Batch Painting The Steel Phalanx

As the title suggests, I have indeed lost my marbles. I tried to do this a few weeks ago, and one airbrushed highlight too many and they were back in black primer within minutes. For me however, unpainted models are an unacceptable feature of wargaming (tongue firmly planted, dear reader) and so with two weeks of holiday having commenced today, I have decided that I will have a fully painted Assault Subsection by the end of it. Family and festivities, be damned.

The question is, will they be the same colour at the end of it?

Hopefully, yes. The first time I attempted this same scheme, it was done to ape the newer incarnation of the Hac Tao on the official site:

The idea being that rather than the usual bright white and purples of the Angel' ALEPH models, I wanted (to borrow a phrase from the new RoboCop movie) make them 'look more tactical'. Unfortunately the downside of the above grey/black is it's quite drab without the super-extreme white highlights... and my painting abilities, or rather effort levels, don't extend as far as that.

So I had a rethink. How could I do a black-based, modern, 'tactical' looking paint scheme that wouldn't look too drab? Something with a hint of colour or warmth to it? And then I had an idea to airbrush two Games Workshop paints that are at a glance grey, but infact contain a hint of brown and a slightly greeny-yellow hint too for added depth: Skavenblight Dinge, and Stormvermin Fur. Building up from a black undercoat by using those two as midtones has worked brilliantly (so far) with the airbrush providing a nice gradient from black right up to the considerably brighter Stormvermin Fur colour. A final upper highlight of Stormvermin Fur lightened with a beige colour will be the last airbrushed stage before the paint brushes get involved.

The kind of colour it should look like by the end of the process will be akin to the armour seen in these images:

So rather than be simply black highlighted with the grey, the hopeful outcome will be something less harsh and cold and ultimately more enjoyable to paint more of in the future. The technique I am using is not dissimilar to one detailed by Remote Prescence in a tutorial on how to deal with the smaller-than-a-Space Marine scale of Infinity infantry models.The difference being I started with black and went upwards in colour, before post-shading as it suggests, again with black before doing the final brightest highlight colour.

Contrasting colour choice will be extremely important here, the flowing hair or topknots on many of the models provides an easy source of not just contrast, but individuality too. However the small energy indicators and optics dotted over their bodies give the chance to add a sharp, eye-catching point of interest and hopefully avoid the models appearing too bland.

More progress reports coming soon.