How I Painted the Jokers

The Jokers have been sold. They will be making their debut in Georgia sometime over the next couple of weeks.

The buyer (who will remain nameless until he reveals himself) asked how I painted the tanks so he can complete the job. So I decided to post this so he can see how I painted the entire army.

First - the colors....

Here is a list of all the colors I used. All of them are GW paints.

Chaos Black

Chaos Black + Codex Grey

Catachan Green

Bleached Bone

Graveyard Earth

Khemri Brown Foundation

Tin Bitz

Boltgun Metal

Mithril Silver

Ultramarines Blue

White

Blood Red

Sunburst Yellow

Badab Black Wash

Delvan Mud Wash

The Chaos Black + Codex Grey is the only mixture I used (as still use today). There is very little that I paint completely black. Almost every dark bit, such as guns and wires, are a very dark grey.

Second - the spray paint....

Krylon Greek Camouflage is the best paint out there. Most of the time I didn't even need to prime my model. You can get it at any Walmart and it is relatively cheap.

The color is very close to Catachan Green. I use to mix Catachan Green, Codex Grey, and Chaos Black to get an exact match, but I found it wasn't necessary since everything I paint gets coated with wash anyway.

After spraying the tank with the Krylon spray, I worked on everything that wasn't green. The guns got the dark grey mix, the Aquilas got hit with bleached bone, the tracks were tin bitz with Mithril Silver dry brushed on them. The windows got Ultramarines Blue. Lights got yellow. Anything that looked like it should blink or something got hit with some red. Accuracy doesn't really matter, just color within the lines.

Then I put on the Joker decal and the 501 decals. You need to do this BEFORE applying the wash. I would also paint the name of the tank in Bleached Bone. Fix any mistakes with the Catachan Green. Yes, the color is slightly off, but it won't matter after the next step.

Then I would take Badab Black wash and completely ruin my paint job. The trick is to use a large flat brush and work it into every crevasse. Then work it downward so the streaks are vertical on the sides and from front-to-back on the top. Think of the way an old tank would look if it sat in the rain. How would the water flow? Make the wash flow the same way. If you touch a spot before it dries, try working the streaks downward again. If it was too late, then apply a bit more wash, but water it down. If you forgot a spot, then try the same - watered down wash.

Applying wash to wash makes a very dark mark which will be more noticeable than not applying more wash. If it is a small area, consider painting some battle damage over it. Whatever you do - DO NOT be discouraged by how it looks when it is wet. Wash looks completely different when it dries.

After it dries - and I mean COMPLETELY dries, add the battle damage. Whatever technique you want to use will work. I would put black down first, then Tin Bitz inside of that, then Boltgun Metal inside of that, then Mithril Silver inside of that. I have a bunch of old brushes that I used to make the damage look more random.

Then I dry-brushed the entire model with Graveyard Earth which would also be used for the "mud" marks. See http://berkswarhammer40k.blogspot.com/2009/06/weathering-leman-russ.html for more details.

It is that simple.

For the infantry, there here are two links that describe the process:

http://inquisitorlordaki.blogspot.com/2010/02/paint-to-play.html

http://inquisitorlordaki.blogspot.com/2010/02/paint-by-mistake.html

I hope this helps!