G R AY- S C A L E W A S H I N G By Whitman Bottiger
AN EXAMPLE OF AN IMPERIAL GUARDSMAN AND A ORK TANKBUSTA PAINTED WITH GRAY-SCALE WASHING
Gray-Scale Washing is a technique for painting miniatures very fast with very nice and smooth shading and highlighting. As I was a kid and learning to paint, a friend of mine (who was much older and had been painting for many more years than me) showed me an interesting painting technique. He had primed his miniatures
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black and dry-brushed them white before painting them with inks. It didn t look very good, but it did have an unique feel. !
the new washes. To my surprise it looked pretty good. Over the next few months I played with the idea some more until I felt it was perfected.
Many years later, Games Workshop discontinued their ink Here Here is a step by step line and replaced it with the process to painting an Imperial washes line. I had remembered Guardsmen. that strange technique of my friend s and wanted to try it with !
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Before we begin, we must prep our miniature. Assemble the miniature and flock the base with some sand. Be sure to use a fine grain. Also, be sure to shave off any mold lines. You should always do this, but with Gray-Scale Washing its very important as mold lines will stick out like a sore thumb when you re done. !
Next, prime the miniature with a white spray. The n, cover the whole miniature with a coat of Badab Black Wash...even the sand. Lastly, give the miniature an extremely light dry-brush with Skull White. This last step is not necessary, but I have found that after the black wash the miniature is a bit too dark. The miniature is now grayscaled and ready to be painted. This gray-scaling as taken care of all your shading, highlights, and base. NOTE: Another approach is to spray the miniature black and then dry-brush your way from gray to white. It looks almost exactly the same (although a bit darker) but i found it to take a bit longer to do.
Although it s nearly impossible to tell from the above pictures, the top miniature has been given a coat of black wash, and the bottom miniature has been given a light dry-brush of white. !
1: Paint the skin with one coat of Ogryn Flesh. With all these steps, don t be afraid to kinda glob it one. You can be really generous with each step. !
2: Paint the fatigues with one coat of Gryphonne Sepia.
3: Paint the armor and gun case with two coats of a mix of Thraka Green and Devlan Mud. The mix should be about 60% Green, 40% Mud. 50/50 was just a bit too brown.
4: Take some Chainmail and water it down until it s as thin as a wash. You want the gray-scale you made to show through the silver as well. Paint the rest of the gun with this silver. Be careful as it s runny. Once this is dry, give the silver a coat of Badab Black. Once again, don t be afraid to be generous. !
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5: Paint the boots, belt, and gear Chaos Black. I was lazy and left it at that, but if you want a really good look you can paint on multiple coats of Badab Black. It looks real nice, but takes forever. Usually I just water down some Chaos Black and leave it at that.
6: Finally paint the imperial eagles Skull White and when dried give them a coat of watered down Asurman Blue. Paint the sand with a coat of Devlan Mud, the rim with Bestial Brown, and add a couple tuffs of static grass. BE SURE EVERYTHING IS DRY BEFORE ADDING STATIC GRASS.
