Salamanders Painting Scheme

I thought I'd throw my Salamanders paint scheme up, for anyone who cares.

No pictures as of yet, but it should be self explanatory.

Materials Used

*Model Primed with Chaos Black Spray

*Baal Red
*Badab Black
*Blazing Orange
*Bleached Bone
*Blood Red
*Boltgun Metal
*Chainmail
*Chaos Black
*Elf Flesh
*Leviathan Purple
*Mithril Silver
*Mechrite Red
*Ogryn Flesh
*Orkhide Shade
*Scab Red
*Scorched Brown
*Scorpian Green
*Shining Gold
*Skull White
*Snot Green
*Vomit Brown

*Tamiya Clearcoat Orange

Green Armour

1) A single coat of Orkhide Shade (OHS) 1:1 with Snot Green (SG). I prefer this to using Dark Angels green for a couple of reasons. Firstly, It covers a lot more consistently and well than DAG does, even thinned down quite a lot. Secondly, I want to get the blueish SG into the mix early on to help establish that Salamanders colour we all know and love.

2) Between 2-4 Coats of pure SG, depending on the size of the area and paint consistency. You have to play it by ear a bit and do as many coats as you see fit to get a strong and dominant colour. Remember to leave the original mix in the deep shade/cracks/areas between armour plates and whatnot! Good Shading is essential for a paint job to look good, almost as much so as good highlighting. It so often gets negelected, usually by someone throwing a wash haphazrdly all over a model, when it is in fact an essential!

3) A roughly 1:1 blend of SG to Scorpian Green (SCG) for the first highlight layers, as per extreme edge highlighting. You may like to do as I do, and have it quite watered down so as to get it slightly blended in to the mid tone. This way, your highlights will fade out of the basecoat, and not sit on top. Of course, some people may prefer very acute highlights. Different Strokes...

4) An extreme edge highlight of pure SCG on the leading/upwards facing edges. You have to try not to overdo is here, as you'll end up with a very yellow result in no time, which again, you may want to go for if you like that kind of thing!

5) A 2:1 mix of SCG to Bleached Bone (BB). This is a tiny, tiny highlight to the areas that catch the most light i.e. leading edges and the very topmost facing edges. You may not even want to use this final highlight, and indeed not doing so will still yield a very pleasing result!

Red Robes, Purity Seals, etc.

1) A flat undercoat of Foundation Mechrite Red all over.

2) A basecoat of Scab Red completely covering all the previous coat. The reason being, the mechrite will cover in a coat of two, and then the Scab will entirely cover that in another couple. Which is a damn sight easier than the 6 odd coats of Scab Red you'll need to build up the same intensity and richness of colour!

3) An all over shading wash of the new Baal Red wash.

4) A careful shading wash of Badab Black, only in the deep recesses and associated areas. Be very careful with this and avoid flooding the area with it. In essence, paint it into the recesses slowly, maybe using more than one layer.

5) Re-basecoat the mid tone areas with a 1:1 of Scab Red and Blood Red. The scab red will help give the blood red some extra body and cut down the amound of layers necessary to achieve a solid and rich colour.

6) A highlight of pure blood red. See the green armour section for a note on harsh VS soft highlights.

7) A Second highlight of 1:1 Blood Red to Blazing Orange, working up to the extreme edges. Again, water your paints down as you see fit to make this mix flow!

8) A third highlight on the leading/extreme edges of pure Blazing orange, very sparingly or else you'll make the red far too orange!

9) A optional final "light reflections" highlight of 2:1 Blazing orange to Elf Flesh only on the most extreme edges. Be very careful at this point, or else you'll really be in orange town!

Silver Metals

1) A basecoat of 1:1 Boltgun metal to chaos black.

2) A midtone of Boltgun metal, leaving the deepest recesses at stage 1.

3) A shade layer (see the red section for a tip on not overdoing it) of the new Badab Black wash.

4) A quite acute edge highlight of Chainmail.

5) A smallish highlight of Mithril Silver on the most extreme upper edges only.

Gold Metals:

1) A basecoat of 1:1 Scorched brown to Shining Gold.

2) Midtone of pure Shining gold, again leaving the original colour in the deepest recesses.

3) First, a careful shade of Ogryn Flesh. Then, optionally, a shade of leviathan purple. Which I use to warm golds up and take out some of the yellow tone.

4) An extreme edge highlight of 1:2 Mithril silver to Shining Gold. Being very sparse and not overdoing it.

5) Another light reflections layer of pure Mithril Silver, used very very VERY sparsely. If you overdo this, you're likely to be in real trouble!

6) A careful and very thinned glaze of Tamiya's Clearcoat Orange. This takes the edge off the highlights and finishes off warming the colour up. I'll credit Jacob Rune-Nielson for this, as it was his idea.

Black

1) Paint a basecoat of quite thinned Chaos Black over the primer layer, even thought you've primed black. Chaos black from the pot has quite a different satin-like texture that I much prefer to the slightly rough finish of Chaos Black primer.

2) First highlight of 1:1 Chaos Black to the Foundation Adeptus Battlegrey.

3) A 1:1:1 mix of Chaos Black, to Adeptus Battlegrey to Astromicon Grey. Only on the uppermost edges!

Scrolls/Parchment/Purity Seals

1) A basecoat of Bestial Brown

2) A midtone of Vomit Brown, leaving bestial in the deepest recesses.

3) An "upper-midtone" of 1:1 Vomit Brown to Bleached Bone.

4) First highlight of Pure Bleached bone.

5) Second highlight of 1:1 Bleached Bone to Skull White.

6) Final, very sparesly used highlight of pure Skull White.

These are the colours most often used for Sallies. You may want to use the odd spot colour, but these are the heart and soul of your scheme.

/Sam