About a month ago, I had a request to do a tutorial on large-scale freehand designs, and here it is!
I started out with a Chaos Space Marine Rhino painted by my good friend Brian Coe. He is the proud owner of a chaos force that currently has thousands of points worth of models from every conceivable aspect of the army. To get all those marines around the board he has many APC's that have recieved a basic paint job. He was generous enough to donate one of his vehicles for the purpose of today's tutorial.
I chose the chaos star due to it's complexity, and to illustrate how to break that complexity down to a manageable level. When you're getting ready to lay out a large design, there are a few key points to bear in mind.
1- Break it down.
Even something as intimidating as the chaos star design is actually nothing more than a circle with a buch of rectangles poking out at 45 degree intervals. At the end of the short sides of the rectangles is a triangle, with a wider triangle on the outside of the circle. This works for any logo or icon you may want to use.
If you're having trouble, trying printing out a black and white version of the logo and put some tracing paper over it. With some practice, you'll soon be able to spot the combination of basic shapes that make the more complex designs.
2- Map out reference points
One of the major pitfalls when working with a large design like this is that it's very easy to get caught up in the details. This is fine, you want those details to look good after all, if you think ahead you can save yourself time and torture of having to redo a section. Before I even started the outlining process, I carefully placed reference points for all eight tips. That way, when I was distracted by other elements, I knew that the points would still line up.
3- Take your time
I can't count the number of times I've been to a tournament and seen armies that hurt just to look at. It's not because they were bad, in fact, most of the "guilty" armies I saw were quite good.
But they weren't great.
This had nothing to do with the skill of the painter, the price tag of the brushes, the type of paint, or the manufacturer of the models. 99 times out of 100 its because he didn't take his time to push the model just that last painful step into something really special. I know it sucks and I know all too well the desire to just be done.
Just think of it this way, an hour may be the only difference between goodness and greatness. That's not even a single game of 40k, and you'll have many such games to enjoy the results of your effort. Be strong, be patient, use the force, whatever you have to do, and you'll be unstoppable.
