What’s up hobby maniac’s, today we’re painting; without using paint. Whaaaaaaaaa? Don’t worry, all will be revealed after the break.
It took me 8 hours to do the trim on the knight titan with a brush, it took forever. Kelsey Haley, the greatest 40k player in the history of ever, came down and was like, “hey man, check this out, I use sharpies now.” And I was like, “wait what?”
He showed me, he pulled out a helldrake and started doing a helldrake with a sharpie marker and it looked REALLY good. Turns out, sharpie turns out a line of Metallic permanent marker. For 6 bucks this is all the paint you need for a whole hobby career. You can hit it with a glaze or a wash to bring it back in. It’s a HUGE time saver. On regular space marines, It’s a BIT too closer for comfort in my opinion.
Step 1: Turn off the TV, the Radio, all of it. You really should be focusing; It took me 12 minutes per color; so focusing should only be a problem if you have serious ADHD and you’re out of sugar, or some other medication, to keep you calm.
Step 1.1: Bronze Base Coat.
Hobby Zen: move the model NOT the marker. If you start moving the marker you’re more apt to mess up.
Step 2: Gold: It’s the lighter of the two brassy looking color. Now, we’re going to go about half way down to make that transition.
Step 3: Silver, there’s two methods, the first is you just line it up, pretty basic. The SECOND method is you take the flat area AROUND the point (aka the side of the tip) and rub the edge. It’s easy as pie.
You can stop Here. You don’t need to do wash. Should take about 45 minutes to do the whole thing. I however, wanted to wash it with a bit of glaze. I mixed some wash and glaze to create some additional blending.
Step 4: Mix 2 parts Water, 1 part Future Floor Wax and some wash. The wax makes the paint more of a glaze and gives us a bit more time to work with the paint before it sets.
Step 4a: Just go over what you did carefully with the wash/glaze mix.
Fact: Pinky fingers aren’t just for sticking up when you drink tea, also great for providing some support when you brush.
Step 5: touch-ups, now we just go over it with our paint, and you’ll notice in the video it’s a bit thin but that’s okay, we can just do two coats. I’d rather do two coats than just one and lose my transition.
Pro-Tip, I made a couple chips and highlighted with dark colors to give it some false depth.
I have to note that I didn’t do most of the airbrushing; it’s on loan form my good friend lucas who gave me permission to touch up his trim. You can see the finish product looks good and I think it’s officially a done project.
As usual, if you want the the full 101 watch the video. Special thanks to Barely Tabletop Quality (BTTQ) for letting me paint the trim on their Knight Atrapos!
About the Author: Rob Baer
Rob Baer
Job Title: Managing Editor
Founded Spikey Bits in 2009
Socials: Rob Baer on Facebook and @catdaddymbg on X
About Rob Baer: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor of Spikey Bits, the leading tabletop gaming news website focused on the hobby side of wargaming and miniatures.
Rob also co-founded and currently hosts the Long War Podcast, which has over 350 episodes and focuses on tabletop miniatures gaming, specializing in Warhammer 40k. and spent six years writing for Bell of Lost Souls.
Every year, along with his co-hosts, he helps host the Long War 40k Doubles Tournament at Adepticon and the Long War 40k Doubles at the Las Vegas Open, each of which attracts thousands of players from around the world.
Rob has won many Warhammer 40k Tournaments over the years, including multiple first-place finishes in Warhammer 40k Grand Tournaments over the years and even winning 1st place at the 2011 Adepticon 40k Team Tournament. He was even featured for his painting in issue #304 of Games Workshop’s White Dwarf Magazine.
With over 30 years of experience in retail and distribution, Rob knows all the products and exactly which ones are the best. As a member of GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association), he advocates for gaming stores and manufacturers in these difficult times, always looking for the next big thing to feature for the miniatures hobby, helping everyone to provide the value consumers want.
While he’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (since 5th Edition) and has been hobbying on miniatures since the 1980s, Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and models made of both pewter and resin.
