Long before Duncan championed the law of 2 thin coats... Mike Mcvey was fundamental in lifting the painting game of teenagers around the world. The 1994 Eavy Metal Painting Guide was an absolute tome, and I looked over every page religiously when I got my copy. Apart from the fact it was a beast in a game, the Avatar was also the final boss in the painting game and I had to commit to painting one.
Some of the techniques and paints have changed vastly since that point in time - washes were only in their infancy, there was no such thing as layer paints (and in fact the whole line has been overhauled... twice... since then). Trying to recreate any of the marine schemes of the day would use a much different approach, as well as a new set of paints.
Having said that - the 2 pages for the Avatar alone still hold a lot of little hints of how the golden daemon level painter of the day would work. I'm also slightly amazed at how text heavy this type of guide was; given how widely painters today would use multiple progress shots or even just go straight to youtube videos.
Anyway... I may need to modernise the approach for my newly acquired Forgeworld avatar, but this guy will still hold a special place as a reference guide for the look and feel.
And I still like to think I did an ok teenager job of replicating the original in 1996.
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