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Painting: Kroot | |
| Presented here is the first in a series of step by step guides demonstrating how to paint a variety of miniatures, covering the main armies GW produce. If you are new to painting, ignore talk of highlighting and shading. Just paint one layer of paint on each part of the model. Don't worry about neatness. If you want to repaint it, take the paint off with Mr Muscle Orange Clean.
If you're intermediate in painting, this guide should be good for you. You should be able to use it fully and follow it step by step. If you're far bettr than me, (as I know many of you out there are) then please post some constructive critiscim for me on the forums. As the project continues, my wealth of painting experience will hopefully amass. Please stand by me, as I too shall hopefully improve by doing this for you. I will always post a new PPP at least every two months, but I shall aim to update more frequently than that. Without futher ado, the guide! Paints you will need:
I began the skin by painting it with a layer of scab red. The model had previously been undercoated black, and this provides a dark basetone for the skin, as a lot of the black shows through. If it isn't quite even at this stage, don't panic. Futher layers of highlights will sort out this problem. Then highlight most of the skin, except for the very darkest recesses with a mixture of 50% scab red with 50% red gore. Here is what the model should look like at this stage:  Next came a layer of red gore over that. Leave some of the previous layer showing.  Next came a layer of red gore mixed 50/50 with blood red. Once again, leave some of the previous layer showing.  And last, but my no means least, straight blood red, letting some of the previous layer show through, as I have attempted.  Step 2: The crest and bony outcrops on the skin These were both painted the same way. A layer of dark angels green is applied as a base layer. Snot green is then applied, in all but the darkest recesses and scorpion green on the very tips. I got a bit carried away here, so I only have one photo of this stage!  Step 3: the leather The kroot has little gloves, little shoes and a little balaclava (hehehe... they do like silly like this) I decided to paint them like leather, or black fabric. First, I touched them up with black if any other colour had accidently got on them. I then mixed chaos black and codex grey 50/50 and painted that along the raised surfaces of the leather areas.  I then painted an extreme edge highlight of codex greay along the very edges of these areas.  Step 4: the cloth, bone and underbelly The cloth, the bone (the trophy hanging from his neck, not the bony outcrops) and the underbelly of the kroot were painted bestial brown.  The cloth was then highlighted with bleached bone. Being a lazy git, I simply gave the cape a wash of bestial brown, to keep some highlight and to make the highlights look gradual. I would have done the same to the rest of the cloth, but the bleached bone was an extreme edge highlight on the rest and therefor, didn't require it. Here is the highligted cape (sorry for the bad picture quality!)  The underbelly and bone were panted bleached bone, leaving bestial only in the recesses. The bleached bone was layered with white, and the string for the bone was painted white.  Step 5: the pulse rifle and armour In keeping with the colour scheme of my tau, the pulse rifle and armour plates on my shaper would be painted white. However, because white covers badly over black, there are two ways of painting it. Method 1, and method two. Method 1: 25 layers of white over black. Method 2: 1 layer of codex grey, a layer of fortress grey, four layers of white. As you can see, method two uses less layers of paint, and the greys can be used to provide more natural highlighting, rather than stark black. I got a bit carried away once again, so heres how my shaper looked after recieveing "method 2":  Step 6: the wierd tuby things on the crest and the hairy thing on the cape. Ahhhh... the great range of my vocabulary when it come to dealing with these two particular things. I decided to paint these odds and ends light blue, becasue I thought it would look good. First, a flat coast of regal blue was applied.  Then highlight with hawk turquoise.  Then do a final extreme highlight of ice blue. Notice how this is placed slightly above the center line on the cylinder things on the crest, to make it appear that light is coming from above, rather than from the side.  Step 7: The blade I then moved on to the weapon, that I decided to paint with a weathered bronze effect. I started by paiting black as it had chipped along the edges. I also for some reason, decided to the eyes ice blue at this very moment.  I then drybrushed the blade tin bitz, and gave it a wash of brown ink, watered down about 1 part ink to 3 parts water. This phot also gives a better of the eyes.  I then drybrushed brazen brass and gave it a wash of brown ink, only 1 part ink to 5 parts water this time.  I would have used dwarf bronze here, but I hadn't usd mine ina while, and being one of the old screw top paints it had become a dry lump that couldn't be revived by any quantity of water. So, begrudgingly I had to use shining gold. Here it is after a brown ink wash used in the same quantities to the previous one. I wasn't happy at all with the weapon.  Step 8: The gold bit on the pulse rifle This was painted with shining gold. I then Realised I had to do something about the weapon so I gave it another ink wash using brown ink, a 1:3 ratio of ink to water. Perfect. I then highlighted the shining gold on the puls rifle with burnished gold. This isn't a great method of painting gold, but it's quick. I also decided to highlight the string on the pulse rifle with codex grey.  The base The base was sand covered, and had been glued to the model prior to undercoating it. It was therefor black, drybrushed codex grey, then fortress grey and finally a final light drybrush of skull white. Two blobs of PVA glue were placed on the base and electrostatic grass was placed on top to finish it off. One finished Kroot shaper!  My evaluation Well, this is where I evaluate my piece and tell you where not to go wrong like me. The main problems I have with my model are that I left on a mold line or two, made a hash of the gold on the pulse rifle, couldn't find any dwarf bronze and that the sword and pulse rifle were bent slightly so they didn't quite look right. If I was doing this again I would take more care over the figure, and actually make sure I have some dwarf bronze! | |
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