A Walord's SAGA Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of my saga, painting Warlord Alfarin and his warband of vicious raiders!  If you havn't seen part 1, here is the link

In this article I go through the steps I took to paint my Hearthguard and the mighty Warlord. I will share my thoughts, ideas and concepts on how my vikings will look eventually. I will review some paints and reflect on my methods. I hope you enjoy

First off my viking warband is a sort of 'experimental warband' in relation to painting and techniques. What I will do is with each group of miniatures Im going to mess around with the techniques I use and the steps I take to get the finished model. With my Hearthguard and Warlord I am going to paint them with the base colours, black wash them and then highlight with the orginal colour. Later I will use other techniques such as the Army Painter Quick Dip method.

Now what colours to use for the vikings?  Well I have taken inspiration from a computer game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, with a strong Nordic theme I took the colours of the holds (cities) guards to paint the shirts.

The colours include dark blue, pale green, green, cream, royal blue, red, yellow, light blue and white. I choose 7 paints that resemble these colours and what I wanted to achieve was a heavy contrast to the rest of the model. The rest of the model would be painted in earthy browns and dry brushed metal.








I always spray paint my miniatures black for a basecoat. As a general rule I always start painting the part that takes up most of the space on the model. In the case of the hearthguard and warlord this was the chainmail. 

I applied a dry brush of the gamesworkshop base paint Leadblecher, I will explain the concept behind GW's new set of paints and why I choose to go GW later in the article. Now because the black wash later willl dull the colour down I painted a second coat of what I will call from now on a heavy dry brush. So now the chainmail will look almost fully painted with a slight look of the drybrush technique.

Now I applied the colours of the undershirts. 

 Click the pic to enlarge






This coat I painted on to create a flat colour, as later the black wash will dull it down, so when needed I applied a second coat.

Now I painted the flesh, pants, belts, etc etc. 

For all the leather, capes, belts and that I used the Vallejo Flames of War paint range, why? Because these colours are focused on real colour types used in World War II, which were earthy colours and that is what I needed a wide varity of earthy colours.


Now when all the base colours were painted on the black wash was applied. I used the FoW Black Wash and added a little water. When appiled and dried I painted the highlights, which I wanted to emphasise on the colourful undershirts, so using my new Army Painter Fine Detail brush I hightlighted the undershirts with the orginal colours, and here is what they look like:

 Click the pic to enlarge




Now by this time I had to pack up and move back into my college room in sunny Armidale (sarcasim, it is actually cold and miserable) before I left to go home for holidays I had bought two high powered lamps and set up a painting area on my desk.

No matter where you are, every wargamer has to have his "area" or man cave! Mine just happens to be my room.


Now that the highlighting is done, it is time to do the base:

Woodland Scenics is the brand I use the spruce up my bases. 

As apart of there products they have this, Scenic Cement, which you apply after the base is done and it will keep the rocks, wood, foliage stuck on that base. I really like it as it actually works. I use a spray to apply it on my minis and as it drys clear (not like PVA clear, actually clear) I find no issue getting it on the mini. Along with that I got some of Army Painter's Battlefield Highland Tufts, which I havn't used before but I will continue using them.


And here is the finished product:

Now with the new GW paints range, they have seemed to have revamped all there paints. Now they have all their paints categorised into, Base, Layer, Shades, Dry, Glaze, Texture and Technical. Each serve a purpose related to its category. IMHO I do like the idea of categorising the paints, but GW has produced no guide or guidance for new hobbists so it does seem confusing at first. Why did I choose to use GW paints? They do have a price tag, more expensive than any other paint brand. But the paints provided are based for two fictional worlds which emphasise colour either it be dark or light. I wanted to achieve this as a strong contrast to the rest of the model which I would use the Flames of War paints to create the earthy colours to contrast with. I also really liked how the colour of the GW paint appiled to the miniature, after the first coat most of my models didnt need a second coat as it appiled a strong colour already.

I will always use the Flames of War paints as my primary paint set, but if you are after a strong contrast on your model I reccomend colours from the GW range even tho the price is ridiculous.














Now that is it from me, Part 3 will include the vicious fanatical beserkers! and I will show pictures of my next warband including a review on 28mm metal miniatures.

Cheers,
Lachlann