How to: Paint Relictors Terminators
The ongoing March to War has seen me paint up the Relictors, a chapter which I was originally going to start when Dark Vengeance was released years ago. I painted up one guy, the Dark Angels robed chap, then left him alone and moved onto the Scythes of the Emperor – Another doomed project.
For the next March to War update, I was painting up the terminators for the Relictors force, and this is a guide on how I painted them up. For this you will need:
Paints used:
Citadel Mechanicus Standard Grey
Citadel Abaddon Black
Citadel Mephiston Red
Citadel Leadbelcher
Citadel Retributor Armour
Citadel Averland Sunset
Citadel Yriel Yellow
Citadel Rakarth Flesh
Vallejo Panzer Aces Flesh Base
Vallejo White
Vallejo Beige Brown
Vallejo Model Air Rust
Shades:
Citadel Agrax Earthshade
Citadel Seraphim Sepia
Citadel Carroburg Crimson
Citadel Nuln Oil
Citadel Druchii Violet
Texture Paints:
Citadel Lustrian Undergrowth
Brushes:
Citadel Medium Layer Brush (old and battered)
Citadel Medium Layer Brush (oldish)
Other:
Army Painter static grass tufts
Superglue
The first thing to do, is spray them black – I used Halfords Matt Black Primer. Once dry, build and pose the miniatures. Out of the five miniatures, there’s only one who I wasn’t too keen on the pose he ended up with. I’d gone for a kind of Robocop shooting pose, but he looks a little static and clunky. He’s the chap stood on the far right.
Next they were sprayed with Mechanicus Standard Grey then washed with Nuln Oil.
Once the Nuln Oil was dry, I applied the base coats.
Flesh Base: Sergeant’s head,
Mephiston Red: Eye lenses, lightning claws and power sword,
Beige Brown: Tassets (Roman tassets being the leather strips that the Sergeant has),
Retributor Armour: Ammunition,
Leadbealcher: Weapons,
Mechanicus Standard Grey: Armour,
Abaddon Black: Protective casing on the weaponry,
Rakarth Flesh: Scrolling on the front of one terminator’s armour,
Averland Sunset: Casing of the chainfist, and tubes/wires on the feet,
Rust: Armour trim.
I added a little Vallejo London Grey to the Mechanicus Standard Grey, and mixed them, creating a lighter grey to highlight the areas I thought would be catching the light more.
I added one final grey highlight, this time adding more London Grey and a little White. With the greys here, you could do just as well mixing Black and White and increasingly adding more white. The main thing is to make the lighter shades noticeable without being too obvious.
For shading it went as follows:
Agrax Earthshade: Retributor Armour, Rust and Beige Brown
Nuln Oil: Leadbelcher
Seraphim Sepia: Scrolling and face (face done on the picture after this one)
I also added Black circles to one shoulder pad on each of the terminators, as well as painting one of the discs on the front of the shoulder Black. The casing for the chainfists and the wire/tube on the terminator’s feet were painted with Yriel Yellow.
I did some of the detailing now, adding the Relictors chapter symbol in White, and the lines in the bone with and Artline drawing system 0.1 pen. If you don’t have one, I recommend them. If not that brand, then something similar.
When I came to do the chain fists, it had been a while, and I painted up the badly posed casing first, doing a series of thin stripes in Abaddon Black. Once dried, I kicked myself, remembering that they should be thicker, so did a better second try on the second chainfist.
The Sergeant’s face was painted up with three layers after the shade. The first was Flesh Base, then flesh base with a spot of white, then finally a spot more white was added to the mix. the wounds were painted using Carroburg Crimson, and the eyes by using thinned White, and a dot of Black. The area around the eyes and the wounds on his face were coloured using Carroburg Crimson shade.
The Rust and ammunition had a light highlight of Retributor Armour, while I added further Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade to the end of the Autocannon’s barrels. An edge highlight of London Grey and White mix was added to some of the terminator armour, just to make parts of it stand out, and to appear as though the light was catching it in some areas.
Next came the Sergeant’s power sword. After deciding on the colour scheme with their Fallen allies, the blade was painted in the following way:
Base layer: Mephiston Red
Next Layer: Mephiston Red and Yriel Yellow mix – just enough yellow to lighten the red.
Next Layer: Add more Yriel Yellow to the mix.
Keep adding more Yriel Yellow to the mix as you add layers, until you can finally do a Yriel Yellow final layer, and add Yriel Yellow edge highlights.
I used the same paint mix for the lightning claws that I used for the sword and painted them side by side. I repainted the original chainfist casing so that they both had thicker stripes.
With the general painting complete, I set about basing them, using the simple method of painting the base with Lustrian Undergrowth texture paint, and superglueing some static grass tufts onto them.
With the bases complete, I called it a day on this squad.
If you have any thoughts please leave us a comment, and consider following us on other social media listed below so you don’t miss any of our future content:
