Chest of Colors forum

You could have put gloves before priming

I don't have any, but those are easily to get on a petrol station

Stage 5 - painting the human's skin
It is important to plan the painting on all miniatures in a band. I thought the best option will be to paint the biggest areas first. That is why I started with the human skin.

1. First I've created a base color:
pink 10%
bronzed flesh 20%
white 10%
elf flesh 60%
You might wonder why a bit of pink Well it is because in my opinion it gives a more natural look and makes the skin look more interesting. The paint was diluted 1/1 with water, so I had to cover the skin twice with the base color.
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

2. Then I gave the whole skin a wash of ogryn flesh and devlian mud in the deepest shadows
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Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

3. When the washed surface was really dry (I waited about 30 minutes), I covered the muscles with the base color plus I added some more white to the mix.
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

4. For the final highlight I mixed 40% base color with white.
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Click to see full-sized image

Stage 6 - painting the creature's skin

1. Once again I started with making a base color:
hormogaunt purple 20%
elf flesh 40%
menoth white 40%
There is only a small bit of purpule, but it is very visible. It is because hormogaunt purple is a foundation paint and those have much more pigment in it.
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2. Leviathan purple wash and a bit of purple+ black wash in those deepest shadows
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Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

3. Just like with the humanss' skin I highlighted the muscles with base color.
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Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image


4. Top places were high lighted with 50/50 mix of base color and white
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Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

At this stage I think I can say I am 25% done That is the biggest advantage when choosing the correct order of painting - you get the results fast and you stay motivated

Stage 7 - painting the red cloths

Now we come to the best part, well in my opinion, painting the red parts. I know an easy way how to paint good looking reds and now I will share my secret with you
The secret is simple when it comes to red, there are two important things:
a) what color is under the red
b) don't highlight the red, just darken it

1. As always I make a base color mix and cover the whole parts
blood red 30%
scrab red 50%
dark flesh 20%

Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

2. To the base color I add more blood red and pink
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Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

3. For the final and brightest highlights there is just blood red & white
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Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

4. Now comes the most important part. Paint pure blood red diluted with water, on all those highlighted areas. Do you now see the richness of red color?
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

5. To make the red looking more interesting and more contrasting. I did a wash with blood red wash, a bit of black, purple, scorched brown and dark blue. Wash the deepest areas with this mix.
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

This technique seems to be very intensive, but as you can see on the pictures you don't have to be that accurate most of the time Even though it is very simple, I find it excellent for table top painting.

So now the Immortals war band is 50% finished
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

Stage 8 - bases
As already mentioned for the bases, I have decided to buy them from Scibor Miniatures. First of all they were cleaned and washed in water and soap. To save a bit of the money I bought a set with only heads. Seven bases I did on my own, trying to keep them similar to the ready ones, using just those heads, cork and sand.
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To make base coating and painting easier, I wrapped a bit of adhesive tape on a piece of plastic. You can also buy a two side tape, that makes the whole job much easier.
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Everything was base coated, and sine I ran out of the grey primer, I had to use black one
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Citadel foundation brown paint was used to paint the ground.
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And the I just high lighted the earth with Bleached Bone using dry brush.
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The stones were base coated with Citadel Foundation grey.
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Then I dry brushed it with Codex Grey
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another dry brush with GW Space Wolves Grey...
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Click to see full-sized image

The last stage was dry brush with pure Skull White only at some of the most visible places
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The flowers were painted green and dry brushed with yellow, some static grass was 'planted' and the rims were painted dark brown:
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Step 9 - painting white
Because the miniatures were primed with grey, I didn't have much to do here. This is how they looked after priming:
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Then I heavily diluted the GW Codex Grey with a bit of blue to make a wash:
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After that I just high lighted with white:
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Click to see full-sized image

Step 10 - painting metallics

I already told you, that I paint in a way to cover the biggest surfaces first. After painting the skin, reds and white now is the time to paint some gold and silver. I was painting them together at the same time.
For gold I first used GW Shining Gold and washed it with Griphone Sepia:
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Then with Burnished Gold I high lighted the most visible scales on the armour and shoulder pads. For the silver parts I have used Chainmail Silver.
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The silver parts were light lighted with Mithril Silver.
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Click to see full-sized image
Then the silver was washed with Baabab Black wash.
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Click to see full-sized image
And again with the same wash Just to make the silver look older.
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Then while I was painting the ethereal smoke, I came up with an idea to make the metallics look more interesting and break the color. I painted small areas with very diluted Scaly Green to make patina.
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Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

As you can see, the miniatures are already 90% done!

Step 11 - painting ethereal smoke

This one also goes really fast. First wash the smoke/cloud with grey.
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Then comes a wash with a mix of Scaly Green and Scorpion Green. That mixture goes into the deepest areas. At this stage if you would like the smoke to have different color, i.e. purple, you could mix some other paints.
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image
At the very end with white paint I just high lighted some area to make the contrast stronger.
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And that's it... Because of the batch painting the war band was fully painted in 3 months. In case I didn't paint every evening, so it is possible to finish them in much shorter time.
I already hear you asking - what about not painted parts? Well those parts were painted just using one paints only. The painting colors were really simple:
- hair - Chaos Black, dry brush with Codex Grey
- sticks - Scorched Brown
- shoes - Bestial Brown
- leather strips - gore red
The point was to have a painted war band in a very short time, that is why I tried to concentrated on the biggest and most visible surfaces.

Tomorrow group photos.