On the Bench: Ratling Snipers

As Ernie and I explore the creation of our Imperial Guard armies, I find myself making some changes to the original ideas I had for the army. Basically I have made a personal decision to work with what I own and with the exception of a few bitz, want to not purchase anything else for the army till I exhaust the models I currently own. What this translates into is an army that has alot fewer tanks and more veteran squads with snipers and a platoon. I figure when it comes to the actual list, I will post it once I am further along with the painting of models.

The first step is to clean and base the model. Like all of my projects, I use George Bases. Before basing them, I clean away the flash and give the models a quick wash in soapy warm water. I also remove a little bit of the scenic portions on the models as I didn't feel they were appropriate to how I want the army to look when finished.




Along with the two ratlings, I base another one, this time not adding and gravel to the base. With this ratling, I also drill a pin into the arm so that I can add the arm holding the telescope once the model is painted. Once compete, I prime all the models using my last can of GW's old white primer.



Similar to what I did with the imperial guardsman, I will attempt to base coat the model before working on any highlights or shading. Excluding the base, it appears to me that the deepest sections of the model will be blue, so I begin base coating those sections with Vallejo dark blue (4:1, pain:thinner).



Once the paint is dry, I give the blue sections a healthy wash of GW asurmen blue (straight).



Next, I base coat the sections of the model that will be “metallic”. I use Vallejo black grey (4:1, paint:thinner). Once the paint is dry, I give the sections a decent wash of GW badab black (straight).




Once the wash is complete, I apply a mix of scorched brown and bestial brown (3:2:2, bestial brown, scorched brown, thinner) to the “leather” sections of the model. During this step, I thinned the paint more than I intended, so the coverage is not the best. I apply an additional coat and decided that I will address the white that is bleeding through during the detailing process. Having said that however, I also apply a diluted wash of Vallejo brown ink (3:1, ink:thinner) followed by gentle wash of GW badab black into the deepest sections of the “leather” sections.



The last base coats applied are Vallejo tan (4:1, paint:thinner) to the skin, Vallejo cobra leather to the bandages/wrappings/hair (4:1, paint:thinner), and Vallejo London grey (4:1, paint:thinner) to the sleeping bag.



Next Time: Skinning a dwarf