Warhammer: The Horus Heresy – Legions Imperialis is available for pre-order tomorrow – and war is coming at a new scale, and one you might be unfamiliar with.
When the miniatures landed on the desks of the ’Eavy Metal team, they found themselves in a similar situation. Here’s Dan to explain how they got such small miniatures looking so good.
Warhammer Community: How did you have to change your approach to work on such small models?
Dan: When we approached these miniatures a lot of the ’Eavy Metal painting fundamentals stayed the same. Simplicity is key, so we purposely wanted to keep things simple when we painted them! We worked on a solid base coat, shades, and highlights to help describe the shape of the models.
We worked hard on trying to show the scale of the miniatures with the weathering and battle damage – all of the scratches and chips needed to be done at the right scale!
WarCom: How did you land on the recipes for each action?
Dan: We knew part of the equation already with the Solar Auxilia. Their tanks would be a battleship grey, and the troops a touch lighter for their fatigues.
Dan: We wanted a Traitor Legion to oppose these Loyalist Solar Auxilia, and we eventually settled on the Death Guard after some testing of different Legions’ colour schemes on some of the kits. This gave us a nice balance with the grey tanks against the off-white of the Death Guard.
WarCom: Are there any specific techniques that you think work better at this scale?
Dan: You have to think about the scale of the miniatures themselves. You don’t want to do a large chip as it would be huge at full size! At this scale, the best advice is just to be neat.
With freehand, I would say you need to be simple and clear with what you are doing. The space where you would usually put freehand is pretty small, so you don't want, or really need, to do super intricate designs. Something as simple as a striping system for your tanks can be a really effective way of introducing some differences to your miniatures, especially as you’ll have a lot of tanks on the table in Legions Imperials.
WarCom: What advice can you offer painters who want to get tabletop armies done quickly?
Dan: I would advise taking a process-driven approach. For example, when painting the Solar Auxilia infantry, I worked from the inside out, starting with the undersuit and fatigues and then working out to the armour and weapons. By doing this, you are able to tidy up and overspill as you work to the outer colour, and because they’re quite small that’s not a lot of tidying. To speed up the bases and ensure you don’t get any overspill, I would advise batch painting them separately – attach them to a spray stick to prime them, and then paint them in some grey, urban tones with some washes and drybrushing to pick out the details. After the bases are finished, the completed miniatures can be glued on.
WarCom: Were there any specific bits you enjoyed working on during this project?
Dan: What I enjoyed the most was the chance to paint some miniatures at a very different scale than I am used to. At first, this seemed like it would be a huge challenge, but taking some time to figure out a process turned this into a hugely satisfying project! You can get very effective results by sticking to miniature-painting fundamentals and then push even further by incorporating ’Eavy Metal principles.
Cheers Dan! You’ll be able to pre-order the Legions Imperialis core box tomorrow, alongside a range of extra tanks and infantry.