Lizardmen Cold One Cavalry WIP #1

And so onwards from the Sanguinary Guard, this time it's Lizardmen. I really wanted something other than armour to paint here: getting models to look more organic, fewer hard edges, and generally different model aspects to consider.

Starting with the Cold One mounts, and with thanks to Matt for the suggestion, I've gone with attempting to make each model look slightly different. It's not like they're all clones; making them different colours will actually give a more natural appearance. I've gone for a more crocodilian look, so I probably won't have a multitude of patterns colouring the scales, but I will try go for different basic colour schemes.

All looking off to the same direction. Obviously, there's a cat for lunch over there.

As can be seen, green above with a pale underbelly is the basic approach I've taken. I basically took every green base paint I had and tried it out, with the exception of a single brown model. The brown one will likely have green highlights, shades, and glazes to tie it in with the rest later on.

The underbelly was painted first to give something to blend into, and it turned out surprisingly easy to do. First, an undercoat  of Ceramite White, being careful to give it an even and full covering, and trying to make sure the black primer spray doesn't show through. It might need multiple coats for this step, and be sure to let each coat dry before applying the next. Next, apply a wash of Seraphim Sepia. That's it. Such a simple approach, but very effective. I actually found the idea from looking at a GW painting guide for Tyranids, so it just goes to show that sometimes the easiest approach is the best.

Moving on to the top of the models, I tried was to use a lot of water to really thin down the base paints and blend it in to the underbelly. I didn't want a hard line between the scales on top, and the softer parts underneath - nature is rarely so defined. This was no easy task, and it takes quite a while to build up the blend, but I find that applying water to the area before painting on the (thinned down) base colour helped in this task. Even so, I'm not happy with all models - Death World Forest seems to work best, where as Caliban Green barely worked at all.

Fortunately, making each model look different is really helping to explore different effects and approaches to see what works, and what doesn't. I plan to test drybrushing the scales, then using different shades, glazes, and layer paint highlights just to see what it all ends up looking like. I will likely try for a dark blue or possibly grey tone to the harder scales, and maybe some final drybrushing of yellow or flesh tones to show where those scales have been exposed to weather effects, chipping, and so on. I'm also going to highlight muscle with a lighter green, then pull it back with shades of green and brown (Agrax Earthshade), just to see how that looks, and possibly later give some areas a yellow glaze.

One thing to keep in mind through it all is that these models should look organic. While metal hangings can have sharp highlights, the mounts themselves should definitely have a softer appearance, and this is a theme I will try stick to.

As always, the lack of a proper camera and lighting will make in progress photos difficult, but I'll try keep in mind what I'm doing and describe it later.

-- silly painter