Jon Bius has been putting out some great beginner-friendly hobby videos and today he goes over Base Painting the Ad Mech Archaeopter!
Jon has some great 40k modeling content on his channel, so if you need help with yours, he’s a great channel to check out! If you want to see more of his videos, you can see them out here!
Watch the full video below for all the tips and tricks or check out our notes on it! We could all really learn some helpful stuff from him, even though this is pretty focused on new hobbyists.
If you need help building this mini, be sure to check out part one of this series where he covers that quite in-depth. Let’s jump into it.
Painting Ad Mech Archaeopter: Jon Bius Tutorial
One interesting thing he’s doing here is painting the entire Ad Mech Archaeopter with just acrylics and a brush, no airbrush or primer. This is an interesting way to approach your paint jobs, so definitely fun to watch if nothing else for that aspect. When you’re doing this, just be sure to let the paints dry completely before moving onto the next color. Also, be sure to use many thin coats, not one thick one.
Bone Base Coats
He starts with Morghast Bone, just be sure to mix and stir it up well before using it. If you do this regularly, this will also help keep your paints working better for longer.
He adds some to his palette and adds some airbrush flow improver and a single drop of the Liquitex Flow Aid, then mixes it up with the paint. Take that and do a few coats on the wings and underside of the copter itself. Next, break out the Ushabti Bone, and do some dry brushing on everywhere you just hit with the bone color. He does a fairly hard dry brush here. After that dries, he comes in with Screaming Skull and does a more targeted dry brush to the same areas.
Red Base Coats
He starts with Khorne Red and paints the demarcation lines against the bone color. This doesn’t have to be perfect, but this will make it easier to base coat the rest of the mini. So wherever you want the red to meet the bone color, make the line.
There are some areas where it naturally goes, so it isn’t too bad. After that is done, he comes with a big brush and does a few thin base coats over the rest of the mini as he did with the bone. Moving up in color with every dry brush after the base coat. Starting with Mephiston Red and moving to Evil Sun Scarlett. Lastly, take Wild Rider Red and hit a dry brush on all the rivet details and edges. Kind of like an edge highlight but with a dry brush.
Black Base Coats
For the first coat, he uses Abaddon Black and uses a big brush to hit all the areas he wants to be black, like the wings. He does another layer with the same color to get really good coverage here. Next, mix a 5/1 mix of Dark Reaper and the Abaddon Black. He uses this to build up a gradient from the top to the bottom of the wings. Next, make a mix of 10/1 and start hitting closer and closer to the end of the wings and the center.
Painting the Metal
He uses Leadbelcher for all his base coats and just goes over all the metal parts in a few coats to get good coverage. He does this in a few coats, not trying to do it all in one pass. If you get some silver on the other parts of the mini, just go back and cover up your mistakes along the silver lines. He is also going to hit some details with Balthazar Gold, but that will be in the next video.
Painting the Canopy
He wants to have the lines on the canopy have color. So he starts with the Morghast Bone from before and hits all the raised edges. If you get some paint on the clear parts, just take a toothpick and just peel it off. Next, take your Khorne Red and hit the same areas as you did with the bone color. You will probably have paint to clean up, so don’t get upset and use the toothpick option.
Finished Model
He’s doing this in steps, so it’s not totally done, but for now, it’s looking great!
Watch the video above for tips and even some extra steps that’ll make weathering your model look like a pro did it! Be sure to subscribe to his channel for more hobby tutorials on everything from Airplanes to Warhammer!
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Socials: @paschbass
About Travis Pasch: Travis has been a Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the 1990s, playing the game since Third Edition. Through extensive traveling, he’s seen a lot of the miniatures hobby from across the world, giving him a unique perspective on the latest gaming topics and trends.
Travis’s brother even owns a commission painting studio, where he’s picked up a lot of good advice and techniques for painting Warhammer and tabletop miniatures over the years, as well. Travis joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his 40k Adeptus Mechanicus models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
