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The Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy

Welcome to the Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy, the place to learn how to paint your favourite miniatures with regular, in-depth and highly detailed tutorials, painting challenges, courses, give-aways and best of all, a thriving community of amazing Academy Members!

LATEST TUTORIALS

This Week's Tutorials

Haradrim Warrior

This week our new tutorial is for a Haradrim Warrior for the Middle-earth Srategy Battle Game by Games Workshop. As a fierce tribesman sworn to the service of Sauron, these cruel men are dedicated to the destruction of Gondor.
 
Harad offers an interesting faction for any fan of the Lord of the Rings due to a varied roster and colourful scheme. In this video we show how to paint a warrior wielding a spear, covering techniques and methods that are useful for almost every miniature in the army.
 
In this video we show you:
  • How to select colours to paint your Haradrim Warrior in the iconic colour scheme featured in the legendary Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.
  • How to select the layers of clothing for these colours to add variety across your force.
  • A great way of painting their flesh.
  • A useful way of picking out the blue gems and precious stones set into their armour.
Haradrim are a fantastic sight on the tabletop and painting them is both fun and satisfying. You can see the full video now!

Deathwatch Space Marine

The first tutorial of the week is another Agent of the Imperium from Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000, a Deathwatch Marine. Formed from elite battle-brothers seconded from Space Marine chapters across the Galaxy to create a specialist team of Xenos hunters. 

The best part of painting Deathwatch Marines is giving each of them a unique flavour from their parent chapter, which makes them stand out, especially when armed with exotic weaponry. 
 
In this video we show you:
  • How to consider the home Chapter colours of an individual Deatwatch Operative and how to factor it in to the overall plan for painting the model.
  • A great way to paint cold black power armour so that it matches with the cold steel of the decorative left arm.
  • A handy way to add a hint of blue to the silver metal of the decorative left arm.
  • How to add in all the small details such as purity seals, glowing red eyes, and more!
  • How to paint the eerie green powered blade of the xenophase blade.
 

The Deathwatch are one of the coolest things in all of Warhammer 40,000 and if you’re planning to add an elite kill-team of these alien hunters to your army then this is the video for you! You can see the full video now.

Grey Knight

Our second tutorial of the week revisits the fantastic conversion video from a few weeks back, where we made an updated scale Grey Knight using various parts from across Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 and Horus Heresy kits. 

This conversion was a lot of fun to make, and like all conversions that you are proud of, it’s amazing to see it finished and ready for battle. 
 
In this video we show you:
  • A great method of painting the blue steel armour of the Grey Knights that involves the use of acrylic ink to gain its signature blue tint!
  • How to add a heraldic design on the right shoulder guard that can be easily adapted to different Marines.
  • How to pick out all the small Grey Knight details such as many, many purity seals, relics, and glowing blue eyes.
  • How to paint the glowing blue blade of a Nemesis Force Weapon.
Whilst our conversion is the model we use to illustrate these techniques, everything in this video can be easily applied to any Grey Knight model you may wish to paint. You can see the whole video now!

New Addition to the DRPA

For a bit of fun, we thought we’d release our taster audio podcast we lovingly titled Episode 0 – Chaos! It of course has zero to do with the faction but more to do with us finding our feet and learning the tools. So join your host Joe who is joined by Dunc and Rog as they navigate their way through the wonderful world of podcasting! 

Our plan is to release an episode every week on a Wednesday for Members to listen to whilst they relax and hobby.

What is the Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy?

The Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy, or DRPA for short, is a Membership site where you can come and learn to paint your favourite miniatures. Whether you are a beginner or even an experienced miniature painter, the Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy will teach you all the techniques you need to know and give you the confidence to paint any miniature you desire.

Want to know which miniatures we’ve made tutorials for? Then just click the link below!

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enjoy these sample tutorials

This is just a small taster of the video tutorials we have on the site. We will be adding new, exclusive content every week that can only be found right here for our members. We will be covering all manner of miniatures, techniques and advice, everything to help you improve your painting skills. Check out the full list of videos and a gallery of the tutorials on the site by clicking the link below.

Tutorial of the Month!

Grand Cathay Sky Lantern

Our mammoth tutorial of the week really ballooned as we went along and is easily the biggest and longest tutorial we have made to date. Fresh from Games Workshop’s new Grand Cathay release for Warhammer: The Old World, The Sky Lantern. This impressive kit is packed with so much detail that we had to break it down into different sections over nearly two weeks!

This miniature looks really complicated and intimidating due to its sheer intricacy. in this video, we tackle the model by breaking it down with this in mind and breaking it into four distinct chapters.

Gondola & Lantern
In this video, we show you a great way to paint the Gondola and followed by the Lantern in the colour scheme of the box art by focusing on the following:

Gondola

  • A clear illustration and breakdown of all the sub-assemblies used throughout the video.
  • How to start painting the complexities of the gondola, featuring what order to tackle details and why.
  • A great way of painting the red armoured hull.
  • How to paint all the metallics, including a weathered and burnished bronze.
  • How to pick out the small details on the structure, including wooden planks and black and white symbols.

Lantern

  • An easy and approachable way of tackling the lantern’s smooth canvas featuring a particular way of applying soft shading.
  • The most efficient way of picking out the complex rope and bronze details.

Crew & Magistrate

With the vehicle complete, we then turn our attention to a great way to paint the Magistrate and crewmen in the colour scheme of the box art by focusing on the following:

Magistrate

  • A great way of painting the Magistrate’s lush, silky clothes.
  • How to achieve a clean white and vibrant yellow.
  • A great way of painting the Magistrate’s skin.
  • How to pick out the priceless gem upon his forehead.


Crewman


How to paint the uniform of the crane gunners featuring the red, blue, and khaki layers.

  • How to work your way through various small details of equipment, such as rope and terracotta pottery.
  • How to paint the smoking flames on the matches.
  • How to paint unique details to particular sculpts, including the champion’s coat and the bird on his arm.
  • A full explanation of the order in which we recommend that you glue together all the sub-assemblies to complete the model.


This is our longest and most detailed painting guide to date, so if you want to paint this model but are worried about the complexities that this might involve, then don’t worry because this video will walk you through every single step.

Check out the gallery below for a sample of our 400+ Tutorials

WHY BECOME A MEMBER

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FULL PAINTING TUTORIALS

Whether you want to paint a single figure, a vehicle, a monster or even a piece of scenery and not to mention new techniques, you will find an in-depth tutorial here just for you.

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NEW CONTENT EVERY WEEK

Every week we will be adding brand new content for Members only. Whether it's video painting tutorials, blog posts and online painting guides, you can be sure you'll always have something to both help and inspire you.

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WE HAVE A DUNCAN

With over 10 years experience, running painting seminars all around the world and hundreds of video tutorials under his belt, there is no one better to both teach and give you the confidence to achieve the results you've always dreamed of.

£3.99 PER MONTH

That's about the same price as a really nice cup of coffee. Not too bad for expertly produced painting tutorials and tons of inspiration.

MONTHLY PAINTING CHALLENGES

Every month we host a fun painting challenge on our Forum where Academy Members can show off their amazing work and get both inspired and motivated by an amazing community of hobbyists. The winners get an exclusive DRPA Pin badge and an hour online hang out with Duncan where they can ask any questions they want or just simply hang out and paint.

COURSES

The latest addition to the Academy is Courses! Here we host full, in-depth courses that will, over time, cover various, large subjects starting with a full course for beginners - The Fundamentals of Miniature Painting.

MONTHLY GIVE AWAYS

Every month we have a give away for a lucky Academy Member. Prizes in the past have ranged from an amazing core sets like Leviathan to an Airbrush from Harder and Steenbeck.

Here's what our Members have to say

SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Small Studio Shoutout_01

There are many fantastic, small, independent miniature and games studios out there and we believe in helping each other out wherever we can. If you feel like checking out something a bit different, then please feel free to give these guys a look-see. You may just be surprised at what you can discover…

Thanks

Dunc & Rog