I need advice painting a gargant.

[jamsessionein]

Hey guys.

I'm hoping to get some advice from this forum as to how to paint my baby. Over the past few months, I've been working on and off to create an ork stompa gargant based loosely on artwork by one of Games Workshop's artists. Some of you may have seen this before, as I keep a number of work in progress blogs around on the internet. I have finally managed to finish all of the scratchbuilding, and now I have this model (and diorama base!) sitting in front of me waiting for primer and paint.

I've no idea what to do with it now. I wish I was good at painting, but I am sadly a relative novice. Part of me wishes I would just find some professional to do it for me, but I wouldn't be able to enter it in any sort of competitions if I do that, and I've invested so much work into it's construction that it just wouldn't be right. I do have myself an airbrush that I have used with varying success that I imagine I'm going to have to look at using..

Really, though, I don't know how to paint this up. A majority of my orky constructions are red, but I went for a very scrapheap appearance with the construction of this gargant, so I'm thinking something metallic and rusty might be cool. I've also had an interesting idea in mind for a little while - I want to make it look like it's made of very looted and scrap parts, so I'm thinking of finding a good panel, painting it up an ultramarines blue, and putting the ultramarines logo on it.. to sort've suggest they blew a tank clean up, and just ripped scrap metal straight off it and bolted it on as extra armor without even an extra coat of paint.

It's a large task, and very intimidating, so I'm not entirely sure where to start aside from a coat of black primer.

Here's some pictures of it:

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

If you want to see the entire construction from start to finish, as well as over 250 pictures, check this thread over at The-Waaagh.

Really, I would love some suggestions. I want it to look like an animated, walking scrapheap of orky destruction, but I have no idea how to approach it.

[ToMaZ]

I like the looted armour idea. And you paint it with lots of battle damage; chipped paint, bullet holes, scratches... Colors don't really matter, pick what you like. They're orks after all
Remember to apply a lot of those orky checkers etc

If you're intimidated by the size, you can paint one part at a time, like starting on a leg, finishing it and moving to the next part.

Rust can be applied with browns mixed with either red, orange or black. Depending on what you want to achieve.

You can find tutorials conserning battle damage and rust on https://www.brushthralls.com. They also have a small airbrush tutorial.

[Mordred]

Honestly,

I wouldn't start on this without an airbrush. It speeds up the work on those large parts very much. If you don't have acces to one, I would recommend the same as Tomas: Paint it one part at a time. First do a leg, then do some funner detailed parts, then another leg, etc.

I've followed one of the wip blogs you mentioned, and I really love this model.

[Demi_morgana]

hey - welcome to the forum!
what a coincidence - I've been browsing thry that topic on cmon last evening!
I was totally blasted when I saw Your mega-model - it's so f00king inspiring!
as for the painting I'd really like to see it painted as one, hundreads tons watling piece of junk - lots of skretched metallics, rust, battle damages, weathering etc... I know that's nothing original but I really like such way of painting and is should contrast well with creepy green light from gargant's "eyes";
when I saw You model I really wanted to convert sth similar but in much smalles scale - unfortunatelly have no idea where should I start so now maybe You could give me any advise? :pray:

[jamsessionein]

Perhaps I should clarify a bit - I'm not asking just as to how I should paint the gargant up, but as to the method for painting the gargant up - as in, I'm not so sure I can pull off rusted metal, faded colors, or chipped paint, so I need guidance for those sorts of things, as it's been ages since I've last painted.

Morgana: If I understand correctly, you want to make maybe a dreadnought-sized version of this model? If that's the case, there's some really easy things you might look at, particularly some of the classic ork bitz like the big grabber claw and arm. They're good foundations to build ontop of and might save you some work.

[Demi_morgana]

the method I practise for painting rust couldn't be simplier:
I firstly lay basic coats of clear boltgun metal / mithril silver on model and when the paints are 100% dry I cover them with diluted washes:
browns, oranges, greens, yellows whatever You like; this method is time consuming 'cause it takes some time diluted washes to completly dry but imo it's quite effective

[mahon]

yes, I also use a method similar to Demi_morgana's. Some people use masking fluids when painting battle damage.

And why don't you try dry pastels or pigments used for weathering tanks?