From Zero to Hero I: The Squire

Hey Everyone,

in this section I will be covering the process of painting a figure from start to finish. I will be talking about prepping, painting and basing your mini, so you can have a comprehensive picture, of what you need to do. I will also point out the mistakes I made, so you´ll know, what to look out for.
One of my first Warmachine minis was the Cygnar Squire. Because of its size it was the perfect model to try out my colorscheme on, especially when it was the first model of my entire army.

The first step was assembling the mini. As there are no instructions on how to do that, the first minutes where spent figuring out, how the legs connect to the body of my mini-mech. I also cleaned of any mold lines on the figure - some of which where quite hard to get to. Here you will notice my first mistake. By wanting to get started fast I failed to take my time cleaning the mini. The result are still visible mold lines on the smokestack and on the back of the mini. The lesson here is, to take your time with the prepping - small mistakes will look much worse, once you are finished priming.

I strengthened the bond with green stuff, which looked quite out of place on the base of the figure - but no worries, once we are done with basing it will not matter anymore.

I started priming the model with Vallejos Acrylic Polyurethane Grey Primer. For this I used my airbrush for a nice and smooth finish. Notice, how much worse the mold lines look after priming.

For a color scheme I wanted to keep with the traditional Cygnar tones, but also wanted to make the army my own. So I opted for Vallejos Falcon Turquoise, since I always liked the color and it was quite close to the original Cygnar blues. As second color I wanted to use a white, but not tot bright tone. Afther looking around in my FLGS I decided on Vallejos Model Color Ivory as a contrast color for my models.

I started with laying down the basecolors in even, thin coats. For this I thinned all paints 1:1 with "Magic Water" - basically a mixture of distilled water and Liquitex Flow-Aid 10:1.

For the metallic areas I used two different colors. For all joints and utilitarian parts I used Vallejos Game Color Gunmetal Metal, for all ornamental parts I used Vallejos Game Colors Bright Bronze.

I then washed all metal areas with Awesomepaintjobs Heavy Body Black wash, to tone them down and define the shadows. To give them a slight highlight a lightly drybrushed Vallejos Model Air Steel over the silvery areas.

The coils and the eye where painted with Vallejo Game Color Electric Blue and then given a wash with GW´s Asurmen Blue. After that, they were highlighted with Electric Blue, then a 1:1 mix of Electric Blue and Skull White, and finally a pure Skull White highlight. I tried using an OSL (Object Source Lighting) effect originating from the coils and the eye with my airbrush - you be the judge on how successful I was :-P.

The pouches on the side where painted using GW´s Snakebite Leather and washed with GW´s Devlan mud for depth.

When I was done painting I started on the base. I layed down some PVA glue and dipped the mini in my basing mixture. After this was dry I let Awesomepaintjobs Armour Wash seep into the whole base. This helps fixing the sand to the base, in case you want to drybrush it later. After adding some static grass with superglue I was done.

For protection I used two coats of varnish. First gloss for durability, and then a coat of matte varnish to get rid of the gloss effect on the mini.

So, let me know what you think of my first Warmachine mini.

As always, enjoy and have fun,


IK-Painter