Painting Thousand Sons for 40k

Okay, so we sold off my wife's Dark Angels last year, and she has been without an army for a while.  When the new models came out for Magnus's boys, my wife made the declaration that she wanted those.  She liked the baroque styling to the Rubirc Marines, so I started working up a War Cabal for her.

So, the Rubrics are kind of popular.  And seeing as the new models are so nice, I figured I would run through a painting tutorial for them

First step - prime them black, and then apply GW Retributor Armor to the whole model.  It will be easier to fill in the blue compared to painting in the gold.

After this, apply a wash of Agrax Earthshade to the whole model.  Watch for pooling!

Instead of laying the gold, I decided to use drybrushing to get the gold to look burnished, so I applied a very light drybrush of GW Liberator Gold to the model.

I then took GW Thousand Son Blue, and applied it to the areas of the armor I wanted to be blue.

Over the blue I applied a wash of GW Nuln Oil, being careful not to get it onto the gold plating.

Now, I applied another layer of GW Thousand Son Blue, leaving the darker areas in the recesses.  Technically I could have pinwashed, but with the curls in the gold, that was going to be a pain.

Using GW Ahriman Blue, I highlighted the blue areas of the armor.  I also applied GW Averland Sunset to alternating areas of the helmet striping.  I am only going to do this on the helmets.  I applied GW Wild Rider red to the gem on the chest, and to the center part of the tabard, followed by a light wash of Carrowburg Crimson over that..

Using GW Yriel Yellow, I lightened the yellow a bit further.  I applied GW White Scar to the eyes, and washed this with GW BielTan Green.  I re-highlighted the tabard with GW Wild Rider Red, and then applied a final highlight of GW Trollslayer Orange. Worky bits on the bolter were given a base of GW Leadbelcher, followed with a wash of GW Nuln Oil.

I did end up having to go back and clean up the lines between the helmet banding and did this with super thinned out black paint.

Overall, the wife is happy with them, and so am I.  No go and call forth the animatons!