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Tips for painting Tzaangors!


Kamose

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So I'm having a bit of trouble with some Tzaangors (like in the title).  I'm painting a Tzeentch army for a friend and I'm chugging along nicely.  I've painted polychromatic horrors by the dozen (literally), a vortex beast, acolytes aplenty, and even a shaman on a disk and a couple of Gaunt Summoners.  I've also painted the Tzaangors from the Silver Tower box and I've run into a problem.

I hate painting Tzaangors.

Nothing else in the army is such an utter shooting pain followed by numbness in the left arm to paint. I can't stand them.  All the little swirly, wavy designs on their armor and weapons...oh my god...  It makes me want to find nearest living thing and kill it.  I've been saving them til last just because I really don't know how to paint them well without literally painting one model at a time.   Truthfully they remind of painting Astra Militarum Scions and I hated every one of those too.  Told myself I'd never go back...:'(

Does anyone have tips on quickly painting Tzaangors?  Any help at all would be greatly appreciated!  Here's a couple pics of one the Silver Tower ones I've painted.

IMG_20180819_221000[1].jpg

IMG_20180819_220937[1].jpg

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I started a Tzaangor force and lost all interest in the project. Just wasn't for me. (Still for sale, heh.)

One thing i did though was come at the armor pieces as one solid and ornate piece. In my case i chose bronze. So only messed with base coat, highlight and various shades instead of picking out all the details.

I did this across all armor parts and kept the pace rolling.

I was actually pretty happy with this part. Just lost all interest in models. 

Maybe find a similar approach. 

20180821_230557.jpg

Edited by Vasshpit
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Step 1: airbursh armour plating. Paint is as if one solid piece of metal so dont worry about a second color for edging.

Step 2: cover armour plating with sticky tack

step 3: Airbrush skin

step 4: remove tack and nuln oil everything.

step 5: minor additional details and highlighting as much as you want.

step 6: varnish and bases

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I paint the skin first so base, shade and drybrush. Then Block in the 'gold' armour plates with brass or retributor gold. After, highlight the gold and only after this I do the blue on the armour plates. 

Final step is clean up the mini.

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  • 9 months later...
On 8/22/2018 at 5:07 AM, Vasshpit said:

I started a Tzaangor force and lost all interest in the project. Just wasn't for me. (Still for sale, heh.)

One thing i did though was come at the armor pieces as one solid and ornate piece. In my case i chose bronze. So only messed with base coat, highlight and various shades instead of picking out all the details.

I did this across all armor parts and kept the pace rolling.

I was actually pretty happy with this part. Just lost all interest in models. 

Maybe find a similar approach. 

20180821_230557.jpg

How did you paint this metal please? 

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Well, I’ve painted some enlightenments and from what I can say, they are beautiful models with lots of details and many unseeable dark places.

the problem I faced with them was that they for some reason really need basically everything to look great.

you can’t just basecoat and shade them and call it a day, which make them for me at least the units that’s more time consuming than everything else I usually paint.

As for the fun aspect, yes I quit liked painting them, but I really just can’t and won’t paint another unit of those guys.

And here we have my precious enlightenments, A unit I will hopefully never paint again.

E1F6E460-8975-4008-87CE-7B7020EC7E07.jpeg

D2364337-8243-4919-BEC1-9EAC651AE208.jpeg

E8A48304-D0D3-4049-9D28-2CD7A62A53F6.jpeg

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@sarahmarr90 or anyone else interested. 

Prime black

Base coat Vallejo Model Color "chocolate". I use a airbrush.

V.M.C. Bronze. I airbrush two thin coats.

Wash of G.W. Seraphin Sepia

Second wash with Seraphin Sepia but this this time i keep it more in the recesses and stipple a little bit here and there across the large flat surfaces.

Wash of G.W. Agrax Earthshade. Again only keeping it in recesses with just a bit of stipple here and there across flat surfaces.

Wash of G.W. Biel-tan green. ONLY a little here and there to add weathering to the bronze. More of a stipple in key areas really.

Light drybrush of V.M.C. Bronze on edges to make it pop and catch light again.

Hope this helps.
If ya need more help, feel free to ask or send w.i.p. pics.
Watcha using the scheme on?


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6 hours ago, Vasshpit said:

@sarahmarr90 or anyone else interested. 

Prime black

Base coat Vallejo Model Color "chocolate". I use a airbrush.

V.M.C. Bronze. I airbrush two thin coats.

Wash of G.W. Seraphin Sepia

Second wash with Seraphin Sepia but this this time i keep it more in the recesses and stipple a little bit here and there across the large flat surfaces.

Wash of G.W. Agrax Earthshade. Again only keeping it in recesses with just a bit of stipple here and there across flat surfaces.

Wash of G.W. Biel-tan green. ONLY a little here and there to add weathering to the bronze. More of a stipple in key areas really.

Light drybrush of V.M.C. Bronze on edges to make it pop and catch light again.

Hope this helps.
If ya need more help, feel free to ask or send w.i.p. pics.
Watcha using the scheme on?

 

Not sure yet, I don't know what to focus on at the mo to be honest lol, but I love the way it l looks :)

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I don't have an airbrush, but my trick was this: prime them with Leadbelcher spray. I appreciate that this sounds nuts, but a metallic basecoat tackles lots of the small details (chains, tricky angles on weapons, charms, chainmail, etc) and lets you concentrate on much easier areas of the miniature. Also, thinned down gold paint goes over silver very easily, making it relatively painless to pick out all that gold trim.

Here's my block of 30 Tzaangor, Enlightened, and Skyfires, all done with this method:

917534267_TzaangorBlock.JPG.36bb0d0a5cfb9d19335fc2462f2d3d82.JPG

1762019403_TzaangorEnlightened.JPG.18f02804370cd73ac3d3ded6f15c0ffc.JPG

736934806_TzaangorSkyfires.JPG.514dbd5305e6110a0dc38d39cb986c49.JPG

Here are the steps I took:

  • Spray Leadbelcher
  • Guilliman blue over metal areas (but not the weapon)
  • Blue/Purple/Green shade in metal recesses (different shades for different batches to create variety in the unit)
  • Contrasting Blue/Purple/Green shade on weapon 
  • Drybrush Necron compound over whole model
  • Ulthuan Grey over skin (two coats - but it covers nicely)
  • Guilliman blue over skin
  • Contrasting Blue/Green/Purple shade in skin recesses
  • Drybrush Fenrisian grey over skin
  • Pallid Wych Flesh highlight on skin, teeth (optional)
  • Rakarth Flesh basecoat over claws, skulls, beak and horns (covers nicely, even over metals)
  • Retributor Armour basecoat over gold details (one coat, thin)
  • Seraphim Sepia wash over gold and bone, including teeth
  • Stormhost Silver highlight over metal/gold
  • Agrax Earthshade over larger bone areas
  • Ushabti Bone highlight over bone
  • White Scar over eyes (including eyes on jewelry)
  • Yellow wash over actual eyes, green wash over 'magic' eyes
  • Incubi Darkness pupils
  • Paint loincloth in same base colour as weapon shade (Green/Blue/Purple)
  • Paint hair/feathers in contrasting colour to weapon/loincloth shade
  • Shade feather roots in same base colour as weapon shade

You could skip a bunch of these steps and end up with a solid result, I think. The key to this method is keeping each individual step as painless as possible to maintain momentum across large batches (I did all 30 Tzaangor as a single batch!)

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I hear you!

It took me almost three months to get through a batch of ten Tzaangors because I'm a slow painter and wanted them to look good. I was really happy with the result, but swore I'd never paint Tzaangors again!

Then I fielded them in a few small battles and they were amazing. They even took down a Bloodthirster when buffed by a hero! (Okay, I used a wizard to deal some mortal wounds and an Ogroid's charge finished off the beastie - but the Tzaangors did most of the heavy lifting!)

So I've changed my mind - I'm definitely going to be painting more of them. Plan to field 20 Tzaangors supported to six Enlightened, six Skyfires and a Shaman. Tzaangor Coven ahoy! And as I curse all the fiddly details, the armour rims and the difficult angles, I'm going to remind myself that they're worth it.

@CJPT, really interesting tip. Definitely going to try it out.

Apologies for the poor photo - it's the only one I've got.

Tzaangors_and_horrors.jpg.f6024c516e60b9fa3c4ee2c3d74713c7.jpg

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