Painting 5.2 – It is estimated that at any one time 1% of your skeleton is being replaced

…and that one percent produces undead skeletal warrior miniatures! (I don’t remember where these originally came from, so that’s as good an explanation as any. I don’t know about the armour and weapons!?)

These figures should have been finished a week ago, but I’ve been distracted by reading, discouraged by hot weather and/or any number of other things. They got final touches last night and a spray of varnish tonight.

I’ve enjoyed doing these a lot more than the ghouls! When it came down to it, even though each had a “unique” pose, they were still a pack of half-naked, loincloth wearing humanoids holding a bone. The skeletons have a lot more variety – yes, each is basically a skeleton wearing chainmail and holding a weapon – but the weapons are different, the style and amount of armour varies, some have belts, shields, shoulder pads, greaves, tabards/robes, different helmets, etc.

Skeletal Squad reporting for duty

I started with a basic light flesh colour over exposed bone, then a mid grey over weapons & chainmail (and some armour pieces). A black wash filled in the “holes” in the mail and then silver (mostly dry-brushed) over the mail. (A few of the figures could have done with a second black wash to make it stand out. The mail looks much better with the black, than on a few figures where it isn’t distinct “behind” the silver.) Rags, tabards, cloaks, shirts – all done in a basic blue to give a common link between each figure. Dark brown or red-brown on weapon hafts/handles, the wooden shields, and what looked like leather armour pieces on a few figures. These chest or shoulder pieces got a black wash afterwards which gave them a very leather-look which I was suprised by – much better than I planned or expected. Most of the helmets (and greaves) I did with a light yellow-brown that I got recently, then over that with my “antique” gold. Bronze on one helmet and a mix of bronze or gold on greaves (and one set of shoulder armour). Silver on two more helmets. Gold or bronze as contrast for detail on helmets

I tried a few darker bits on the figures with a lot of blue clothing – most of that didn’t work, and I couldn’t be bothered doing more. A dark-brown wash went over the bones to bring out lines and “separate” the bones on legs, feet, hands, etc. That also came out better than I’d expected, and a friend commented that it also gave them a dirtier/older look.

Most of the painting was now done and I was looking at small details – weapon hilts, scabards, belts and buckles, helmet spikes/wings. Most swords (or bladed weapons) I paint silver. I tried axe heads in grey this time and it looks okay – the close-up photo gets a lot of reflected light, so the axe doesn’t look as good in the picture as in reality. Touch ups like black in the eye sockets if the brown wash hadn’t darkened them enough, a hint of white on teeth and cleaning up anywhere that paint had spread where it wasn’t meant to. Last night I gave another pale flesh dry-brush highlight on any bone that I thought needed it – especially if the earlier brown wash had covered too much.

Done! The six skeletons (three pairs) have excellent detail and look really good painted. One pair has no lower jaw – it’s not obvious, but it’s something that’s fun and different. The other three are good figures, but the detail isn’t the same – especially with the skulls – and I find that disapointing. Over-all, I had more fun painting these than anything else this year, and it was good trying a few different things – every group of figures teaches me something about painting.

I keep looking at jewellers files on eBay… I could really do with few to clean up figures before undercoating. I might just have to click on “buy”… and thanks to Azazel who donated a bunch of “old” (but still good) paints that has at least doubled the colours/shades I have to use!

Next – Vampires, wights and wraiths… (oh my!)