• Tactical Articles
• Modelling Articles
• Fluff Articles
• Battle Reports
• Miscellaneous Articles

A New Year's Resolution Pt 3

By John Oman

Well February can now be viewed with a historical eye, and it's time to review how I've done on the painting front.

Just to remind you that I'm on a quest to complete 5 figures each week during 2005 and for February I chose 20 figures from my Barbarians collection.

This month I thought I would describe how I went about painting the Barbarians. By the nature of the subject matter there is always plenty of flesh and fur to attend to, together with leather and chainmail.

I start off by undercoating the figure in white I then apply darkish flesh to all the flesh areas. I try and paint neatly, keeping the colours with in the lines - the lesions of the painting by numbers are not wasted on me.

Next I wash the flesh areas with a flesh wash. Once dry I paint on the higher surfaces with the darkish flesh. I then apply a highlight coat of darkish flesh and a pale flesh.

Next I paint any metal areas, such as armour and weapons black. These are subsequently dry brushed with a metallic colour.

Next comes the clothing and leather - for these areas I tend to add black to the colour and paint the area with the darkened colour, followed by the colour as is, leaving the darkened colour visible in creases and recesses. Next I add white or more often yellow to the basic colour and highlight appropriate areas, often dry brushing.

Any weapon hafts I like to paint black and bring the wood colour out by using the same approach as the clothing.

Finally I paint the reverse of any shield and stick it on the figure.

Having said how I approach the painting I would say before you put paint to figure you should look at the figures you are going to paint and thing through how it is moulded. Some castings can be such that you need to change the order of tackling the various areas. This all comes with practise and a history littered with mistakes.

So enthused was I that not only did I complete my 20 Barbarians I also found time to get stuck into 6 Dwarves and decorate the kitchen.

As promised there is a photo of the 20 Barbars completed in February. I've also included a snap of the extras I managed as well.

So what of March?

The Barbarian foot are deliciously nearing completion, but I'm aching to crack on with some Goblins that have appeared, as they always seem to where I live. The passion for 40K figures has passed. I should do the Dark Elf Blood Bowl team I got limbered with for the Big Al Trophy, but I guess I only have 2 more games with them, so they can wait. So it's 15 Barbarians, including the final mounted figures and a handful of Gobbos.

Here's a snap of March's target figures.

In next month's update I'll go into how I paint the faces of my figures.

Cheers for now

John

Back to part 2          Forward to Part 4