How to - Transfers

What's this? A fluffy post! What's happening? Indeed, I've gone for a little bit of a change of pace today and decided for something more painting orientated. I'm going to back this up from a tournament perspective – Soft scores are points too – There we go.

The instructions for transfers on the GW transfer sheets aren't exactly the most clear of things. In fact after 10 years in the hobby I only found out how to transfer last month, and it's actually surprisingly easy and effective. So, to help you with your transferring, here is (hopefully) a better guide. Apologies in advance for the somewhat crappy pictures of the test model, but hopefully it still displays an adequate example of what's happening.

Items needed (paints/liquids listed under their GW names): 'Ardcoat/Varnish, Lahmian Medium (technical), paintbrush, pot of water, a non-porous item, the applicable transfer sheet, your favourite wash, hobby knife.

Step 1: Coat the surface that you wish to transfer your image onto with the varnish ('Ardcoat). In this example I have coated the whole of the Chaos Marine's shoulder pad.

Step 1

Step 2: Pour a small pool of water onto your non-porous material (nice and shallow), here you can see that I have used the lid from a pot of curry. Then cut out the transfer that you want to use from your sheet and drop it face up into your pool of water. Leave it there for approximately 30 seconds.

Step 2

Step 3: Pluck the transfer out of the water with your knife, and hold it with your fingers, whilst using the knife to pick the top (transparent) layer from the transfer, this is what you'll be applying to the model and should look something like this. 

Step 3

 Step 4: Apply the transfer to the model. Use your knife and possibly your paintbrush to smooth it down onto the surface. 

Step 4

 Step 5: Once you're happy with the placement of the transfer, once again paint varnish onto the surface where the transfer has been applied. This is to seal the transfer in, but be careful of moving it around when applying the varnish. Once dried, it will look rather shiny. Paint the Lahmian Medium onto the same surface, this is used to dull the varnish down. Once this has dried, although the surface is much less shiny, you may find that the transfer itself looks far too, 'clean' for the field of battle. The final step is to wash over the transfer with your wash, completing the process. The finished result seen below. 

Step 5 - Finished Result