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Half the year gone already?! Not possible. I haven’t painted nearly enough miniatures. My hobby bingo sheet is looking very low on points (if you haven’t tried hobby bingo I highly recommend it, helps give you that boost). Well, hopefully the other bloggers have done a little better, let’s take a look.
Setaris Ravagers (Shadows of Brimstone) by Sam de Smith
Having had no painting mojo at all this month, finally settled on something from the pile of opportunity: Setaris Ravagers for Shadows of Brimstone. Nasty scavenging alien Dinos, from Brimstone but also ideal for 2000AD, Stargrave, you name it.
For the skin, I started with Vallejo Game Color terracotta and then wet blended some Gore Red in thin horizontal stripes on the wing membranes, before blending in some Flat Flesh (same with the tongues); flesh tones always gives a richer highlight to reds, I find. Having reprimed boney bits with Dead white, I then when with old faithful Deck Tan. The harnesses and metals were simply washed from grey prime with Drakenhoff Nightshade, then highlighted with Wolf Grey and Arctic White. The eyes were picked out in Scorpy Green, as was the weapon glow. Bases were done with either Stirland Mud or Agrellan Badlands which are my go to for either Swamps or Old West. Finally, the tufts are from Greenstuff world!
Red Skull (MCP) by Ross Coulbeck
I’m not going to lie, this may have been the easiest model I’ve ever painted. It doesn’t use many paints, it only took me an hour, and yes it’s now one of my all time favourite models. Red Skull is just cool.
So I started off by spraying him white to make the best use of contrasts, and boy did I make good use of them. His cloak/jacket/trousers/boots/case are all the same dark
grey, so I used Basilicanum grey contrast for those parts. For the red of his face, hands and the logo on the case I used Blood Angels Red contrast, I could have tried to add more details on the face but I knew if I did my shaky hands would just mess it up, so I left it. The cube/Tesseract/Space Stone container, needed to be a quite vivid blue, so I built up several layers of Frostheart contrast, ignoring the edges more as I went along. I was very happy with how that one turned out. Then I added a single piece of Retributor Gold for his belt buckle, with a wash over it and finished off the base in a watered down Basilicanum grey. I’m still getting the consistency of ‘concrete/paving’ right with that one, so expect it to change on a few of my MCP models.
Thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Count Dooku (Star Wars: Shatterpoint) by Sam de Smith
Begun, the Clone Wars have...
Well, at least now they can for the Separatists, because we have Twice The Pride with Count Dooku for Star Wars: Shatterpoint!
I knew I really wanted to go to town with the OSL (object source lighting) on this, so approaching with a plan is always good. Over a grey prime, I started with washing the trousers, chain and hair with Nuln Oil (black) whilst the boots and jacket were done with Vallejo Model Air Black (effectively pre thinned paint), and then all given a fairly sparse highlight with VJ Deck Tan (of course). The belt was first given a layer of Army Painter Speed paint Dark Wood (always handy for giving depth to browns - and aged metal, interestingly) and then painted VJ game colour leather brown, as was the cloak. Both were then washed with Seraphim Sepia, and highlighted with Deck Tan on the raised edges. The flesh was given a simple base coat of VJ Flat Flesh and then Reikland Fleshshade. Finally, the hilt and the metal of the base were washed with Drakenhoff Nightshade (brushed, for the base, in broad stroked to create a sense of metallic reflection) and highlighted with Deck Tan.
Now onto the tricky bit! First, the blade was painted VJ Dead White and lightning Arctic white; though almost imperceptible, dead white has more yellow tones, arctic
more blue. Each arm was also lightly drybrushed with the matching white. The Lightsaber was painted VJ Gore Red with Orange Fire wet blended at the centre, and then I ran my finger lightly across the top surface of the blade to reveal a tiny hint of white. I drybrushed the surfaces that the light would hit with Gore Red and a little thinned red added to the base also, followed by Druchi Nightshade wash on the skin and recesses of cloak on that side. For the Force Lightning, I painted the whole thing VJ Magic Blue, then marked out the middle of all of it again with Dead white before similarly drybrushing the blue and a little into the face (but again, shading with Violet). A fair bit of work, but very much worth it in the end!
Wong (MCP) by Ross Coulbeck
I think this was the first of my MCP models I painted. Why did I choose this one to do first? Because while some people like Captain America, or Iron Man, or Black Panther, I like Wong. Wong is a sorcerer who is more than capable and has to deal with all the regular stuff while all the big time heroes are off saving the universe for the hundredth time. And even then, when he’s called in to help he’s kick-ass.
The model itself isn’t too complex, but has room for some nice details. As usual I undercoated white for contrast paints, then I did his main tunic in Dark Angels Green, highlighting the folder arm and leg cuffs with Flash Gitz Yellow, to give a bright contrast (also I like the idea his suit is bright yellow on the inside). Then I finished the suit off with Retributor Armour gold for the clasps, with a Reikland Fleshshade wash. Speaking of flesh, have you noticed I’m generally terrible with it, I can never get it quite right. This time I decided the paint needed to do the work for me, so I bought some Kislev flesh for a light skinnote, and put a little Reikland Fleshshade over the top. Again, I could have done more but I knew I’d mess it up, so this is fine. There was the base, which was thoroughly uninteresting, another experiment in watering down Basilicanum grey (not nearly enough this time). The last cool detail those is the fire/energy thing. I first went over this all in a Vellejo Bright Orange, before dulling it down and adding the mixed tones with Fuegan Orange, being careful to target certain spots more heavily. In general it was a fiery experiment that came out really well, so I’m happy.
Gryph-hound and Skink Starpriest (Age of Sigmar) by Northern Invasion Stu
I have decided to do something a little different for my miniature of the month contribution this time. I didn’t paint either of these miniatures, they were painted by my kids when they were around 10 years old. Each of the models represents the first time that they worked through the painting process on their own, having helped me paint models for years and having painted models together over the years.
When my daughter painted the Gryph-hound contrast paints weren’t even a thing whereas my son made full use of those when he painted his starpriest. Whilst we don’t use the models on the table, they have a special place in my cabinet as I am very proud of the painting level that they achieved at such a young age.
I particularly like the feathers on the star priest, which were blended by dabbing spots of different contrast paints in three places and then putting a drop of contrast medium between each of the spots. This technique naturally results in smoothish blend that is of a good standard for a young person and is certainly good enough to take to a tournament or to play with at home. My daughter’s Gryph-hound involved layering, dry brushing and a lot of patience on her part.
Both models used sand and PVA glue for the bases with some tufts added along with a little paint. All in all the effect is very good and the models are of a good standard. My son's star priest even managed to beat one of my models in a local painting competition a couple of years ago which made me very proud indeed.
Whilst my son still spends time painting models, these are usually of the Marvel Crisis Protocol variety whereas my daughter has moved on from painting models to social media and TikTok as many children nowadays do… However on those few occasions where she wants to play a tabletop game with her old dad, she makes him very happy!
Skitarii (40k) by Neil Parker
I’m building a Warhammer 40K roleplay adventure party and having a techpriest is always useful. So, I bought the boxset for Skitarii and built one as a typical techpriest. It is very distinctive, especially given the other characters in our current Dark Heresy campaign are black armoured Arbites, a psyker and an ogryn.
I started with a white, grey scheme for the body and limbs, with a slight metallic look, using Vallejo silver to touch up with. For the cloak I used a simple red with Citadel’s screaming skull for the cream looking inside and I used my new airbrush for the cloak to get a very nice clear finish too. I then used the bone colour for an off-white effect on the back pack to contrast it from the white and grey and Citadel’s nuln oil shade to seep into the cracks. I also used a dry brush for some highlighting.
The rifle is a mix of Vallejo metallics, again using a brown effect for contrast. Then I’ve touched up with highlights and blue lights and used one of the cog and skull transfers to give a distinctive look. I really like the end product. It is a fairly simple job done, but with the colour scheme and look, it will be a singular figure in the group, which is what I want, an individual figure for one of the player characters.