The First Steps – 66 Days Left

The Plan

First, let me introduce you to the painting team for this project. Known in the organization as Paint Team Six, we are:

Ed – award winning painter, BaD founder
Chris – local competitive hero, accomplished painter of every faction, BaD staff officer
Jesse (me) – insane batch painter, BaD founder

As you can see, I am low man on the totem pole when it comes to hobby credentials but whatever I lack in artistic flair I certainly make up for in volume. I began my time in 8th edition as a Deathwatch player, then dabbled in Imperial Guard, and am now waaaaaay off the deep end on all fronts. Once you’ve finished a couple of horde-ish armies, everything looks batch paintable. Ask me about tanks and super heavies sometime, but this is not the time. Now is the time for Necrons !

As Paint Team Six discussed the Raffle Army plan (don’t forget to buy your tickets!), each of us naturally called dibs on things we were comfortable painting at speed. Your humble blog author? “Oh yeah just give me all the Warriors and Scarabs and I’ll do those first.”

The Start

Once I got settled and mentally prepared to get going on 30 warriors (shout out to Festbier), the journey officially began. Apologies in advance for how well acquainted you’re going to be with my hobby space until Ed and Chris get the pics flowing…

All this assembly was done on our holy day of Ptuesday and live in our Discord voice channel dedicated to this day of days. All who were there got to listen to me cuss the warrior kit, specifically with how spindly and fiddly everything was. But as I got about 7 or so completed, I saw the light and batch mode became clear to me. By the end of the night I was slapping together three at a time to great effect. You just have to find the groove after conquering over the hardest part: getting started.

The Progress

I was initially skeptical of bringing in new-to-me paints to this project, but Ed was insistent that we use Vallejo Metal Color Chrome for our spooky space skeletons. After getting to acceptance, I bought a few bottles for the team. The plan is to drybrush the VMC Chrome over Ledbelcher rattle can to bring those edges up to 11 so the rest of the process knocks them back to a 10 (Kenny Boucher wisdom manifest). Let me say, this worked better than I could have imagined. Look at this shiny boy:

Sorry for the low quality picture but both my hands were occupied on stream. Just look at the shine on my glove and the difference between the Ledbelcher spray on the right and the dry brushed VMC Chrome on the left! These boys are blinged out and ready for the next steps. Here’s roughly the plan:

Citadel Ledbelcher spray – whole model
Vallejo Metal Color Chrome drybrush – whole model
Citadel Black Templar Contrast – joints, internal cables, gun
Monument ProAcryl Dark Grey Blue – carapace, fancy armor bits
Monument ProAcrly Blue / Dark Grey Blue 50/50 – highlight carapace, fancy armor bits

This list is still a work in progress, so we’ll finalize the actual paint recipe once we get further down the road.

Please know that unless stated otherwise we are not compensated for the products we endorse on this blog or anywhere else. We in Bolters at Dawn are always looking to try new things and find through trial and error what works best for us. Any endorsement comes from that personal experience and you can get more information about things in our Discord from members of our staff and community!

The Future

Next up for me will be to finish up these 30 warriors and move onto the scarabs ASAP. Paint Team Six is on the move, so be on the lookout for more frequent updates to this blog on our progress! For up to the minute updates, please come check out our Discord and specifically the hobby channel.