The Dogs - Spring Clean Challenge 2026

Overall Colour Scheme

I want the army to look cohesive but as a collection of separate Regiments of Renown these mercenaries don’t wear a single uniform, matched colour scheme, have matching banners or any of the usual tricks we might use to visually tie the force together.

There are things helping to unite the look.  They are all going to be painted by me the same Speedpaints+ style.  I’ll do base coats with Speedpaints over the top of the zenithed primer.  Then after a coat of matt varnish I’ll go back over key areas like the armour with 3-4 layered acrylics.  This gives the models a nice pop and helps brighten and enrich colours to provide a hyper-real look that suits fantasy figures.

Basing will be the same for everyone.  I’m going Goblin Green edging rather than my more usual earth or black.  I’ll also use the same basing finish – probably a Krautcover as they are just too convenient.

As to colours I’ll keep things fairly logical in terms of the main colour choices for a unit.  Armour will usually be bright steel and the other main metallic will be gold.  All units will have some black and white somewhere.  Although this will be fairly subtle it should provide enough of a visual link to help unify the force a bit.  I’ve decided to restrict myself to two main bright colours, blue and red.  So an individual unit will have the option of having blue or red as a focus colour with black and white appearing in every scheme.  This won’t happen for every unit as they will look too similar if I do that.  Those who would logically have a different main colour focus will get that instead.  The Wardancers are going to be green and the archers will either be green or possibly I’ll go russet instead but not so much on the blue or red.  I took a similar apporach painting a large Kislevite army for Warmaster and they looked good.

To test the overall approach I’ve picked a small unit, the Wardancers.

Not much to do with these.  Only one has a nub for a shield so I went through the 1980s plastic shield stash and picked out one of the four pointed ones:

Painting Guide

AP Speedpaints first

1. Skin with Crusader Skin
2. Clothing with two similar Olive Green shades, Desolate Brown and Algae Green
3. Leather in Burnished Red
4. Steel and chainmail in Enchanted Steel
5. Armour plates and jewellery in Aztec Gold
6. Hair in a variety of colours and blends working from Sand Golem as the darkest through Bony Matter to Pallid Bone as the lightest.
7. Wood in Bony Matter
8. White bits base coated with Holy White and the white colour reestablished with Vallejo white acrylic.
9. Black bits in Grim Black.

The basecoats for the armour (5 and 6 above) are the ones I use for elves.  This will mean they should still look right alongside my other elves.  I’ll probably do the humans in a more usual Broadsword Silver and Hoplite Gold.

After the Speedpaints were on I gave everything a matt varnish – Mr Hobby Super Clear Matt spray is my weapon of choice at the moment.  This evens out the appearance of the colours.  Neat Speedpaints look a bit odd with sharp contrasts and shiny areas so it is hard to see the final finish.  Matt varnish sorts this out and helps even up the finish so you can see if there are any areas of unevenness or missed coverage that need to be addressed.

Highlights

1. Steel and chainmail.  Everythnig is given a generous drybrush with Dark Star Steel, leaving just joining edges and deeper recesses.  Then Darkstar Baroque with a lighter drybrush or direct application onto the upper half of blades and the upper surfaces of chainmail.  Finally top edge highlights, blade edges and any top surfaces and corners are picked out with Vallejo Metal Colour Pale Burnt Metal.
2. Armour plates and jewellery.  Because I’m working up from Aztec Gold which has a slightly green undertone I’m not layering up with anything too orangey or warm in tone.  I started with Darkstar Regency Gold over the top 2/3 of surfaces.  Then Darkstar Renaissance Gold over the top 1/3 and a final upper edges and top pointy bits highlight with Vallejo Metal Colour Gold which brings back some of the green based look in the top highlight.
3. White accessories re-highlighted with Vallejo white.
4. Skin is tackled last as I need to see the rest of the model finished to see which areas of skin need a bit of improvement to sit well alongside the newly highlighted colours.  It needs highlighting and tonally correcting where the Speedpaint has come out a bit uneven with a mix of Vallejo Model Colour Beige Red and Vallejo Game Air White.  These are blended by eye for the requirement of the part being painted.  I try not to warm up the skintone too much – I like my elves pale and wan.

Not doing bases yet.  I won’t have either the edging paint or base cover until after I’ve been to Salute.  I am going to use my very green photography display mat (by Model Scene) and I’ve picked a fresh background from the Jon Hodgson Fantasy Background Book.