Dust painting

So ok, I have shown you the Dust figures, and I have even started to paint them. That must be a first, painting figures withing weeks of buying them! What's next, actually playing a game? Anyway I thought I'd show you a little bit on how you can paint them, and that the fact they are pre-primed saves a heck of a lot of time.

The figures come primed in grey. This one has had it's weapon painted with Vallejo Gunmetal.

Before I started painting I experimented a bit with the pose; twisting the torso and raising the arms a bit, as well as turning the head to look in the same direction as the gun. I then dribbled a little glue into the neck and arm joints. This figure had a slightly worse fit than the other figures where I only had to glue the waist, so I  filled the waist with a little liquid green stuff.

The coat is painted field grey, while the body armour and trousers remains the grey primer colour.

I was thinking of the "classic" german colour scheme of field grey. During early WW2 the tunics were greener and the trousers grey, but it shifted to one overall colour in midwar. Then I realised that the coats were very reminiscent of the Fallschirmjäger smocks, or bonesacks as they were called. Luftwaffe and fallschirmjäger units still retained the different coloured trousers later in the war, so I decided to keep the trousers grey, and paint the coat in a greener colour, as the "field grey" is actually a more grey-green shade. As I will use a black wash I chose a lighter colour than how I want the final shade to be. I did some experimenting with different greens and in the end I decided to use Wargames Foundry Raw Linen shade colour.

The smaller areas are painted, the primer is still left on the grey areas.

I washed the boots and cables as well as the belt with Games Workshop Nuln Oil. Any black wash will do, the aim is to leave some of the grey primer showing through. We will wash the whole figure with black once more, so we want the grey to shine through. On this model I tried out Nuln Oil for the first time and used a little bit too much, I think. Since this is an NCO he has high boots and riding britches, while the other figures have normal trousers with gaiters and short-necked boots. On them I have painted the boots Calthan Brown instead.

Next step is to paint the gloves and gasmask with GW Dheneb Stone. I was thinking of doing the gloves in brown, but I decided that leather items probably were in short supply, these are obviously done in some rubber or ersatz material, same as the gasmask.

The final step before the wash is to paint the metal parts with Gunmetal. This includes the weapon, belt buckle and the gasmask lenses as well as some scratches on the armour and power pack. I usually paint the metals last, but in some sort of brain malfunction I began painting the weapon this time.

Finished!

I use a miracle wash consisting of GW Chaos Black mixed into equal parts water and Future floor polish, until the shade is right. It's a bit trial and error to get it right, you don't want the black paint to be too strong at the same time you don't want the wash to be too light either. Anyway the wash settles in the folds and around the details, thus creating depth and shadow to the paint job. It's not the most accurate method but it gives good results in very little time. I might go back and do the lenses on the gasmask red when the whole unit is done.

And there you have it. Not counting drying time and breaks to take photographs I reckon the whole figure took less than 45 minutes to paint. The pre-assembly and pre-priming really saves you some time, and Dust figures are very fun to paint. After this the figure only needs basing and some varnish. The Future floor polish protects the paint job but is gloss so you want to hit the figure again with flat varnish to take the sheen off it.

Still thinking about how I should paint the walker... hm...