Elf

 

The full title of this post is Zorn Silverhair, an elf from the Golden Realms. Maybe that works for an old school RPG character, but there is a slightly more esoteric reason for such a mouthful. Let me break it down for you.

The elf part is simple enough, this is an elf figure! It’s by the company known as Statuesque Miniatures and now available through Crooked Dice. It was originally sold in a set of four adventurers though they are now available as individuals. You can see the elf’s painted companions below, a dwarf and a wizard, with just one more to paint to complete the band - free cookie if you can guess the unpainted figure. 

On the palette choice, I was originally thinking of classic green wood elf, inspired much by the old Talisman artwork. But recently I have been replaying God of War and was really struck by the beauty of the light elves, which I have tried to replicate here. White robes, pale skin and even white hair, punctuated by grey and brown leathers.

The name Zorn is not particularly elvish and was chosen for his palette rather than his race. The Zorn palette is named  after Swedish painter Anders Zorn and comprises four colours - black, white, red and yellow. From this apparently limited set it is possible to mix up many colours, not surprising if you know colour theory. Add in a blue and you have all three primaries and an almost infinite palette available to you. The figure was painted using just these four colours, though I did also also use a little silver and a brown ink.

And that brings us to an explanation of the Golden Realms. I have been painting acrylic on canvas recently and have come to appreciate the much higher quality and pigmentation of artist paints. I spotted this set on sale and so have bought a set of acrylic artists paints manufactured by Golden. These are a high fluid set rather than the thicker stuff usually used painting on canvas. I thought they would be suitable for painting minis and from my limited test to date (one elf) they are showing great promise. The four colours I used were black and white, yellow ochre and burnt sienna in place of red. I will blog more about them in the future when I have experimented more.

The Wurmspat

Another Beastgrave warband I painted recently was the Wurmspat, a trio of Nurgle warriors in old money. These were really nice to paint up, a lot of detail as is the norm these days with Games Workshop, but not too much to drive you crazy. 

I have been painting on canvas quite a lot recently and some of the techniques I used on these models. So the armour plates I painted wet into wet, letting the paint run and blend into each other. I am also gaining a greater understanding of colour. It's good to learn new techniques, though I spend more time painting canvas than minis so it's not all good.

These figures (and others) are currently on sale on ebay as I try to raise funds to replace my knackered laptop. It would be nice if you could share with anyone you think might be interested.

The Grymwatch

Wanting something small in number to paint up for ebay, I bought myself a few boxes from the Warhammer Underworlds series. Don't ask me what the game is like, there are cards in each box which are used pokemon/magic style, other than that I know nothing. The models look nice to paint which is why I bought them. The first set completed, which I should have posted yesterday for Halloween, is the Grymwatch.

These are effectively a handful of ghouls and some bats, and they would slot nicely into Undead collections. I went with a pale sickly pallor for the skin, dank and greasy long hair and a few splashes of gore here and there. The bases are illuminated by an eerie glow, which is just a wash of a blue/turquoise shade. Nice and quick to paint.

I find myself drawn to smaller groups of models, my patience to paint regiments has pretty much evaporated over the summer. So my personal work has been reduced to small bursts of activity on small numbers of models. Over the past three months I have painted three vikings, three dwarfs and one orc. That's the lowest level of productivity I can remember since starting the blog over ten years ago. The times they are a changing?

Orctober

Waaaaargh it's Orctober. That time of year when we all rush off and paint some greenskins. Or in my case, manage just one greenskin. Oh well, maybe next year I will get through that horde I always have in mind. The orc is an old Citadel figure, while the goblin is more recent, from Avatars of War. The orc I painted this month, the goblin was already painted I just rebased it and added a little bit more tone to the skin. Both these models will no doubt be having intense discussions over which will lead da boyz, that's sure to end amicably.

The orc boss is from around 1992/3, from my collection of Middlehammer greenskins. What a classic from the era this figure is. I tried to paint it in a similar style to that of the old days, but without straying too far from my own. I started with orange* armour, green skin of course, and worked outward from there. I was lucky enough to find a stash of old plastic shields with some greenskin iconography and used it to reinforce the orange thing. Most of the palette came naturally, just the knee pads and belt buckle caused me a little headache - they started base steel, then were yellow, finally red - definitely not go fasta red then.

*the most Warhammer colour in the world 

Three dwarf gunners

And here's what they look like when you paint the rest of them (following on from my previous post on how to paint flesh). Just three to start with, I do tend to fuss and faff around and add too much detail, so they end up taking far longer than I had intended. 

The figure in the middle is the star from the tutorial. He's probably my favourite from the unit, though the pipe smoker on the right has a lot of character. 

I need two more to make a complete unit for Erewhon, which is probably my favourite game at the moment. If I played Saga I would need eight figures, and if I played Rampant I would need 12 (or 6 if they counted as 2 wounds each). I have nine in total, and a couple of duplicates. I will plod on to five, then eight, then see how it goes. My enthusiasm and patience has, much like my hairline, grown thin recently.

Easy(ish) Way to paint Flesh

Here's a little step by step tutorial, an easy way to paint flesh tones. These are northern, ruddy tones, ideal for humans like vikings or any northern Europeans. It's also suitable for non-humans, including the ruddiest dudes out there, the dwarfs. 

Step 1: Base coat in a pale colour. I am using Citadel base wraithbone, but any pale colour with a warm tint will do. White is too stark, and a cool tone like a light blue or grey will make the figure look cold. If you were painting a dark elf that could be a good idea, but not here for a cheery little fella like this. This is, by the way, a Marauder dwarf thunderer, from around 1992. Allow this step to fully dry.

Step 2: Make a glaze of a ruddy flesh colour. I am (very aptly) using Citadel base Bugman's Glow. To mix up the glaze I take a brush full of paint, add a drop of flow enhancer and a smudge of matt medium. It's impossible to give exact quantities, it needs to be fluid enough to settle into the creases. Load up your brush and apply this once, starting in the deeper areas like the eyes and mouth. As it dries you will have to decide if one coat is enough, or if a second coat is required. If it goes on too thick, remove it by using a clean damp brush to suck up the excess. I do this anyway to remove areas that I want to keep light, like knuckles, bridge of nose, any area that is a light tone. These two steps give a very good base that would be fine for gaming figures - you could add a brown wash for the eyes and leave it at that.

Step 3: The dreaded step - paint the eyes. The easiest way is to wash the eye socket with a dark brown, for gaming it will look fine on the tabletop. For magnified photos on a blog, it looks like a brown line, so if you want to take it further, here's my procedure. You need steady hands, good lighting, a very fine brush and paints of the correct consistency. If you can get all those, and with plenty of practise, you might be able to get it right first time. 

Paint the eyeball with an off white, light grey even. Then dot in the pupil, make the dot bigger at the top of the eye, so in effect draw a semi circle rather than a dot. Now thin the black a little and draw a line across the top of the eyeball, to separate the white from the flesh colour (and avoid staring eye syndrome). Finally, mix a little black into your ruddy flesh colour and paint the lower eye - the bag under the eye. You would also use this colour in the mouth and on the lip if the figure had these. And that's it if you are painting humans/historicals, but the dwarfs get an extra rosy step.

Step 4: This optional step adds more ruddy features to the figure. I have used a Coat D'Arms paint for this stage, any warm/dusky pink/red will be good. Thin it down to a glaze and add to the tip of the nose, under eyes, on the knuckles and backs of hands, around joints like knees or elbows if visible. This step amps up the ruddy effect and can be a bit cartoonish if over done, so keep a light touch with thinned paint and build it up. If you overdo it, use a clean damp brush to remove the glaze and start again.

And that's all there is to it! It seems like a lot of steps and layers, but it's mostly glazing, apart from the eyes. Note there is no layering or highlighting involved, which is why I class it as an easy(ish) method. Have a go. And let me know how you get on.