In this article I’ll be explaining my method for painting this Scots warband in 28mm. I painted these guys up so that I could have another option of army to play for the rules SAGA. The warband consist of 1 metal warlord, 12 metal archers, and 25 plastic warriors, all from Gripping Beast. I will link all of the paints I used at the end of the article.
Preparation
This is my favorite and least favorite part of the process simultaneously, I really enjoy pulling out some fresh minis and getting excited about a new project, but putting together plastic models is truly the bane of my existence. After finally putting them all together I got them all primed, and it may be hard to tell in the lower pictures, but I primed them with the “zenithal” method. This is where you prime them in black, and then either with a airbrush, spray can, or drybrushing, put a light layer of light grey or white on the raised areas on the upper part of the miniature. This is to simulate how light would be hitting them in real life, and will slightly brighten the areas of the miniature that we want once it is painted over.
Painting
For the painting process we will follow me painting the unit of archers and my warlord, as the process is pretty much the same across the warband, and I didn’t want to get repetitive.
I like to start by taking out the big chunks first, so I did all of the tunics, shirts and capes. I used a combination of blues, greens, tans, and browns, which again are linked at the bottom.
On the bottom left is the next step, the skin. For this it is very important to use Cadian Fleshtone in my opinion, as it greatly outperforms other Caucasian flesh paints.
On the bottom right I have filled in the details like bows, sacks, straps, quivers, etc. using browns, tans, and bronze for any metal ortaments.
For the warriors that are not pictured here I would do any metallic weapons or helmets with silver, making sure to use a healthy black wash afterwards for shading.
Speaking of washes, it’s about that time!
Here are our archers after a wash with a watered-down layer of brown wash. I think it really blends the minis together and does a great job at really completing the paint job and adding a lot of realism.
To really show the difference, on the left is my leader before a wash, and on the right is an archer after the wash. I apologize for my poor photography throughout the article.
Final Touches
After the washes are complete it’s on to basing. I slather a 50/50 mix of elmer’s glue and water all over before sprinkling some model dirt on them, making sure to tap off the excess. After giving that a few hours to set, I added in a couple patches of static grass, also with elmer’s glue. We should now have a great looking base effect.
The natural lighting in my area where I take pictures was very poor the day I took them, but hopefully you can still see the minis ok. On the Left we have the entire warband finished, all 38 miniatures. On the right we have a few of the plastic warriors.
Below we have the final products of the minis in the tutorial, I think this is a very quick and easy way to get some great looking Dark Age minis on the table! If this tutorial was helpful to you please subscribe!!
Links
Cadian Fleshtone
Zandri Dust
https://www.amazon.com/Games-Workshop-Citadel-Base-Zandri/dp/B007RQSDHW
Eshin Grey
https://www.amazon.com/Games-Workshop-Citadel-Layer-Eshin/dp/B007RSZ8Y6
Mephistion Red
https://www.amazon.com/Games-Workshop-Citadel-Base-Mephiston/dp/B007RHZ9CS
Bloodtracker Brown
Ultramarine Blue
https://www.thearmypainter.com/shop/us/wp1115p
Gun Corps Brown
Jack Bone
Plate Mail Metal
Elf Green
https://us.thearmypainter.com/products/warpaints-elf-green
Nuln Oil
https://www.amazon.com/Citadel-Paint-Shade-Nuln-Oil/dp/B0189BIERC
Strong Tone
https://us.thearmypainter.com/products/warpaints-washes-strong-tone
Dirt Effect
https://www.amazon.com/Army-Painter-Battlefield-Essential-Battleground/dp/B07PW7CLB7?th=1.
Static Grass
https://www.amazon.com/Army-Painter-Battlefield-Essential-Miniature/dp/B07QPB3CSD?th=1.
Conclusion
I hope this tutorial was helpful, let me know what I should do next!
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Until next time- Joshua, The Napoleon of the West
