Here kitty kitty kitty!

When HORDES first came to light, I knew that I had to collect the Skorne. Their history drew me in like a magnet. Now that we are finally getting some of the later releases from PRIMAL in our hands, I am still quite satisfied with my decision to make them my primary HORDES army.

This week I'll be looking at quick ways to get decent results for 'monster skin'. I'm used to painting clothes, small amounts of human flesh, and warjacks. Not a lot of 'organic' experience in my bag of tricks, so I want something that is quick, and relatively painless. This technique likely won't win you many painting contests, but it'll get your painted models on the table in short order.

With that in mind, let's get to work...and before you ask...yes, the head has been left off to paint separately, you'll see it at the end of the article :P

Washing is your friend

Because skin generally does not have many hard lines, like armor plating, weaponry, even clothes to a certain extent, washing can be a great tool to speed along the painting process. Now that I've got P3s in my arsenal, I'm even more excited to play around with washing, as the liquid pigmentation allows for extreme thinning with no graininess. The perfect combination for someone wanting to experiment!

I've basecoated the Drake with P3 'Jack Bone. Two slightly thinned coats is all you need for adequate coverage.

Next up, we begin our washes. The first wash is a 1:1 mixture of P3 'Jack Bone and P3 Bloodstone. I figure, since these reptiles are from the Bloodstone Marches, then a little bit of their native color should be found throughout the color build. To this mixture I added enough water to make the mix semi-transparent. Now, wash away! No need to be careful, just brusha brusha brusha.

This is a good first step, but after drying, it's pretty evident we need a stronger contrast. Wash again with a pure Bloodstone wash. I washed 2 times with Bloodstone. The nice thing about washing is you can keep doing it until you are satisfied, with minimal negative impact, as the paint is so usually thin enough to not have paint buildup problems.

Building Back Up

Now that the washes are complete, time to start highlighting back up. With a model as well detailed as this, it's easy to pick out the high points of the model. The one thing to be careful of is overhighlighting skintones. As mentioned earlier, there aren't many hardlines, so high too much high contrast highlighting can be very distracting. Save those highlights for facial features, and some joints (elbows, ankles, etc).

The first highlights are derived from 2:1 'Jack Bone and Bloodstone. I'm still mystified at how easy P3 makes blending. If only they had come out 3 years ago, when I first started painting! The second set of highligts was done with a 1:1 'Jack Bone and Menoth White Base. You may need multiple passes of both, dependent on how thin your paints are.

My lighting really didn't capture the difference between these two highlights; I'm going to have to hire YW7 to come up and fix that situation...

I'm really pleased with the results of the skin. Like I said, I was looking for a technique that would move me through painting the skin quickly, with a decent outcome, and I achieved that. I'll be refining the technique as I paint more Drakes and Kreas, but this is a great foundation to build from.

The Rest of the Model

The rest is fairly straightforward. The calcium like deposits, or whatever they are, are a base of P3 Bloodstone, highlighted up with P3 Khador Red Highlight. The ropes are Khador Red Highlight with a helping of VMC Woodgrain. Eyes are Heartfire, and the teeth are Menoth White Base washed with grey.

For the reds and golds, there's a great tutorial on Skorne Color builds right here.

Ciao!
--S6--