Painting my Kill Team Terrain… with a Sponge!

Having acquired a rather large amount of GW's Sector Mechanicus terrain for my new Kill Team board, I had to face the task I normally fail at – painting it all!

I no longer have access to my airbrush, so I needed to find a quick way to get some colours down that would also satisfy my nitpicking attitude towards details and 'looking cool'. I decided to go down the route of the sponge technique I'd used on my board.

I spray undercoated everything with Leadbelcher (what an awesome spray can that is!). Immediately things looked better. I then painted the area I wanted to colour up un Rhinox Brown. A couple of thin coats later we were ready to rock and roll.

I started by mixing Rhinox Brown and Mephiston Red on my palette and began sponging the colour on, subtly at first but then I got bolder. I added more Mephiston Red and let the sponge do the mixing. The colour was beginning to focus around the central part of each segment, leaving wonderful dark shadows at the edges.

I gave the red areas a wash of Baal Red (now sadly no longer available) then, once thoroughly dry, applied more Mephiston Red, moving up gradually to Evil Sunz Scarlet and even a little Wild Rider Red.

I retired the sponges and tried out some edging colours with a fine brush, going through my cycle of reds, and things were starting to look good. However it was not dark or dirty enough.

Next I touched up the Leadbelcher where the sponge had contaminated the metal with red, and washed the metal areas in Nuln Oil then, once dry, the whole thing in Agrax Earthshade, concentrating on the recesses and clearing the glaze away from the central highlight areas almost completely. Understandably I had to leave it 24hrs to dry!

I was very happy now, but felt I needed to highlight the individual plates within each segment. Again, I cycled through my reds, but pushed on to a Fire Dragon Bright and even touches of a flesh tone (don't recall white one – Kislev?). I finished with some Agrax Earthshade in the recesses between the plates to add contrast to the highlights.

I'm calling these red sections done, except for maybe a huge stencilled number and sone distressing at a later date. The plan is to approach the metal parts in a similar fashion, getting the overall highlights to a mid-tone then some edge highlights quite bright.

I'm just happy that I'm close to my first piece of painted terrain in almost 15 years!!