Today The Army Painter walks us through painting the C’Tan Void Dragon, using a great metallic scheme with both the airbrush and brushes.
The Army Painter is known for having some of the best and most affordable paints on the market! But they also have an extensive collection of tutorials and paint guides. Their tutorials are perfect for learning how to get your minis on the table. If you want to see everything The Army Painter has going on, check it out here
Today they are walking us through a really cool mini! If you’ve been struggling with your Necrons, you need to check this video out. Just as a note, all the paints used in this video will be from them, which you can pick up all the colors here. Let’s see how to do it!
Painting the C’tan Void Dragon: The Army Painter Tutorial
Here’s the fresh mini! Let’s see how to make it great.
Airbrushing & Base Coats
Start with Night Scales in your airbrush and give a good coat to the entire mini. If you don’t have an airbrush, you can do most of these stages with a large brush. Next, do a top-down coat of Gun Metal on the entire body. After that, apply a top-down coat of Shining Silver. Then mix in some Fairy dust to it and hit another top-down highlight. Once you have those laid down, take Royal Purple and Azure Blue and hit all the shadows with a brush. Just try to hit all the shadows but leave the metal tones from before.
After that is dry, hit a wash of Quicksahade Purple on all the areas you hit the blues and purple. With the burhs hit the highlights of silver with the Shining Silver and Fairy Dust. Just try to pick out the details of the metal here and keep the highlights quick. Next, use that mixture and hit some striations on the chest plate.
Spear & Wings
Start with Evil Chrome and hit the spear, crown, and wings as a smooth basecoat. Then take Bright Gold and stipple as a highlight across all the areas you just painted. After that, take a Quickshade Flesh Wash and hit a wash on all the gold. But he does this more almost like a glaze to not take away from the previous colors. To finish the gold, take a mix of Bright Gold and Shining Silver and do a quick highlight of all the gold areas.
Painting the Other Elements
Take Dark Sky and base coat all the floating rock elements and the insets of the crown. Once dry, take a dry brush and hit the topmost areas of the previously painted areas with Elemental Bolt. Then hit them all with a Quickshade Dark tone to bring out the details. Then go back with the Elemental Bolt and highlight the inset of the crown to give it a turquoise feel. He does two thin layers to get an almost wash feel. Once the wash is dry he does the same stippling effect from before with the Elemental Bolt once again. Then do one more highlight on the inset of the wings and crown to finish them off. Lastly, hit a small highlight with Kraken Skin.
Lightning Effects
Take Moon Dust and hit all of the lightning effect and the main eye. Next, take Greenskin and apply it in a very thinned down application and hit all of the lightning effects. Once dry hit all the same areas with Moon Dust in with a dry brush. Glaze over top of that with Jungle green to give it a more glowing effect. Then go back with a final drybrush with the Moon Dust form before. To finish this off, hit it with a very thinned down glaze of Poisonous Cloud.
Painting the Tubes
Start with Alien Purple and hit a base coat on all the tubes. While the paint is still wet (wet blending) take Oozing purple and blend the two colors together on all the tubes.
Painting the Base
Start with a base coat with Wet Mud on the base. Once dry drybrush Dry Rust on everything. Then do a wash with the Quickshade Light Tone and then do a more focused wash with Quickshade Strong Tone. Finish the whole thing off with a drybrush of Dry Rust and Moon Dust and just try to pick out all the detail.
Finishing off the Scarabs
Start with a base coat of Gun Metal and hit all the Scarabs on the mini. Once dry and do a wash with Quickshade Dark Tone. If you want to fully finish it off, he then throws on some tufts to the base.
Finished C’tan
There you have it! A great looking mini without too much hassle.
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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!
