Grey Knight Terminator

I guess it's time to write my first mini tutorial on this blog. This Grey Knight was painted some months ago with the aim of testing 3 techniques: blending on the scrolls and power sword, OSL around the eyes, and metallics with a stone-like texture on the armour.

Now that you've taken a look at the pics we can move on to the tutorial.

The ARMOUR is pretty straightforward and it goes like that:
- Drybrush Tin Bitz
- Drybrush Boltgun Metal
- Drybrush Chainmail
- Drybrush Mithril Silver
- A HEAVY wash with Asurmen Blue Wash
- Drybrush Mithril Silver

The BRONZE is:
- Basecoat Schorched Brown : Dwarf Bronze 1:1
- Paint everything except deep recesses Dwarf Bronze
- Highlight with Shining Gold
- Highlight with Burnished Gold
- Highlight with Burnished Gold:Mithril Silver 1:1
- A HEAVY wash with Devlan Mud Wash
- Highlight with Burnished Gold:Mithril Silver 1:1

I've found out that GW washes work better when used undiluted and in a heavy coat (hence the EMPHASIS). While the wash is wet you can tease it out of the high points and into the recesses but I find that this is necesary only where there are large flat surfaces.


The SCROLLS are:
- Basecoat Calthan Brown
- Paint everything except deep recesses Talarn flesh
- Highlight with Bleached bone, blending the highlights into Talarn Flesh. It will take 2 -3 layers of blended highlights.
- Highlight with Skull White towards the edges and highest points.

The scrolls are pretty straightforward as far as colour choice is concerned but keep in mind that I tried some blending on them so it can take some time to paint them this way. You can layer the highlights instead of blending them and the end result will be almost as good as the blended example.

Let's take a look now at the OSL around the eyes.

This technique may seem a bit advanced and scary for most painters but in essence it is quite simple. The basic principle is that you choose a light source and then determine which adjacent areas are illuminated by this light source. Of course this will depend on the intensity of the light source which is up to you. In this mini the light source was the terminator's eye lenses and I opted for a medium intensity illumination. 

This is the theory of OSL. In practice you use the same colours you use to basecoat and highlight the light source and you aply them to the illuminated areas as thin glazes. It's just like painting the light source but using much thinner paint. However, and this is important, you DO NOT apply the final highlight of the light source to the illuminated areas. The idea behind this is that the light source must be brighter than the illuminated areas. That was also the reason why I chose white as the final highlight colour for my light source. It helps it look brighter and stand out from the illuminated areas.

You can find a good OSL tutorial on this CoolMiniOrNot article by Cyril. I've linked the part where it focuses on OSL. In the rest of the article you can find very good advice on painting weathered white power armour.


I hope you find this tutorial usefull. For any questions, suggestions, oppinions or criticism just hit the "Comments" button.