Legio Phasmatis Painting Guide

Nathanuel was kind enough to send along a painting guide for his beautiful Warlord Titan Ira Deorum so that the secrets of this wonderful and hauntingly good paint scheme could be enjoyed by all.  The below is what he's offered up to us:

"Hi Drake,

The second note set is for the green armor plating mural painting. Again, there are no secrets, just requires patience. This technique I developed on the fly. It's actually quite simple, but the effect works extremely well to give subtle features to the armor plates.

Tutorial: Green armor plating mural:

0. What you will need: 

1. Undercoat spray Rustoleum brown, then a second light coat of citadel Chaos Black.

2. Spray citadel Caliban Green spray paint in light coats, leaving some black to show through.

3. Add tonal variations: airbrush zenithal highlights with aerocolor flesh tint.

4. Oil painting: Mix oil paints (Winsor and Newton) on palette graded between winsor green and yellow ochre, thinned with GAMSOL pure odorless mineral spirits. Using detail brush, paint basic geometric shapes to rough-out simple design. Keep the edges of shapes as sharp as possible at this point, but work the oil paint to mix colors and blend on the armor plates while painting. The oil paint dries very slowly, allowing plenty of time to blend and adjust. Note, it can also be wiped clean (using a cloth rag) if you don't like the results at first attempt.

5. Seal oil paint: Once dried for 24 hours, spray coat matte finish 'Army Painter anti-shine'

6. Add decals as accents (sealing with citadel 'ardcoat light spray before and after). Light spray Army Painter matte finish again, then wash decals with citadel thraka green. Use several light coats until decals blend in with background sufficiently.

7. Add detailed line work: Using fine detail brush, paint outlines and shapes to create definition, highlight, and shadow. To create shadow, use citadel caliban green (straight form the pot). To create highlights, use citadel graveyard earth. Using the same brush, add Aerocolor 'flesh tint' ink for small lettering.

8. Gloss coat with airbrush: vallejo gloss varnish + thinner medium.

9. Oil paint wash using thinned oil paint (Winsor and Newton 'Winsor green' + GAMSOL pure odorless mineral spirits), following the techniques in FW MC vII.

10. Paint gold banding.

Thank you so much for showing this to us! - TOC