How to Paint Knight Houses

A Questoris Knight is not a big infantry model. It is a heraldic banner on legs, and it is painted the way a vehicle is painted: large smooth panels, hard-edged markings, and weathering to stop all that flat colour going dead. The households of the Age of Darkness are feudal aristocracies, so the livery is the point - two or three bold colours, arranged in quarters and bands, with a device repeated across carapace, tilting shield and shoulder.

The panels

1. Undercoat black for a deep livery, grey or white for a pale one. On surfaces this size an aerosol or airbrush is worth it - brush marks on a knee plate are visible across the room.
2. Basecoat the household colour in thin, even coats. Macragge Blue for a royal blue house; Mephiston Red, Averland Sunset or Corax White depending on your heraldry.
3. Panel-line rather than wash. Run thinned Nuln Oil into the joins between plates and around raised bolts with a fine brush. A wash over the whole panel will leave tide marks you cannot hide.
4. Highlight the edges with a lighter version of the base - Calgar Blue and then a whisper of Fenrisian Grey over Macragge Blue, Evil Sunz Scarlet over Mephiston Red, Yriel Yellow over Averland Sunset, White Scar over Corax White.
5. Trim and structure in gold: Retributor Armour, Agrax Earthshade, Auric Armour Gold. Pistons, joints and gun barrels in Leadbelcher, Nuln Oil, Ironbreaker.

Heraldry, which is the whole job

Quartered panels are easier than they look if you mask them. Basecoat the lighter colour first, let it cure properly overnight, lay low-tack tape along the division, burnish the edge down hard with a fingernail and spray or brush the second colour away from the tape edge. Peel while the paint is touch-dry.

Freehand devices - a lion, a serpent, a chequer band - go on afterwards. Sketch the shape in a mid-tone first, correct it with the surrounding panel colour, then fill and outline. Chequers only need one rule: mark the grid lightly with a pencil before you paint anything. Keep the largest device on the carapace and the tilting shield, and repeat a simplified version on the shoulder.

Weathering

Break the flat colour with battle damage rather than dirt. Sponge Rhinox Hide chips along the leading edges of the shins, feet and shoulders, then dot a handful of them with Leadbelcher so a few read as bare metal. Drag thinned Agrax Earthshade downwards from bolts and vents. Stipple Typhus Corrosion with Ryza Rust dabbed into it around exhausts and ankle joints, and drybrush Karak Stone up the legs from the base. A soft Abaddon Black stipple above the exhausts finishes it.

How long it takes

Fast in one sense - a household is a handful of models, and one Knight can be a table's centrepiece. Slow in another: the panels punish thick paint and rushed masking, and the freehand is not optional if the model is to look like a Knight of a house rather than a blue robot. Expect a full weekend on your first, and rather less on the second, once your heraldry is decided.

Tips and common mistakes

• Thin coats, cured properly. Masking tape lifts paint that is dry to the touch but not hard. Give it a day.
• Two colours, not five. Heraldry works by contrast; a knight in five colours reads as noise.
• Highlight the panel edge, not the panel. The eye reads shape from the outline of each plate.
• Damage lives where it would happen. Shins, feet, shoulders and weapon housings - not the middle of a clean carapace.

When you are happy with the palette, open this scheme in the generator to swap paints between brands or build your own household livery.