Skink Priest WIP

The bling is strong with this one.

Not yet finished, but not much left until the skink priest is complete. I'm going to try for a blue glow effect on the outstretched hand, as if the skink is conjuring some magic. The eyes are also blue, to match and give a magic feel about the model. Either that, or it's possessed by a Goa'uld.

I'm quite happy with how this model is turning out. It's mostly been an exploration of contrasting colours; green gems and tips of the feathers/leaves (whichever) contrasting against the red flesh, with hints of blue just for balance. Gold because Lizardmen.

Subtlety makes this character. The white dots of the gems (my first square shaped ones), the gold highlights, it's just been fun to paint. I'm also pleased with the snout - the lighter tone there was to give an impression of age originally, but it also draws attention to the face.

At any rate, another afternoon or two and the main model is done, and the base will hopefully follow soon after.

-- silly painter.

Lizardmen Shield

Shorter post today, mostly because sleep beckons.

I wanted a red-brown look for the shield. I'm not sure what it would be made from, but I wanted a slight red tone to contrast against the mounts. With some playing around, the following was done:

• Mournfang Brown (base)
• Carroburg Crimson (wash) (note: at this point, I quite liked the look - I just messed up the next step)
• Terminatus Stone (drybrush) (applied too much, darn)
• Carroburg Crimson (wash) (tried to tone it back, didn't quite work)
• Skrag Brown (layer) (thin coat on the raised areas, still a little too brown for my liking)
• Mephiston Red (base, thinned down to glaze consistency) (thin coat on the raised areas, just to make it more red).

The messed up drybrushing stage was recovered from, and probably did help to lighten up the raised areas. In future, just doing that directly after the base, followed by the Carroburg wash, would probably be sufficient.

-- silly painter.

Lizardmen Cold One Cavalry WIP #4

With the Cold Ones themselves done, it's time to move on to the riders.

"I have a sword!", "Wave it over there somewhere."

Well, ok, it's not just the riders. A few other models are on the go right now as well, as can be seen by a work in progress skink priest. This is just to mix things up a bit and not get too bored painting the same thing eight times in a row.
Each rider will be done individually, and I'll probably just play around with the colours for each. I won't be keeping track of what I use - that would defeat the purpose of them all being indivdual really.
The main point for today is the feather. Yes, the multi-coloured one. I tried a base coat of white, and then various shades over each part, but it doesn't blend together that well. I may need to water down the shades a little before application, and do multiple passes (like with layer paint highlighting), which is a bit of a pain but will give better results. I'll very likely try that next with the skink, although I might try a base of Celestra Grey instead of Ceramic White - the feathers might otherwise be too bright compared to the rest of the model.

-- silly painter.

Lizardmen Cold One Cavalry WIP #3

Still here!
Moving has taken some time to get sorted out, but the sillyness has returned.

Something looks tasty over there

Today is just a very quick note about some animalistic eyes. That's really all that's left to do on the Cold Ones themselves, though the riders are still in their plastic sprues. Going for a predatory look, I didn't want white to surround the pupil, but instead either a darker brown, or perhaps an amber. Amber would tie in more with the golden collar, so the steps are:
Get a very fine tip brush. Something like this does the trick.

• Averland Sunset base.
• Carroburg Crimson shade (if too much, just quickly wash the brush and absorb some back).
• Rhinox Hide for the pupil (or black)

The eyelid was also highlighted a little, as it makes the eyes look a little more natural. Hard to explain that one, but basically don't forget about the eyelids.

Hopefully another post in a few days with the finished Cold Ones, then I can try out the new Citadel Corax White spray on the riders.

-- silly painter.

Lizardmen Cold One Cavalry WIP #2

Not too much done so far. Some layering work, a bit of drybrushing, and some thoughts on where to go next.

Cold Ones on a warm day.

This might be fairly brief, as there is much packing to be done, but there were a few thoughts to jot down as I worked on them.

Firstly: I've been using a medium layer brush from Games Workshop, one of their new sets. It holds water quite well, but has to be kept damp at all times - if it dries out even a little, bristles start sticking out. That's not to say it's a bad brush - certainly I'm much more impressed than their previous offerings - just that you have to be a little more careful if you want them kept in good shape.
As for being a layer brush, holding a decent amount of water helps considerably. I've been very exact when painting (good for detail, bad for speed and batch painting) and the brush either holds a large amount of paint when required, or is also good at painting directly from pot to model - no mixing down the palette (not recommended for large amounts of paint, but rather for just a small dab on the tip which is then spread around a on a small area on the model).
I'll see how the brush continues to hold up, but I think it'll be ok. Not as good a high quality, professional set (it doesn't beat the good Army Painter ones), but better than what you'd get from a generic painting hobby store.

Another note is on colour theory. I sort of realised this when playing around with the scales on the Cold Ones, then realised it's what was being done on several display Orc models. Green should definitely use blues and purples for shading, and some yellow for highlights (more on that in a moment). Colour wheels are useful. Don't just make it darker of the same colour, but rather use a colour wheel to find shades darker and lighter to help. It really does make a difference, particularly with muscle, or anything organic in shape and texture. I think this comes down to subsurface scattering - skin is translucent, and there are different light absorption, reflection, and refraction depending on how deep the light can penetrate: what lies underneath the skin, how taught muscles are, etc. Armour plating is obviously different, and I suspect I'll stick to different shades of the same colour for armour, but move towards harmonious colours with anything organic.
To be clear: I'm not doing this much with the Cold Ones. I might with their riders, when I get to them.

Lastly for this post, glazes. I've been having trouble figuring out how to use them properly, and so experimented a little with different Cold Ones. This ties back into colour theory, and it finally clicked how I'd like to be using them. Sure, they can give a tint to metallics, but I'm finding them quite effective at making highlights stand out more. Using Lamenter's Yellow glaze over green muscle higlighting really made them "pop". It's really that simple: to make a green highlight stand out that little more, use a yellow glaze. To draw it back, use blue. The picture above doesn't show it too well, but the muzzle on the left Cold One was given a glaze, and it really does brighten things up without disrupting any blending working. On the right, a Bloodletter glaze was used to make things a little less brown.
I guess I just need to think of glazes as a kind of anti-shade paint (used in the opposite manner to the shades).
I've also used glazes of red on the some of dermal plates (on the green-based Cold Ones), with the idea that blood can be flushed through to help cool down the creature, or perhaps it darkens with age (a couple of others have a more blue-grey colouring to the plates).

The scales have some drybrushing work on a few models too. Just a bit of whatever colour (Tyrant Skull mostly) to give the raised areas of the scales a bit of a wear and weathering.

-- silly painter.

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

Sanguinary Guard + 1

It's taken some time, but the Sanguinary Guard are now more or less complete. There is no writing on scrolls or anything - I'm saving that for when I know I can do a proper job of it.

Overall, I'm happy without how they turned out. The gold armour worked well, the gems everywhere fit, and the banner turned out quite nice. The power weapon effect, however, I'm not liking. I still haven't sorted myself out yet with the glow of power weapons, but I think I'm closing in on something that works for me. What I've done so far is just experimentation, blending with blues and aqua, but the final white edging ruins things a bit, and I really needed to cover more of the blades. There will likely be investigation involving drybrushing at some point.

The +1 model is a finecast with minor adjustments to give him a few more Blood Angel specific icons. The base is currently unfinished, but it's not far off. While I do like the model, working with finecast is a pain (so many little things to fix up during the preparation phase) and I'm definitely going to stick to plastic as much as possible. I'm not sure if the special model will be a Captain, or Honour Guard yet. At the very least, he has Terminator Honours and a big axe.

Sanguinary Guard leaping into action, supported by a special model.

Excuse the bad photo again. Still stuck with poor lighting and a smartphone camera.

-- silly painter.