That lover of Chaos, JStove, is back with a quick and dirty guide to getting your dipping skills on with your Death Guard models!
With Morty about to show up for the new Death Guard codex, the entire internet is about to be overrun with the third coming of Primarch paint in progress threads. First Magnus, then Guilliman, and soon the big man of Barbarus himself.
So in order to beat the rush, (or arrive just in time for it, depending on when the cats publish this article), I’m gonna share some of my new toys with the class today and bring the hobby back to dipping with the DIP GUARD.
What is dipping and how do I do it?
Dipping is a speed-painting process that works best on models with lots of cluttered, organic detail (cough, the new Mortarion, cough). The flatter and cleaner a model is, the less effective dipping will be. A model must have texture to be a good dip model. Tyranids, demons, zombies, savage orks, anything fleshy, and/or busted are all great candidates for the dip treatment. Models that aren’t so great for dipping include losers like loyalist marines, fish face space commies, and the Eldar.
The pre-dipped Guard
To dip, you need a few things. First, you need a stain. Army Painter makes a product called QUICK SHADE and I recommend it because if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll ruin your models if you buy the wrong stuff. For those that are a little more savvy with this process and already know the basics of dipping, you can go get a cheap bucket of Minwax wood stain from any hardware store in the country.
You will also need an agitator, preferably something that spins at a few thousand RPMs. A power drill won’t work. The ideal tool for this is a regular kitchen hand mixer.
You’ll also need a binder clip, a big cardboard box or a bucket, and some zip ties or electrical tape.
To start, basecoat all your models. Just block in all the colors, don’t go crazy with washes and highlights. That’s the dip’s job. Again, the more organic detail on the model, the more weird textures the dip can pool on, the better. All you need to do is lay down the base.
Once all your models are painted, it’s time to give them a bath. This gets messy and dip does stain clothing. So do it naked, or as naked as you’re confident doing it. I have pretty great tattoos to show off, so I did it without a shirt to please Slaanesh.
Dunk the model in the juicy juice.
But wait, you’re not done. You need to keep the juice from pooling and sludging up the miniature. This is what your kitchen appliance was for. Binder clip the model by its base to the hand mixer, put it in a box or bucket, and set that sucker to spin on low speed for a few seconds. It will throw off the excess dippy dip.
Once everybody is done, set the kids somewhere safe and dry. Infantry-sized models will need a day or two to completely dry to the touch; bigger models like large demons and Tyranid big bugs will need a few days. Don’t touch them until they’re ready or you’ll get fingerprints in everything.
Squidward, the fattest drone front
Break into hot glue boogaloo
First things first, I don’t recommend that you ever use the hot glue goo. Because it requires that you be as least as stupid as I am. Why is the hot glue trick stupid? Because it requires putting a lot of electricity next to a lot of running water. If you value your life or the property you live in, don’t play with hot glue.
Now if you have a death wish like I do, playing with hot glue is a great way to get gross, thick, realistic gooey slime on a model. It’s awesome for Tyranids and Nurgle demons.
Squidward, the fattest drone back
To use hot glue, simply plug that bad boy in and let it warm up. Then slather it on your models to get them dunked in the funk.
Now here’s the hard part. To get the glue to behave the way you want it and freeze in the shape you want, you need to dry it out fast. You accomplish this by a rapid and sudden temperature change: running it under water. Get the goo on your toys, then when it drips right where you want it, shove the model under the faucet. Now you can see why I don’t recommend this trick.
A hot glue gun is basically just a high-voltage accident waiting to happen sitting next to your kitchen sink. But if you’re crazy, or you worship the true gods and you’re not afraid to meet them, then glue is for you.
The Slime Time Crew shows off their hot glue
Batching for days
The most important thing about glue goo and dipping is that it rewards batch painting. If you’re gonna dip, you have to batch because dipping is so messy that if you don’t hit it all at once you’re gonna ruin your garage with the mess. The dip itself will do all the work of shading the model, so when you’re in there painting up your toys remember that.
Since a brand new giant plastic Morty and a Death Guard codex was on the way when I painted these guys, I didn’t want to put a huge amount of effort into an army that would change in composition overnight. That was only for the actual Plague Marines. Imagine what I’m gonna get into with 80+ Pox Walkers and vehicles. You really gotta be prepared to keep it simple when you’re down to dip. Get on that B-train with Kenny and use those ancient Chinese batch-painting techniques.
Family photo
Skinny, the low calorie bell boy
A Dip Guard Plague Marine
Heresy Toast Crunch, the taste you can see
The Dip Predators
In general, vehicles are unsuitable models for dipping because the dip pools on all the flat planes and panels and just sits on the model. Instead of getting shaded, you just get a tank in a mud puddle. This problem gets even worse when the vehicle is too big to attach to your agitator to shake off the excess. Then the dip just pools in awkward places on the model.
However, if you’re a fan of Papa Nurgle, driving your tanks around in a sewer until they look like a metal box in a mud puddle isn’t a problem. It’s a privilege.
Here’s the Dip Guard Dip Predators and how they happened:
The entire tank was primed black.
The entire tank was then spray painted Rustoleum silver metallic.
The entire tank was washed with a 50/50 mix of watered down orange and brown paint to tint and rust the metal to look appropriately dilapidated. The brown paint was a 75 cent craft store paint. You don’t need real Vallejo or GW paint for mud! Use the cheap stuff!
The tank was given an incomplete paint job in Death Guard colors. I intentionally rushed the white coat with a funky brush and chunky old half-dried out paint to give the whole tank a crappy, white-washed, stanky texture so that the paint would look like it was sitting out in a screaming demon sun in the Eye of Terror for 10,000 years. On spots all over the tank, you can see the rusted metal through patches in the legion colors. The lens and viewports were detailed and some Chaos runes were scrawled on. Leading edges where paint would scrape off naturally over time and neglect were scratched off with a fingernail or a sculpting tool.
The whole tank was dipped/painted with Minwax and left to dry on a tin foil covered cookie sheet for 24 hours. When most of the dip had settled, I moved the parts to a piece of plywood to finish drying. The whole point of this process was to speed-paint the vehicles quickly to get them as table ready and scummy as possible. You’ll notice that in the steps I listed above, the only time I really actually painted the model in a traditional sense was when I detailed the lights and lenses. Everything else was just alternating layers of spraying and dunking it in crap to achieve the look of… well… a tank that had been sprayed and dunked in crap. The tanks took a single evening to “paint.” It took longer to assemble and watch them dry than it did to actually hit them with the brush.
You can also see that the dip picked up all the funky texture in the blotchy, scummy, intentionally messy legion paint job I put on the vehicle. That actually turned out way better than I had hoped. More importantly, you can see how the dip pulled down and settled on the parts of the tank where gravity left it because the model was too big to agitate off the excess.
Magnetized cannon Predator with Rhino doors on
Baal Predators re-purposed as Forgeworld Hell-dipped Predators with inferno cannons and heavy flamers, along with alternate load out options.
