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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

Master Chief - Halo Flashpoint

Our first tutorial of the week is the most famous Spartan-II of all, the Master Chief from Mantic Games’ Halo Flashpoint. Genetically enhanced and armed with an Elite’s type 1 energy sword, this super soldier is the ultimate weapon against the Covenant and a loyal soldier of the United Nations Space Command. . The thing to consider is that he is one of the most iconic characters in computer gaming history, and with that comes a bit of pressure, so in this video, we help you choose the right colours to help you get him looking the part. 

In this video, we show you how to paint Master Chief in the colours of his Halo Infinite armour by focusing on the following:
  • A discussion on selecting and creating a green for his armour. 
  • How to pick out the smaller details of his armour, such as the undersuit. 
  • How to paint the iconic gold visor. 
  • A fun and easy way of painting the blades of his energy sword. 
The techniques shown in this tutorial can be used to paint any Spartans from Halo in your collection.

Converting A Nurgle Possessed Tank

With a new Death Guard codex on the way, we thought it would be fun to explore some of the possiblilities available to a tank commander of Nurgle, and one of those is to welcome the Grandfather himself to bless the tank with one of his children. 

In this video, we have a lot of fun converting a Deimos Pattern Predator from the Horus Heresy miniature range into a possessed Predator Destructor for Warhammer 40,000. This is great inspiration for any Chaos player with us doing things such as: 
  • How to create Daemonic tentacles and claws splitting their way out from the armour, complete with a peek at a a fleshy mass behind.  
  • Useful bits and pieces to pick up, along with great pointers as to how to use them. 
  • An easy way of creating boils and eyes.
  • How to chain shut the hatches to prevent the Daemon from escaping. 
  • How to texture armour surfaces to make them feel like they are being corroded. 
This is great inspiration for any Chaos player that would like to make their own possessed vehicle, and we look forward to painting it in the coming weeks. 

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!

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!

Karacnos Assault Tank

Our tutorial of the week is the brand new Karacnos Assault Tank of the Mechanicum from Games Workshop’s Warhammer: The Horus Heresy. Based upon the Triaros Armoured Conveyor Chassis and festooned with additional weaponry, this tank is a devastating long-range support platform armed with radiological warheads, perfect for clearing organic life from planets. 

We painted our model in the Xana II colour scheme which features a very high contrast between an aged bone and dark metal, so it is important that you start in the right way and look for appropriate sub-assemblies. 

In this video, we show you how to paint a Karacnos Assault tank in the Dark Mechanicum colour scheme of the Xana II  Forge World by focusing on the following:
  • The important sub-assemblies that we recommend to allow access to all the details and to help out with getting a strong start on the model. 
  • What undercoat colours to use to make the early stages a breeze. 
  • How to paint the aged bone coloured armour plating
  • How to create a time-worn dark metal trim. 
  • How to work your way through the complex machinery that features across the entire model.
  • When to start putting together sub-assemblies to help with the weathering process, but also to not make it difficult to access all areas of the model. 
  • How to weather the model to make it look like it’s seen action, including the use of enamel paints for a realistic rust effect. 
The techniques shown in this tutorial can be used to paint any Mechanicum vehicles in the colours of Xana II, including the dreaded Knights of House Malinax in your collection.

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

WHY BECOME A MEMBER

Paint Sister of battle

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.

Lannisters Swordsmen

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.

Duncan Rhodes drpa

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