Antipodean Saracens

[Angora]

@ silmarilias - i suppose I should at some point but I'll probably just pop up the finished ones there    You should pop down to WSWA in Altona for a game soon. There's a buncjh of us meet down there.

@silveri - sure. Next model would you like a proper 'step by step' tute?

[Silveri]

@silveri - sure. Next model would you like a proper 'step by step' tute?

Yes please.

[Angora]

As requested here's the start of a complete WIP on painting a saracen...

The subject of the WIP will be this guy:

An excellent mini and a bit challenging due to lots of cloth areas (so lots of blending to do)

I start by prepping the mini as usual (cleaning mould lines etc), clipping off the tab and inserting a pin. The slot in the base is filled with some old plasticene I had lying about. It's cheaper than greenstuff and just as good once it's covered in basing material.


I roughen up part of the base so the glue adheres better, taking care to leave an area for the lava. I have a length of old matchstick blind that I scavenged. It makes great PVA smearers and can also see service as defensive stakes!


Now to aply the gravel. It's not  bad idea to give the box of gravel a gentle shake, just to bring the big ones to the surface. That way you get a nice balance of small and big rocks. At this point test fit the mini and remove or shift any basing that will be in the way. In this case one of the larger rocks on the left had to go as it was right where a foot would end up. Sometimes I smeal the entire base in PVA and push the flock away to form the lava, This also gives a nice ripple effect.


More to come soon....(the more interesting bits

[Angora]

Onto painting the base:

first up it's given a black undercoat and drybrushed. Starting with GW Charandon Granite and the working up through Codex Grey to Fortress Grey in increasingly light coats. Concentrate on the larger rocks for the final highlights


Now for the lava: These are the colours used (apart from white which I forgot to show)

They are GW Blood Red (BR), Red Gore (RG), Blazing Orange (BO), Fiery orange (FO) and Golden Yellow (GY) plus Black and White. Fiery orange has been discontinued and that's a shame 'cos it's a great colour

For the base colour mix some RG with a dab on black and paint it on.


Then, while the first coat is still wet, start painting on some straight RG. Keep the paint fairly thin and sorta dab it on to get a nice, uneven texture happening.

[Angora]

With each colour you apply gently drybrush the surrounding rock to get the OSL working. This is important as it's a bugger to go back and mix the colours again. These should be VERY light drybrushes. if you can't highlight your fingerprint on your hand you've too much paint on the brush!

Working as quickly as you can start to add Blood red to the mix in increasing amounts. Every time you add BR, reduce the are you paint to get the glow started.



Now begin to add Blazng orange in the same fashion. Keep reducing the area you paint. With each colour change you kinda mix it with the previous finishing colour and work up to the next one. It's important to work fast but as you are dealing with pretty small areas you don't need lots of paint.


Work up through Fiery Orange and Golden yellow. All the time reducing the area you paint. By this stage I've dropped from a 2/0 brush to a 000!

You will note that at this stage I decided to add more Blood Red. It's important to get the balance of colours right and sometimes it takes some fiddling. I used very dilute paint for this to help it blend in.

For the smallest areas of highlight add some white to the Golden Yellow and work up to pure white. The white bits should just be very fine dabs.


Go back and paint the edge of the base. This part really makes the effect take shape I think.


After this I'll normally add some washes to the rocks (Leviathan Purple etc) to make them stand out.

More to come soon.

[Micka]

Beautiful!

I'll try it on my next model

[oinky]

Fantastic!I allready put big rocks on my bases,but I'm going to give it a try on the next ones.

Greetz Oinky 

[Grendel]

Yep, I'm going to have to try this too.

So how many layers do you think you have on there?

[Angora]

Kinda hard to say how many layers. I guess 6-10 if you count all the different mixes. Sometimes I'll mix say, red & yellow together, and just pop a few dabs on and then change the colour a bit.
One important bit (that I may have neglected to say) is that the paints should be quite thin. The colour really needs to build and blend at the same time. It probably takes 10 minutes from start to finish to do the lava.

[Grendel]

Good to know.  I expected it to take much longer than that.  And thanks for the clarification too.

[Angora]

More done today:

Here are the basecoats for the berber. His robes are basecoated in a mix of GW Snakebite Leather and Graveyard Earth. His upper 'cape' in a mix of Bestial Brown and scorced brown. The headdress is just straight Codex Grey. Hands and face painted in Dark Flesh. The gun is painted in a mix of Scorched brown and black.


The next step it to basically cover the mini in a light wash of leviathan Purple wash mixed with some Delvan Mud. Concentrate on the recesses.


The next step is to repaint the robes with a mix of Desert Yellow and Graveyard Earth, adding more graveyard earth to start to form the highlights. Bleached bone is added to the mix to highlight the highest folds.


After the first set of highlights I go back and add more of the wash mix to the recesses and form the shadows from the outer layers of clothes. I follow up with a few very light glazes of Liche Purple here and there. You can see I went a bit overboard on the RHS of his robes (just under his knee). I will fix that in the next stage.


Here are the robes, pretty much done. I remixes the Graveyard Eath/Blacked Bone mix and rehihlighted, using very diluted paint. The dark patch was covere by progressively using the lighter colour to mask it - the key here is very thin paint and a decent brush. The final higlights are bleached bone and skull white, up to almost straight skull white.


More to come soon...

[occa]

Looking good!