Sláine: Kiss My Paintbrush!

All of the Drune characters care finished.  Speedpaints as before with some additional layering and highlights, particularly on the skin for Medb and Megrim.  First up, Medb and Robym.  Medb has a Talassar Blue Contrast cloak with some of the uneven blobs re-layered and highlighted.  The chainmail is AP Holy White with a broad highlight of Wolf Grey and then selected highest-lights with White.

Megrim.  I like a purple highlight over a black cloak, especially for “evil” characters.  This was AP Grim Black with P3 Sanguine Highlight over the top.

Drune Priest.

Slough Throt.

And coming soon.  What will this be…?

For the Lord Weird I had a go at wet blending.  These AP Speedpaints stay wet and workable on the model for a while and don’t stain the same way some inks and contrast paints will.  This allowed a nice wet blend working up from a Dark Wood and Hardened Leather blend through pure Hardened Leater to a blend with Sand golem to pure Sand Golem with the zenith underneath helping the notion of light/tone transition.

Other parts were treated similar to previous models with the Sand Golem/finger wipe highlights on the antlers.  The bone colour on the scull he is holding was reinforcesd with some Vallejo Bone White.  The sickle bronze effect was a brown mixed as part of the wet blending on the skin.  This was overpainted with Citadel Technical Nihilakh Oxide (why is it called that GW?) for the verdigris.

The base is the only one not in the standard flocking scheme.  He is modelled to stand on skulls already, like in the art, so I filled the rest of the base with skulls from the Citadel Skulls plastic kit and the painted Dark Wood, wiping off the tops for the highlight.

Finally there was a thinned wash of Malignant Green added between the skulls and given to selected areas of the figure to give an unnatural look to him, he is well over 10,000 years old after all.

This week the project got one of these 🙂

All the Skull Swords.  Used the same scheme as the pre-release miniature.  The cloth is Slaughter Red.  I’m loving the NMM steel effect, especially on the champion’s 2 handed axe.

Here are the three units of Skull Swords:

And these are the three champions.

Balor of the Evil Eye.  Superb sculpt based on the iconic artwork.

I wanted something pretty close to the artwork but with my chosen Plasmatic Bolt skintone (the art has a tanned skin colour).

Painting the stag
I mixed a couple of blends for this one.  I wanted a dark to light fur tone on the stag so started with neat Dark Wood and painted the upper legs, undeneath and a third of the way up the body. To this I blended in some Hardened Leather as a wet blend on the model and in a plastic pallette (these Speedpaints soak through the paper used on a wet pallette).  This provided a band acorss the middle third of the model and up the underside of the neck and chin and down the legs.  For the top surfaces I blended some water into the mix on the pallette and then added Palid bone and this was wet blended into the painted edge on the model and then blended up to cover the upper surface.
It all dried a tad darker than I might have liked but the effect I wanted is definitely there and I’m pleased with it.   Antlers were pure Palid Bone with the ends wiped to create the highlight.
Painting Balor
Skintone in Plasmatic Bolt again (love this colour).  He has a bit of cloth around his waist.  I went for a dark purple using Hive Dweller Purple which is quite dark so got a very delicate highlight with P3 Sanguine Highlight (not a common paint in the UK, it is a mid tone blend of pink and purple).  Hair is Grim Black with a dark grey highlight.

NMM
I’m using NMM throughout this project for the very poppy, graphic style.  Sword blade was Greylord Grey and  handle Zealot Yellow with a wipe along the edges.  Blood effect from Citadel Technical Blood for the Blood God.
Taking inspiration from the artwork I’m going for a bright gold with a faintly greenish hue, but I don’t want the brown undertones Bisley used so this is going to be very bright.  We won’t miss him on the table that’s for sure!
I blended drops of Zealot Yellow with Malignant Green and water (2:2:2) and got a very close match to the artwork.  I really wanted it to pop so went for an edge highlight using Vallejo Model Air Duck Egg Green.  As the name suggests this is a very desaturated green.  I was so pleased with the results I glazed extra highlights to the tops of the shoulder pauldrons and the wrist ovals.  I’ve got quite a bright lightbox so have turned down the Brightness by 100 on these images so you can see the highlight placement better:

@Demonsub (check out his Slaine project) commented on my last post and that reminded me about the Fogou Skellig Michael buildings.  They will be perfect for this.  I’m not a fan of the rather angular Celtic Roundhouses supplied with the starter set – mine have gone up on eBay already.
I’ve got a suitable setup already:

Five Fogou Models Skellig Michael buildings.  The Broch is from Monolith Designs.  I’m not sure where the walls were from.  The sheep are First Corps.  Raiding Formorians are Warlord Games.

Some closer shots for ideas of relative size:

On reflection they aren’t too clear so here are some straight on with the Skull Sword:

I had an absolute blast paining these.  These AP Speedpaints are brilliant over a zenithed basecoat.  Learning from the test on the Skull Sword I went very heavy with the white topcoat:

He looks almost white from the top. (the Stynylrez white has a slightly grey tinge to it).  From underneath there is still a fair amount of grey showing.

The main colours were in order of application:

Plasmatic Bolt (skin)
Dark Wood (leather and nets)
Bony Matter (weapon shafts)
Greylord Grey (metalwork)

The only technique to this was using my finger to wipe away the Greylord Grey from the upper facing blade sides and the raised details on the armour to give an instant highlight.  This can be done during application or after finishing the colour on the model.  It stays workable for a good while and if it is drying will reactivate with a tiny bit of water. Unlike contrast it doesn’t tear so is ideal for such a simple technique.  This is what we had at this point:

The only “proper” paint used was Vallejo Ivory which did the netting, shells on the bottom of the nets and teeth.  I also used it for a very light drybrush to emphasise the highlights on the leather and heads.  Done!
Fomorians with axes:

Fomorians with hooks and nets:

Fomorians with harpoons:

Got the Weirdstone from the starter set finished.  Same technique as the rest of the scatter pieces.

Having preordered, I knew this game was coming and got some suitable scatter from a couple of resin producers whilst I was waiting.  They are based in the same way as the miniatures but using the first step to add the bare earth texture.  In addition to that scheme I added some tiny dark green moss tufts from miniNatur (717-21 Short tufts, spring).

Painting is straightforward.  As with all cast resin, wash in slightly soapy water first.  Using my airbrush and Stynylrez paints; undercoat black, heavy zenith grey from about 60 degrees above horizontal, very light dusting of white from directly above.  Finally drybrush in a pale cream colour, my current choice is Citadel Foundation Dheneb Stone.

First off we have Scotia Grendel, Celtic Standing Stones:

Some Standing Stones with carved Pictish/Ogam symbols that will see service as Weirdstones in the game.

This one is called a rune stone but doesn’t have a rune carved on it so I thought I should paint one on.

Finally some standing stones from Fenris Games.  Super quick service from them this time which is appreciated.  A collection of small bits that I chose to base as a small standing circle (based on a CD) and then a single monolith.