14 May 2011

Quick and Dirty Painting - Long Riders

Quick and Dirty Painting – Long Riders
Welcome back folks! Do I have exciting things to show you. I have finally finished my Long Riders! You voted on it and you got it. Below I will detail all the new things I learned and try to explain how to reproduce these techniques in a very expedient manner.
My Long Riders had begun their painting odyssey worked on by someone else so they have some primer and paint on them that I would eventually go over. As you can see they were in quite a state of disrepair. This would turn out to be my most challenging project yet. These Long Riders have a theme as well. As they have been tested in battle so many times their riders cover the horns and tail in the blood of their enemies. A true sign of prestige for my favorite unit in the Trollblood army. I hope you enjoy the write up!




Color Setup
Trollblood Base
Underbelly Blue
Trollblood Highlight
Bootstrap Leather
Beast Hide
Menoth White Base
Cold Steel
White
Gold
Burgundy Red
Step 1 : Base Coat
Here I simply basecoated the model all except the thick fur part near the head of the Bison itself. The colors should be obvious since they are the same as I have used in the past. The only difference really being here is I will be focusing on the blending method I used on the fur in a different step.
Step 2: Wet Blending Fur
Now folks I took this directly from the Forces of Hordes: Trollbloods book. The technique detailed there is so simple and quick that there’s no reason not to employ this on a number of other applications.


So, let’s begin. Start with whichever color you want the base and lightest color of the fur to be. In my case it’s Menoth White Base. To do this evenly I recommend doing it one side at a time to make sure the paint doesn’t dry in between applying the layers. Cover the fur very cleanly trying not to leave to much paint near the top, but, choose a line at which you want to blend the fur down into the next color. Near that section leave the paint a little thick. Quickly clean your brush off, leaving it slightly wet and begin to apply your next section blending the colors lightly in keeping a smooth transition between the layers. This will give the effect of the fur gently changing colors are you blend down. It’s key to leave each previous layer a little thick and wet to ensure easy blending while on the model. Fur is unique in that it has a lot of surface area so it takes the paint easily. But, it’s easy to gob the paint on and lose detail later one, so be careful. Repeat this technique for as many sections you want blended into the fur. I tried 4 on my leader and 3 on the troops, but I found that 3 is the best way tot not clutter the model, or overcomplicate its color scheme.


















Step 3 - Washing the Model
Pretty simple. Try not to over wash it as it will simply make the model look dirty. Armor however is one of those things that you can just load is up and brush it off because it takes the paint to shadows very well. Washing the fur is pretty strait forward as well. You might notice that the fur in my picture looks dirty initially. This is fine because once it settles in and we get to the dry brushing and high lighting phase, most of that gets covered up. As I have said before it’s beneficial to dot the eyes and color in the teeth before you dry brush to give the white some depth without having to work to hard on highlighting them.
Step 4: Highlights and Dry Brush
Dry brushing is a great way to pull all of your higher areas away from the base colors without having to highlight every little thing on the model. Here I dry brushed the armor with a copper mix to give it a rusted look and I used Beast Hide as a dry brush to clean up the fury areas and make the lighter fury seem more balanced.
For the Troll Skin I used Trollblood highlight to work on muscle tone, facial structure and Underbelly Blue on his chain to make the red chin bumps really pop. For the flat beast Hide Fur, I used bootstrap leather to fill in the low spots and pull out the muscle tone. As usual it’s fairly easy to blend slightly by using a little saliva to blend those edges into the normal base color.
Step 5: Touch up
This is clean up. Make sure there are no bare spots, stray paint or gaps. Then seal your model if you so wish. I use a Matte Varnish, applying 2 coats with 2hrs in between each application. Make sure you shake the can THUROUGHLY before spaying otherwise you can get clouding.


This has been your latest edition of Quick n Dirty painting. Total work time to completion on the Long Riders, was 3 hours. I hope you enjoyed the process.

1 comment:

  1. Hurrah for quick and dirty! Shame the lighting's not so good in the last photo; I'd be interested in seeing how those blends come together when washed and drybrushed over.

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