

Be sure to check out part two (Blood Angels Terminator) and part three (Deathwing Terminator)!

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