Doug-Wing Part 2

I'm out this week, practicing Tae Kwon Do in the mountains of New York with the headmaster, but that doesn't mean the posts are going anywhere. This is part 2 of 2, showing some of my more humble beginnings. Several years ago I painted an entire deathwing army for my friend Doug. This army was affectionately known as the 'Doug-Wing'. We decided it would be cool if the army was painted so each squad looked like it had come from a different chapter, so I set to work on the largest batch of metal models ever to cross my painting table. Here I will be showing what my painting looked like in the mid-2000's, and what lessons I learned from this project.

Lesson 5: The Rule of Three

Painting a color scheme like the original Dark Angel terminator pattern showed me just how potent a limited palette can be. Having bone for the main color, red and green are introduced as a supporting but not overwhelming accent. The key is to break up those big chunks of space with the supporting colors. That way you end up with a model that's easy to take in without having so much variety that you lose your place.

Important note
When counting your colors on a model that you're working on, neutrals are excepted from the rule. In other words; black, white, and grey don't count. It's fine if you're working with those colors as a primary hue, but a section of boltgun metal or pure black will not detract from the focus of your work like a non-neutral color would.

Lesson 6: Experience Counts

This squad was by far and away the easiest of the ones I worked on. I needed zero reference material and I knew exactly what I wanted to do before I even cracked the box open. Prior to this army project, I had painted over 3,000 points of Ultramarines, and with that level of experience under my belt to begin with, there was no stopping me. Though I do advocate branching out and trying minis from different systems and styles, there is a huge advantage to having a solid base of knowledge and practice with a specific army. Take a look at the last mini you painted from your current army versus your first one; it's amazing to see the difference.

Lesson 7: Risk vs. Reward

It's a little difficult to see from this picture, but the ribbing on the back of the leg armor on these terminators was painted black against the stark white/blue of the main armor. I have no idea why I did this, but I distinctly remember the amount of pain it caused me every time I made a mistake. As I said in part 1, this was before foundation paints, so any mistake was several coats to correct. I shook my head as I went back over and over again to fix the inaccuracies that stuck out like a sore thumb. The worst part? It didn't even look that good. Consider the result before indulging in the process. Just because a technique is difficult doesn't mean it's going to result in a superior product. In many cases, simpler is better.

Lesson 8: Don't Shade Yellow with Black

Just don't; use brown or tan. That way you won't have to go back to clean up every single last armor panel and basically have to repaint the entire model. Painting a model once is fun, painting the same model again is just painful.

And that about does it. Next week we're back with Project: Stranded as we finally get to start unveiling all the work that went into it!