Blog bOdziO Wolf's Miniature Painting

The Miniature Painting Blog Master Index

Lizardmen/Seraphon
The First Skinks / First Steps
Cold One Riders / Saurus Knights
Kroq'Gar on Grymloq
Orange Skink Alpha - Orange Hues Using Pink Undercoat and Yellow Paint
Kroxigors (2/3) - Scaleworks on Rough Model and Introducing Orange Color to Blue Lizards
Starpriest (Ghost Form) - Black to White Ultra Contrast With Only 2 Colors
Saurus With Spears - Quick Dry-brushed Blue Scales
Saurus With Spears - Continued
Saurus Knight Alpha

Istaria
Kappacius Null the Dragon - Non Metallic Bronze With Emerald and Multiple Hues With Water Effects



(Attached files below are required for the post #2 to work)

 

MY FIRST SKINK
This post have been slightly edited in 2021 to host the Skink almost entirely and clean the #1 post for index purposes.

PRIMER

I started Citadel Corax White spray and I must say after some practice (one skink had to give up almost all his details in the process) its my weapon of choice comparing to doing all the coating job with a brush. Its so good that it even leaves by bad seam removal job


SKIN(K): BASE

Base Layer was done by Glacier Blue (you can notice its actually much lighter than on the producer (Vallejo) given image), so I could drop using white paint on the front skink parts, as that would be almost unnoticeable anyways.
For scales I started with other spectrum and hit the guy with Heavy Blue. Did 3890380 overpaints to make sure only the scales are done with the heavy variant. After that I made a wash from Glacier Blue to help me a little bit (forgot to take intermediate image, sorry).


SKIN: WASH
And here I did something crazy


Mixing 2 parts of Glacier Blue with 1 part of Electric Blue (which is, BTW, completely different color than presented on the screen oO) made the color for the thin wash for the whole upper part of the body which:
* gave me highlights for free
* reduced the contrast between Heavy Blue and Glacier Blue
* reduced the scales visibility (and here is my mistake of not wiping the back scales after applying the wash)

About the last one I wonder does it make sense to repaint the scales or just try something else?

SKIN: BACK PLATING & CREST

Since my wash was far too aggressive on the back plates I decided to keep them rigid as before by carefully repainting their top parts, leaving sides washed. It looks sloppy on a closeup, but blends nicely when you look from afar

Fixed the front area where the wash got too far. Overall I think this wash added more work than benefit and I will try single color coating next time

Other than than the crest got its color by Vallejo Pale Flesh base (Vallejo Tan (mixed) for shade a bit?) and tongue is simply Vallejo Red.

 

Vallejo Polished Gold is giving me PTSD

but before I delve into this topic lets have an update on the progress



SKIN: BACK PLATING
I couldn't resist using newly bought thin brush to fix that scales painting anyway
To finish off I dry brushed with Vallejo Glacier Blue (finally no plastic look!)

TONGUE
Visible in previous update Vallejo Red coating was washed with Vallejo Pale Flesh to tone down the "reddiness". I applied multiple layers doing smaller and smaller areas centered around tongue tip giving it a nice highlight.

CREST
I repainted the front in Vallejo Pale Flesh because I didn't like the transition and crest should be actually painted depending on the Skink mood or so I heard (). Sides were shaded with couple of layers of thin wash made from Vallejo Tan.
I've done some freehand lines with Vallejo Tan to make the crest more interesting then washed with Vallejo Pale Flesh to make those lines less outstanding from the model.
Top of the crest was highlighted with couple of layers of Vallejo Dead White.

SPEAR & JEWELRY
Vallejo Polished Gold, a paint of a consistency of something that warm-bloods are leaving when they see the carnosaur for the first time, was used for everything that supposed to be shiny and I must proudly say I f*** up the model
Its the only color I totally cannot make darker with black and washes don't work the way I think they should. Overall I can't really make a realistic look on larger surfaces, so I think I will try to stay away from metallics for those (especially when they end up on a lizard's muzzle and you spend 30 minutes on crisis management :O).
I used Vallejo German Camo Bright Green (acting as Goblin Green) on the bracelet. My recommendation though is to not paint it over the Polished Gold, otherwise it will as shiny as the gold and look equally bad.

Any good ideas on how to paint the claws?

 

Model Finished, Base Pending



EYES
Here is the part I'm completely new to (not like I've ever painted a lizard before ) so I followed probably one of the simplest and best tutorial for lizard eyes in Lustria (http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/how-to-paint-skink-eyes-itepixcauh-style.23463/) and since I don't have any Citadel paints laying around I made the following version of it:
* coat: Vallejo Sun Yellow
* wash: mix of 2x Sun Yellow 1x Black (though I will look for something more accurate in the future)
* upper half of the eye: Vallejo Sun Yellow again
* upper 1/4 of the eye mix of 1x Vallejo Dead White with 1x Vallejo Sun Yellow (this one is also super inaccurate, so I think I will just buy a lighter yellow instead or do 2x Sun Yellow and 1x Dead White instead).
* pupil: Vallejo Black with light mark done with Vallejo Dead White
* bottom lid: slightly toned with Vallejo Pale Skin freestyle washy thing done left in the palette

The last one is my addition to the tutorial as I didn't like the abrupt yellow to blue transition.

Also tip for the future: if you have a chance don't glue the hand with spear in position like that until you finish the eyes, finish the eyes first
I head a real trouble to get into the right eye and it looks ugly oO

SHIELD
Probably my favorite part of the Skink because its red and I think I will evolve my color scheme towards juicy red shields in the future!
* coat: mix of 1x Vallejo Bloody Red and 1x Vallejo Tan
* wash: mix of 1x-1.5x Vallejo Bloody Red and 1x Vallejo Black and try to get it only in cracks mostly (I tried)
* highlights and glaze: vanilla Vallejo Bloody Red (improvise a bit to have a non-uniform look)

Rest of the Skink was pure improvisation and fixing some inconsistencies if possible (or try-harding without skill if I want to be honest )

Now into ungluing the model and doing the base with some sand and tea leaves

 

Thank you very much Let me make an update on this guy below.

The last addition to the Skink I'm proud to document is a foliage and ground to base. I must say tea leaves make a nice, lazy and 0 cost abstraction of the actual foliage!



BASE: GROUND
Coat with a mix of 1x Vallejo Tan and 1x Vallejo Black and then dry-brush with 1x Vallejo Tan gives a deep brown ground-like color.

BASE: FOLIAGE
I splatted glue into places where I wanted my "plants" to grow and then placed some used green tea leaves that dried overnight. Since their color is pretty bland I coated them with mix of 1x Vallejo Ger. Cam. Bright Green (Vallejo Goblin Green replacement) and 1x Vallejo Dead White.
Now to make it even more interesting I experimented with 2 washes:
* heavy wash of Vallejo Ger. Cam. Bright Green done all over the plants
* thin wash of Vallejo Black applied sparingly to the more "shadowy" parts of the plant

BASE: RING
Here I just put boring black, but I may revisit this part in the future as I've seen really cool ideas here including painting a unit formation type for example

 

UPDATE ON THE SPEAR AND MY SECOND SKINK
Lets start with an eye-opener I found out recently when browsing You Tube which is applying metallic paint as a drybrush instead of fighting with the consistency (though I solved that later after few trials and errors).
Also I finally used a proper neutral background to put in on the main gallery as "My First Skink"



THE OTHER EXPERIMENT

I'm also working on some alternative color scheme which gives me a lot of joy since its uses much warmer colors and the whole basic palette

BODY:
Primer: Citadel Corax White
Base Coat: Vallejo Glacier Blue
Layers: tried a couple of things which resulted in 83920380 layers of paint, but finally settled on the following mix:
1x Vallejo Magic Blue && 1x Vallejo Glacier Blue
In the future I should consider doing multiple thin layers with Vallejo Magic Blue like I did with my electric blue javelin dude above to have some transitions.
Shade: wash made from super-thinned Vallejo Heavy Blue
Highlight: mix of 1x Vallejo Glacier Blue and 2x Vallejo Magic Blue and then Vallejo Glacier Blue; tried a bit feathering (tried is the keyword here). Overall next thing to improve...




BACK SCALES:
That was a super fun experiment and I used the following paints to do so
* Vallejo Heavy Blue
* (smaller area) couple of Vallejo Bloody Red layers (to get more vivid red and coverage)
* (even smaller area) couple of Vallejo Sun Yellow layers (this paint is super thin from the tube, but its not a wash, but becomes wash pretty easily)
* wash with mix of 1x Vallejo Sun Yellow && 1x Vallejo Bloody Red (or just buy a good orange) - idea is to make red -> yellow transition less abrupt, but a more skilled painter could also cut it by proper blending
* drybrush with 1x Vallejo Sun Yellow && 1x Vallejo Dead White (or just buy a bright yellow)




CREST:
Tried a couple of things here, but most importantly I left the front in body color with gradual highlight from body color to Vallejo Glacier Blue on the top
Then I picked the body color and painted some texture on the crest
Back of the crest was another experiment/improvisation. I first tried Vallejo Sun Yellow but it was too washy and too bright, then
tried Vallejo Pale Flesh coat with the Vallejo Tan wash as I did for previous skink but it didn't play with the back scales. I guess this is due pastel colors not working with vivid colors IDK, I have 0 knowledge about color theory .
Thus I simply washed the orange I did for scales and it looks super good!



METALLICS:
I still have no idea what I'm doing, but it looks like the following technique works the best for me:
* basecoat with Vallejo Leather Brown
* thin layer (one) of Vallejo Polished Gold
where thin layer for gold is something completely different than for other colors and its always confusing for me.
This technique was used only on the left hand bracelet so far.

 

Third Skink is now my benchmark Skink! I will be using these colors for all the spears now on

Body basecoat layer is now mix of 2x Glacier Blue && 1x Magic Blue. I took some time to improve the edge highlighting on the shield and tried smooth highlights on the body and improved claw wash patterns (they will look much better when I paint the base).

Now I'm painting skink twins )) to check how this color scheme will play with the blessed variant of red-orange-yellow crest and back plates!

 

Color Consistency project continued. I tried slightly different back scales pattern and I wonder which one is better:
* "My back is lava" (right bottom one)
* "Subtle Warpaint" (two top left Skinks)

?

 

LETS GET MOTIVATED - APRIL
My goal was to work up the edge highlights (shield and gold) and smooth highlights on the skin.



BODY
I slightly changed my painting formula for the body which is now:
* basecoat with Vallejo Glacier Blue
* layer of mix of 2x Vallejo Glacier Blue && 1x Vallejo Magic Blue which transitions to Vallejo Glacier Blue on the belly
* wash with very thinned Vallejo Magic Blue
* highlight with 2x Vallejo Glacier Blue && 1x Vallejo Magic Blue

This is also a last Skink I paint using that overcomplicated formula as I found something much simpler that allows me to skip first layer and washing entirely (see WIP pipe-blowing Skinks above). Updates to come soon



GOLD
Looks like I finally got a recipe for table-top quality gold: Vallejo Beasty Brown undercoat, then apply layer of Vallejo Polished Gold (must be slightly diluted). Highlight with mix of 1 x Vallejo Gold && 1x Vallejo Silver.



SHIELD
Since this guy is more saturated in blue I forsake blending Blood Red with Tan and went straight to more saturated red in the shield as well:
* basecoat Vallejo Blood Red
* wash with mix of 2x Vallejo Blood Red && 1x Vallejo Black [dark red] targeting nooks and crannies and removing wash with clean brush from raised planes
* highlight with mix of 1x Vallejo Blood Red && 1x Vallejo Pale Flesh [rose red]
* wash with Vallejo Blood Red to reduce abruptness (I think this is optional if I mix the paints to have smaller value distance between them)

 

LETS GET MOTIVATED - SEPTEMBER
Finally got down to finish the mount for the Saurus Knight. Learned a lot of new stuff in the process

BODY
All primed with CItadel Corax White then basecoated with Vallejo Bonewhite.
Second base color is a mixture of 1x Vallejo Ger. Camo Light Green && 1x Vallejo Escorpena Green gently wet blended into Vallejo Bonewhite in the underbelly.
Top scales were washed with Vallejo Ger. Camo Light Green and highlighted with Vallejo Escorpena Green.
I tried washing the underbelly but it was a disaster so I never did that again. For some reason wetblend doesn't work with any washes...



GOLD
Oh boy and I thought I know almost everything about TMM I found a cool technique of shading gold as well!
Now my recipe for larger gold surfaces is:
Base with Vallejo Beasty Brown.
Layer with Vallejo Polished Gold (yes I still use the crappiest gold paint in the market ).
Shade with 3 paint mixture of (1x Vallejo Beasty Brown && 1x Vallejo Black) [dark brown] && various amounts of Vallejo Polished Gold (I think 1:1:2 gave me the best results).
Highlight with mixture of 1x Vallejo Polished Gold && 1x Vallejo Silver.



CLAWS
I tried multiple techniques resulting in claws receiving like 12 layers of paint (fortunately they are thin ) and it goes like this:
* base in Vallejo Black
* drybrush with 1x Vallejo Black && 1x Vallejo Dead White (gray)

TEETH
Base in Vallejo Bonewhite and highlight with Vallejo White. No idea what to shade them with so left them unshaded...

SADDLE and STRAPS
Basecoat done with Vallejo Leather Brown. Shades with some mixture of aforementioned Leather Brown and some Black, but I don't like the effect 100% so this is the one to fix later. Its also the first time I tried jagged-edge highlighting and I love the effect!



EYES:
I did eyes like the Skinks minus some of the top highlights since Cold One eyes are so small, but I must say that the cold one muzzle gets an interesting facial expression

 

Description coming soon. Also they need a base with a nice swamp

 

LETS GET MOTIVATED - SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER AND A BIT OF NOVEMBER

Phew, finally done and I must say I had a blast. During painting of this single model I consumed about 20 hours of different videos on how to paint and base. I think If I ever decide to paint a new race or faction, I will start with cavalry. In the meantime I am preparing other 7 cold bloods and this model will serve me as a good enough basis for the whole unit.

The cold one is pretty much covered in the posts above, so I will write a bit about the handsome lizard on the top



BODY (BLUE SCALES)
I started with the base coat of Vallejo Light Turquoise, which I then washed with a mix of 1x Vallejo Light Turquoise and 1x Vallejo Black. Having this part done I gradually repainted the scales with Vallejo Light Turquoise to build up the highlight. Lastly I mixed 1x Vallejo Light Turquoise with 1x Vallejo Glacier Blue and did some artistic highlights. I actually painted those highlights after painting a ballsy highlights on the shield and liking the effect in the end

SHIELD
This part of the Saurus actually let me to finally learn that I should not be shy with using aggressive colors for highlighting. I started the shield by laying a base coat with Vallejo Bloody Red. After that I washed with a mix of 1x Vallejo Bloody Red && 1x Vallejo Black giving a nice dark red in the process. It is also here I finally hit the jackpot with amount of water versus the paint which is of 2:1:1 (water:red:black).
After having the wash done I did gradual highlights with Vallejo Bloody Red again then I finished the highlights with a mix of 1x Vallejo Bloody Red && 1x Vallejo Pale Flesh (which results in rosy red).

SHIELD: STRAPS
Leather parts on a shield were a byproduct of my laziness so they are a bit different tint than all the other leather parts. Having Vallejo Leather Brown base coat I just washed with same wash as the red shield scales. I finished with jagged edge highlighted with Vallejo Leather Brown again.




BODY (WHITE SCALES)
* base coat with Vallejo Bonewhite
* wash with a mix of 1x Vallejo Leather Brown and 1x Vallejo Black to get a dark brown wash (in a retrospective this was a bad idea as brown paints made the worst washes due to pigments getting split, I will definitely revisit this part and try to come up with something better)
* repaint with Vallejo Bonewhite to build up highlights

EYES
I did very much the same process as for the Cold One which is just Vallejo Sun Yellow as a base coat, a lame wash of 2x Vallejo Sun Yellow and 1x Vallejo Black repaint the eyeball with Vallejo Sun Yellow again and paint a pupil with Vallejo Black



GOLD
For the gold parts I did a slight variation of what I did for the cold one. Starting with Vallejo Polished Gold
painted over Vallejo Beasty Brown I shaded (but not washed) with a mix of 1x Vallejo Polished Gold and 1x Vallejo Black.
Another mix of 1x Vallejo Polished Gold and 1x Vallejo Silver was used for first highlight pass and pure Vallejo Silver was used for edge highlight pass.

SADDLE
* base coated with Vallejo Leather Brown
* washed with 1x Vallejo Leather Brown && 1x Vallejo Black
* repainted with Vallejo Leather Brown
Note: I didn't even bothered to place highlights because this part is literally covered by the Saurus from most of the looking angles.



BASE
That was a really fun part and all the elements here are done from scraps or natural things you can find around you.
The idea was to create some kind of swamp base. I started with gluing up layers of sand with PVA glue to model a reservoir.
I base coated the sand with Vallejo Sick Green and washed with a mix of 1x Vallejo Sick Green && 1x Vallejo Black.
Later on I dry brushed with a mix of 1x Vallejo Sick Green && 1x Vallejo Escorpena Green (this provides a slightly lighter shade of the base green) and then I did another drybrush with just the Vallejo Escorpena Green. Both drybrushes were made non-uniformly, because this is nature .

Vallejo Still Water product (poured in 2 layers) filled in the watery part for me on which I placed some pre-painted pieces of paper to emulate the water plants. Other plants were made from dried green tea and a toothbrush hair.

Special thanks to guys from Lustria Online Discord for providing me awesome ideas during the basing process

 

Love how it came out, that swampy looking bass looks so gross (in a good way). Thanks for going into detail on your ratios and such.

Interested in this comment, is there a particular reason you've come to this conclusion?

This is so friggen true and has taken me years to learn.

I didn't realize we had a discord lol...

 

Haha, and I was about to ask if there is anybody that thinks of it as useful since it took awful long to write this post

I think it is because you have much more complex figure (but at the same time much more fun!) as you basically have to paint two creatures in the price of one. I think you already noticed two walls of text, one for the mount and one for the rider Finally there is a hidden challenge to make sure they both stand out from each other and be complementary to each other at the same time!

I've updated my description with a permanent invite ling..., I mean link

 

I used one of my Skinks to practice some drawing

 

No much updates on my blog recently because I'm growing reeds and it takes time...



I have a couple of findings to share about the Cold Ones I'm painting though

BODY
I slightly diverged from my original paint plan by using Games Workshop Biel Tan Green wash instead of using regular dark green paint wash to increase contrast. It's my first GW paint ever from the current paint set, so some of the parts of the models will need fixing, but I'm very satisfied with this wash line over all. Main reason being slower dry time.
Models became very glossy after applying the wash, but highlighting step will negate this problem later as already seen on the belly part where I repainted the stripes with glazes of Vallejo Bonewhite.



MOUTH AND TONGUE

First time painting a dinosaur internal textures I had a lot of trouble literally get the brush between the teeth, but managed to paint them OK-ish. Interesting and challenging part of this model is to paint to hide elements and make them look like additional cast shadow.
Basically the internals were base coated with Vallejo Blood Red, then 2 layers of highlight were done to make the tongue look more 'wet'. First was a mix of 1x Vallejo Blood Red && 1x Vallejo Pale Flesh [pink red], second was just the Vallejo Pale Flesh.
Cast shadow to hide unwanted plastic as well as throat I chose to paint with a mix of 1x Vallejo Blood Red && 1x Vallejo Black

 

Very good,

I like the shield. My only advise is, try to airbrush a thin layer of matt varnish on them, they get rid of the "slimy" glossy look.

But very good, lovely popping colours!

 

Varnish is something I will have to think of if I'm ever going to play them as well.