Soooo... I have two copies of Space Hulk v1 knocking around and have never really painted the Stealers. What with the uptake in dipping in recent times, I thought I'd give it a go at some point. Having just decorated our living room and stained a load of wood with a dark oak woodstain...and having most of the tin left over, the circumstances and planets seem to have aligned to pushed me over the edge.

Now I've read a fair bit about dipping and what to do/not to do. I've see pics of the results and read the naysayers bemoaning that it's lazy and ruinous to the hobby. Boo-sucks I say. I've got my Marines which I consider a showcase army, my Necrons which are half decent and after 20 years of painting and gaming, but now with less time on my hands for the painting side of things, finding a new technique which will mean fast results that are of good quality totally floats my boat. I’ll still continue to paint the normal way too.

I will not be totally converting to dipping but some armies just seem to cry out for the finish it gives. Nids seem to fit the bill. Currently having two MEQish armies, I fancied something without a 3+ save. Time to use that woodstain.

My plan was (still is) to experiment with 6 stealers at a time. Once I have a few squads ready, I’ll slowly add other models from the range. I think I’d like to avoid the big gribblies to start with and go for nid warriors, brood lord, ‘throps etc. as the largest models in the army.

So, I started by buying a “grey-beige” undercoat. Having sprayed the initial squad of 6 I then painted all the “inner” areas with Graveyard Earth. I then gave each entire model a light-medium white drybrush. I then painted each tongue (and the eyes) red and picked out claws, teeth etc. in pure white. The bases were coated in Chinchilla Sand (“borrowed” from our new gerbils). Once everything was dry I was ready to start dipping.

The woodstain sticks to the model all over in one huge blob. After vigorous shaking* inside a large cardboard box (holding the base with a pair of pliers) each model is left to dry. Initially, it looks like some area are too full of stain and detail will be obscured but once it’s dry – the detail shows through fine. I used Ronseal quick-drying woodstain and (as it says on the tin) the models we dry to handle in about 2 hours. I painted the base edges Bestial brown and put some patches of fine flock on the tops. Not that only small areas of the sand picked up any stain. I was originally assuming the whole base would take the colour but it didn’t. It still looks OK though.

I’d read about it but didn’t know how much it made a difference until now: if you use similar colours/shades... dipping will flatten them out completely and they’ll all look the same. My first lot now look like I didn’t do much to them at all. The only real difference in colour is the red and the white areas. With that in mind, my next lot will be red in the “inner” areas with a green tongue. I’ll try to make each squad coloured differently. My stain is also a dark one so I’m popping down B&Q tomorrow to find something lighter to play with.

Don’t worry – I’ll follow this up with pictures of the various stages and final effects. I just wanted a placeholder in for now


*my first foray into dipping was with my mate Jon a couple of weeks back. He hates painting and wanted a way to quickly paint his large Skaven army. We did a unit of rat slaves in an evening using a tin of Army Painter dip he got. When shaking vigorously... make sure your models are actually stuck well to the bases

Sounds nice matt, looking forward for the pictures and updates =)

OK - here we go:

The pile of SH stealers...
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... r_heap.jpg

The wood-stain
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... arkoak.jpg

The splatter box
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... terbox.jpg

The first completd unit of six
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... quad_1.JPG

Closer view*
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... loseup.JPG

Unit 2 - primed and ready to start
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... _squad.JPG

Primed stealer closeup
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... tealer.JPG

*two things you can see here:
1. The colour flattening - the whole figure looks almost the same colour... need to fix this
2. Mould lines show up lots!! Time to stop being lazy and make sure models are cleaned up as much as possible...

While these pics were uploading, I drybrushed the next squad white. I'm doing this BEFORE painting any other colour this time. I'd like to try a flat red without any other colour to try and stop that colour flattening. The red might benfit from some orange/yellow highlights before dipping but let's see how these lads turn out and then make a call on it.

on the first picture it looks like they fought to get out of the box from the inside, kind of funny =)

nicely painted Nids too.

They've been clawing over themselves to get out for years They've been ripping each others arms off too...

Those look great matt.

They do look darned fine, I've got about 70 nids in the attic 50 of them need de-nasty-dark-blue-plastic colour-ifying ( linky to pic of 6th on list army wise
So you suggest the lesson learn is to have highly contrasting colours and then dip (e.g. pink and green etc)

A splatter box for dark brown stain, next to a white wall, and placed on a light brown carpet?
You are living on the edge man!
I like the effect, but I agree with you that they could use a bit more contrast. There's no real difference between the carapace and the "flesh".
Oh, and they are supposed to rip each other's arms off, they are Nids, and that's what Nids do!

killmaimburn wrote:So you suggest the lesson learn is to have highly contrasting colours and then dip (e.g. pink and green etc)

I think so - check out the next batch...

timewizard wrote:A splatter box for dark brown stain, next to a white wall, and placed on a light brown carpet?

It's the games room It's what's it's for!

OK so here goes for some step by step pics of the second unit:

Basic paint job (spray undercoat as shown above - drybrush white - fleshy bits red - eyes/tongue green - spot and claws pure white)
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... re_dip.JPG

and a closer look
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... loseup.JPG

all ready to start dipping
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... to_dip.JPG

in we go
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... plunge.JPG

camera work a bit bad here - it's on macro setting in my left hand and the flash keeps going off...

this is the point where you think "****, what have I done!". But it does look like how a ‘nid might actually be "born"
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... ng/yuk.JPG

after a trip to the splatterbox...
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... tirred.JPG

the unit drying off
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... _unit2.JPG


I'll post pics of the dry unit based and complete later on.

I also picked up a tin of Medium Oak stain today - I think I'll try that on the Stealer Hybrid models I have. I might even paint up the SH termies as Deathwing and dip them in the Medium stain. Fingers crossed for a plain white undercoat and straight to dip!

I left a couple of today’s models in the dip for a few seconds more to see if the sand soaked up more colour...and it did. Of course, that means my bases within the unit are now inconsistent with each other...doh.

Had a look at the red Stealers last night (gaming night) and I really like the way in which the red has turned out on the 2nd batch.

The contrast in colors has definatly worked better this time around.

12 down

About 100 to go LOL

OK. Time for an update. The second squad is done and I've given both units a coat of purity seal. This was more to keep the base material stuck down (the sand seemed too loose for my liking) than anything else. Here are some pics:

Completed unit 2
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... quad_2.JPG

From the top
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... _2_top.jpg

Close up
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... loseup.JPG

All the stealers so far
http://www.thedragonstears.com/stuff/pr ... _and_2.jpg

I've not decided what the red will be replaced with on the next batch - anyone got any thoughts or want me to try something and see how it goes? Green? Blue? Orange?

I've also been thinking about getting some medium nids to see what those are like dipped. What shall I try first? Broodlord to go with the stealers?

ive been following this project log with great interest since you started. i must say i am very impressed with the results.

what would you say are the advantages of dipping over simply applying an ink/wash with a brush? is it just that its faster, or do you get a more even coat? ive never tried it myself.

mattjgilbert wrote:I've also been thinking about getting some medium nids to see what those are like dipped. What shall I try first? Broodlord to go with the stealers?

how about a Zoanthrope? the exposed brain matter would look great with this effect, IMO.

cheers and keep up the good work!
(ive got a big box of blue plastic genestealers somewhere... along with my Patriarch and familiars)

~ Tim

Ink will not be as consistent and will not varnish the model at the same time. Of course the disadvantage is that the stain colour is heavy and might clog detail but you must accept that if you are going to head down this route (not massive clogging, but more than "pro--painters" might be happy with).

Ink also has the advantage in that you have a vast array of colours, which you can easily turn into washes and mix with each other. You can also apply them specifically to target areas rather than generally to the entire model.

What dipping seems to give you is table-top standard (no GD awards) figures, ready varnished in a fraction of the time it would might take you with more conventional methods (e.g. I reckon I would spend 6 to 8 hours on such a unit normally and this way I can do basic colours and have them dipped in just over an hour.

Yeah I wondered about a 'thrope too. I'm thinking of maybe picking a shade of blue and applying that to ALL the weapons in the army (as the army actually gets some!) in a bid to find something that unifies all the models together beyond the bone colour plates. Thoughts?

OK - I have got myself a Broodlord. Should I wait until the next batch or two of stealers are done using different colours or should I do him (it?) now?

If now...what colours?

I'd wait to see how the next colour set comes out before deciding which unit are his personal guard and going with roughly that scheme with some added tones (maybe some lurid scorpian green or something to make him stand out)
Watch out for his little rib flippers snapping off if your putting him n a brumble box- I seem to see those bits broke whenever i see a broodlord.