Overall painting plan and method
Preparation and detailing
Undercoat:
Basecoat:
Top coat:
Mapping:
Camo Pattern:
Decals
Chipping:
Matt Varnish
Filters: Burnt Umber; Black
Spot Filters:
General Rusting
Fuel and oil staining
Detailing

Preparation and detailing
This model was washed in warm water with simple green used as the degreaser. It was soaked in the mix for a few hours before the parts were carefully scrubbed with a tooth brush. The parts were then left out to dry overnight on a tea-towel.

I then cleaned off the mould seams where possible. Forgeworld has come a long way since the first models I bought and mould lines are few and small, little to no reconstruction work is required on the detail of this model. The worst mould lines are on the trench crossing rails at the back, where the mould has not line up perfectly. However it's not so bad that filing can't reduce it to manageable proportions.
Nothing that is on a sprue is clipped off. Parts are left on sprues for ease of handling during spraying, and to keep parts together and not lost in my carpet!

I am not doing any ultra detailing on this models as it is already pretty stunning out of the box, besides the Real World^tm, has really done a number on my paining time over the last half year and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Undercoat: Halfords Grey Primer
With all of the bits clean and prepped I spray the parts with Halfords Grey primer. This is a car body repair primer and has no trouble sticking to the normally hydrophobic resin used by GW. It forms an intermediate layer between the hydrophobic substrate (the model) and the wetter GW chaos black spray.

Basecoat:
Undercoat as usual with Citadael Spray Chaos Black, working in even strokes 8in from the surface to get a light even coating.

Top Coat:
All of the spray work is done in Vallejo: Model Air colours.  It is Basically done in Four stages:
 - Top Coat
 - Mapping
 - Camouflage
 - Unit Campaign markings
 - Tracks:

Firstly the Tracks (Still black) are masked off with  Tamiya Masking tape and the body of the model is sprayed with the top coat of VMS:

Then the Mapping with Vallejo Model colours, Various shades of the topcoat were created using VMA: mixed and thinned with VGC: Pale Flesh; VGC: Snakebite leather VCG:Burnt Umber.  These various mixes were painted onto the vehicle in large Continents.  The Top coat of VGC was then sprayed over the model to blend in and tone down some of the variations.

Then the Camouflage pattern was sprayed on free hand with VMA: Again in large continents.

The Masking was then moved off the tracks to the body itself around the tracks and the tracks given a coat of VMA: Burnt umber.

What is an Earthshaker?

Well, this is both an easy one and a hard one at the same time. An Earthshaker is the name of the design of the gun itself. At the same time an Earthshaker can also be a generic description of a type of gun in the Imperial Guard covering a myriad of locally produced types and models. Calling a gun an Earthshaker is a bit like saying its a Howitzer. There are many different designs of Howitzer. Big Bertha was a Howizer; Just as the modern M777 in the US Army is a howitzer, but no-one is likely to confuse the two.

Games Workshop website is quite silent on the background of the Earthshaker artillery gun. It just says its mounted on the Basilisk Chasis as a Self Propelled Gun and used to soften up positions prior to assaults.
I will be using the static guns favoured by the Death Korps and not the SPGs from Game workshop.
Imperial Armour has quite a bit more to say:
There are many more of this type of gun carriage in use in the Imperial Guard than the Mobile mounting.  They have a range of up to x and the range can be controlled by the number of charges loaded behind the shell.  The Guns can be overloaded with higher charges.  When this is done the barrel wears out faster, and If it is done too often the Gun becomes inaccurate and can explode.  Crews who are found to misuse the guns in this manner without express orders can be shot as punishment for damaging valuable war material.
Earth shakers have a variety of different load-outs including HE; Incendiary; smoke and others.

Why an Earthshaker battery?

It's the Death Korps of Krieg! Do I need any reason? The Death Korps of Krieg specialisation is siege warfare on a grand scale. Think world war one, where networks of trenches and barbed wire, spread 10 miles wide and 500 miles long.

When the 23rd founding of the 291st Death Korps regiment left their home world, the did so founded as a Panzer-Grenadier regiment. But in the GrimDark, even the specialist Grenadiers need Artillery support, and given the preponderance of siege regiments coming out of Kreig , big guns are always in plentiful supply. So when the 291st shipped out, it did so, with several companies of dedicated artillery, and a full regimental artillery train.

When is this Battery of Earthshakers?