Eldar Craftworld table

Part 5. Table Painting

The color scheme for this project was defined by the artists who were working on the NOVA Open Charitable Foundation armies. However, at some point I decided that Games Workshop (GW) paints were too expensive for the amount of coverage I needed. I figured that I could find alternative brands that were close enough to the shades I needed and save the GW paints for the outermost layers. I spent many hours at my local Michaels craft store (http://www.michaels.com/) and found several paints that would fit the bill. (And at a $1.00 a bottle, it would be no big deal if they didn’t.)

Painting the Elder table

After spackling and sanding, I used my airbrush to prime each table section using Apple Barrel Black.

Once the sections were dry, I base coated each piece with Americana Milk Chocolate. (This is a cheaper alternative to GW’s Steel Legion Drab.) This was put on as a heavy coat for maximum coverage, though some of the black showed through in places.

Next up, the mid color. I decided to go with Folk Art Honeycomb as an alternative to GW’s Zandri Dust. Same thing as before, but I went with a lighter coat, allowing a lot of the brown to show through.

For the highlight layer, I used Americana Buttercup. I thought that matched up pretty well with GW’s Screaming Skull, but after it dried I realized it was too light. I went back over each tile with actual GW Screaming Skull to darken the Buttercup. The final result was an interesting effect that I think looks pretty cool.

Buttercup and Honeycomb side by side

Buttercup

Screaming Skull

At this point, the lines that had been cut into the table needed a little touching up. They were already painted black from the prime coat, but the successive layers of base coats and highlights had dulled the effect. I enhanced them by brushing in a mix of Secret Weapon Green Brown (weathering powder) and thinner as explained in this article (http://40khobbyblog.blogspot.com/2015/04/sons-of-orar-bone-basing.html). It adds just a hint of color to the lines without being messy. This process was repeated for the Hill, as well.

And here is the finished table just waiting for terrain.

Next time: How I painted the terrain!

RGH