This was an interesting table-top mini from the Warhammer 40K universe that was almost entirely hand-painted; the build took about 12 hours to complete.

Here’s a gallery of the entire build (73 photos).

Context

All of my kits have been cars or aircraft, so this type of build is new for me. Several of my friends have painted minis (miniatures), and I wanted to see if something much smaller would help me finish a quick build to give me some momentum. I also verified it’s more portable if you want to take your hobby to the beach; I packed a small tackle box with everything I needed to dabble with the figure.

I have virtually no interest in Warhammer 40K, and learned that it’s a completely different rabbit hole to get lost in in terms of lore and amount of money you can spend on a game. The video game Warhammer: Vermintide II is semi-related, as I loved the look-and-feel of that game’s universe.

I picked Warhammer because my local HobbyTown has a whole wall of kits, Citadel paints, etc. This kit was about $38 USD, which is rather pricey for something so small. (There’s no special reason I chose this character; he just looked interesting and the box art didn’t look too intimidating skill-wise.) I also assumed that, just like any other model kit I’ve purchased, there would be a paint-buying guide on the box. There were suggestions for a few colors and that’s it.

Preparation

With the kit in hand, I searched for someone who shared a build video on YouTube. This tutorial was what I used. I believe all of the paints used in the video are Citadel, a brand that mostly leans toward fantasy kits (e.g., Warhammer, D&D, Gundam), so I was starting from scratch (all of my paints are Mission Models, Tamiya, Vallejo, or Model Master). The builder in the video has an accent, so I wrote down as many paint names as I could interpret then headed back to HobbyTown to purchase over a dozen new paint jars.

It didn’t help that HobbyTown was out of several colors mentioned in the video. It also doesn’t help that there doesn’t seem to be a common paint chart. I found a paint guide for the kit and two paint charts (here and here) which made things more confusing because they’re not consistent. I made some educated substitutions and hoped for the best.

There were a few other generic miniature-painting videos I watched that described painting techniques for such a small scale. I bought some small, quality acrylic brushes from the local art store, and even a wet palette (which I didn’t end up needing).

After re-watching the tutorial video I made a Trello board with the steps sequenced out and noted time markers for the trickier tasks.

Construction

The kit is well-made and the parts fit together easily and were glued with Tamiya Extra Thin cement. An interesting feature is that the inside of the character is hollow, so the construction is cleverly done to make it appear that his limbs are floating. The instructions were clear on how the pieces should be assembled; I took a tip from the tutorial and left the helmet and swords unattached at first for easier painting.

Two other observations… (1) Working at this scale is different because everything is much smaller and closer together (read: not much room for error). (2) There are many fluid lines and examples of asymmetry not found on other models, which made for tricky spaces to paint and a few double- and triple-checks of whether I’d completely painted something from all the angles.

Sequence

• Assemble everything but the weapons and helmet per instructions
• Prime pieces with Vallejo gray microfiller/primer
• Apply a base coat of Citadel Mechanicus Standard Grey on the stone plinths and cloth pieces
• Apply a wash of Abaddon Black on the same pieces
• Apply a base coat of White Scar on the armor plating, including the helmet and gauntlets
• Apply a layer coat of Ulthuan Grey on the same pieces
• Apply a thin layer coat of Thunderhawk Blue on the cloth pieces (this is the wrong blue — should have been Ahriman Blue –but it’s the closest I could find)
• Apply a glaze/wash of Abaddon Black on same pieces to blend in the blue
• Add Wyldwood contrast on the cape folds (this didn’t seem to do anything)
• Edge-highlight the ends of the cape with Thunderhawk Blue
• Highlight some of the armor pieces, weapons, scabbards, and helmet with Liberator Gold
• Apply a wash of Flayed One Flesh to what was just painted gold
• Assemble the helmet and swords to the figure
• Edge-highlight the tops of the gold pieces with Stormhost Silver
• Apply a wash of Thunderhawk Blue to the sword handles and a shoulder plate
• Apply several applications of a Skeleton Horde wash over three parts of the front armor plates
• Paint the helmet ties and cape tassels with a mix of Abaddon Black and Altdorf Guard Blue
• Apply a base coat of Iron Breaker to the two swords
• Apply a wash of Abaddon Black to the swords to bring out the recessed details
• Apply a wash of Thunderhawk Blue to make the swords “glow” blue (this part was less successful, probably because the blue color is so close to the grey)
• Edge-highlight the swords with Thunderhawk Blue on the bottoms and Stormhost Silver on the tops
• Dry-brush Tamiya Light Sea Gray, then Flayed One Flesh on the stone plinths (I couldn’t find Dawnstone and Karak Stone)
• Apply a wash of Abaddon Black to blend the dry-brushed highlights
• Paint the earthen terrain Tamiya Flat Brown
• Dry-brush Vallejo Sand Yellow to bring out the rocky details
• Paint the greenery Vallejo Dark Green, then paint the tops of the weeds Vallejo Sand Yellow
• Glue the figure to the round base

Thoughts

• Without a build video, I would have been utterly lost on how to paint the figure.
• I love the uniformity of airbrushing, but this scale is so small that hand-painting looks good (plus airbrushing is typically impractical).
• The washes were “eyeballed” to a consistency that looked right, but I wasn’t measuring ratios.
• On that note, it took several applications of the washes to make the details pop. Because the washes are so thin, a small swipe of the finger or unintended brush stroke would undo the work.
• I was okay with the paint substitutions I made except for the blue. I wanted the swords to look like they were glowing, and I didn’t achieve that.
• For fun I searched for completed versions of the model on Ebay and found several north of $100. There were so many interesting color schemes as well!
• I’m still on the fence about doing another mini. Something I appreciate about scale modeling is that there are clear instructions, which this kit didn’t have paint-wise. I’d have to rely on there being a soup-to-nuts video tutorial for whatever I picked out, given I’m not to the skill level where I can take a raw figure and make it look like whatever I imagine. However, I do have many common paints now, so I wouldn’t be as behind as before I started this kit.