The Heldenhammer is a splendid looking ship with lots and lots of small details on it. Of course that means it’s going to take a lot more time to paint then the other ships, so be prepared. Assembly for this ship should be broken into three blocks; the assembled hull, the sails and the masts. Leaving the sails off the masts will allow you to paint the mast towers easily and make the sails more accessible when it comes time to paint the shading on the back.
Begin by undercoating the hull, sails and masts in black. We will begin painting the hull first. Do not glue the water to the hull, instead the water is to be painted and glued to the hull after the hull is completed being painted.
Base coat any location that will be red in GW Mechrite Red, paying attention to red areas between the gold gilding. Once dry, apply a wash of GW Baal Red, taking note to add it to the bottom rim of the hull where the water will be glued to the base (This will give the effect that the hull is rounded at it’s bottom under the water). Layer a 1:1 mix of Mechrite red and GW Blood Red, again paying attention to layer away from the previous darker shading . Next layer the next highlight of Blood red. Finally mix a 1:1 of Blood Red and GW Vomit Brown and with a very fine brush, paint the edges, corners and where the red hull meets any other differing coloured objects (the main hull meets the cannons) with a fine line.
In painting the red areas, you may have gotten red on to the gold gilded areas, take the time to go over these areas in black in preparation to painting the areas gold.
Begin painting the gold gilded areas by base coating it with a 1:1 mix of GW Scorched Brown and GW Shining Gold. Be very careful no to spill any gold paint into the black gun barrel areas as you will need to repaint them black again which can be quite difficult without painting on the gold rimming (If this does happen, use a black wash and gently deliver the paint into the black gud barrel housings). Next highlight the gold areas in Shining gold – pick how you intend to layer the gold rimmed areas, I suggest layering the gold from the base of the gold component to the top (eg each gun barrels window base layered up to the angled steeple). Next highlight layer is a 1:1 mix og Shining gold and GW Mithril Silver. Finally paint the extreme edges, rims and cannon bay steeples in pure Mithril Silver.
Go over all the cannon bays in black, touching up any gold that may have seeped into the bays when painting the gilding. Paint the protruding cannons in the bays in Mithril Silver.
Next paint the deck on the hull. Begin first by painting GW Calthan Brown. Once dry, mix a 2:1 ration for Calthan Brown and GW Bleached Bone. Dry brush this on in a circular motion from where the sail post holes in the hull are. Give it a large spread. Next mix a 1:1 ration of Calthan Brown and Bleached Bone, and dry brush this in a smaller spread around the post holes.
Now we will paint the grey walls and temple. Base coat these areas in GW Codex Grey. Next layer the highlight with a 1:1 mix of Codex Grey and GW Fortress Grey. Apply the next highlight of Fortress Grey. Finally on the edges of the walls, apply a fine edge highlight of white.
The towers and the rear of the temple have black components on them. Base coat these areas in black. Next highlight the edges and rimming in a 1:1 mix of GW Chaos Black and Codex Grey. Apply a very fine highlight edging to the corners and edges of Fortress Grey.
The roof tiles are base coated in GW Fenris Grey. Once dry, apply a wash of GW Badab Black. Once the wash is dry, reapply the Fenris Grey using dry brushing. All highlighting on the roof is best achieved through dry brushing. The next highlight is a mix of 1:1 of Fenris Grey and white. Finally apply the last of highlight of a 1:2 mix of Fenris Grey and white.
The Hull now should be completed. The Masts of the ship should be painted the same way you painted the hull desk brown, and the towers on the mast should be painted in the same methods of grey that was done for the temple.
This leaves the sails as the last components of the ship. Base coat the back of the sails in a 1:1 mix of Blood red and Chaos Black. The lower half of the sails is all that will be highlighted – highlight from the center of the sail to the lighter tips at the bottom using several layers of of increasing red mixes to the original base coat mix.
Once the rear of the sails has been completed, base coat the front of the sails in Mechrite Red. Mix a 5:1 of Mechrite Red and Chaos Black and shade the lower half of the sail. Gradually layer up from this shade mix using Blood Red rather than Mechrite Red until the top of the shaded area blends in with the top of the sail. Edge the sails with a highlight of 1:1 mix of Blood Red and Vomit Brown.
Finally paint the Golden areas on the sails, Base coat with GW Iyanden Yellow. Shade the tips and edges with a mix of 4:1 Iyanden Yellow and Scorched Brown. Gradually use multiple layers with an increasing of Iyanden yellow to blend the shade back to the base colour. Use a 3:1 mix of Iyanden yellow and white for the highlight, again gradually mixing more Iyanden yellow in to layer the highlights back down to the base colour. This method is very similar to using non-metallic metal painting which will be covered in a future tutorial.
Finally finish painting the water as covered in past posts and glue the ship together.
This is the final result of your hard work:
