Blog Deer Riffs' thinking, inking and skinking.

Hello everyone,

I'm brand new to the forum and to the mighty Seraphon. I'm excited to share my experience starting on this journey with all of you.

As a kid I got introduced to the world of Warhammer 40k by my older brother and found fun and serenity in painting miniatures with my family. I kept painting and modelling long after my brother had abandoned the hobby. Gluing, painting, posing and basing my army was an almost meditative experience for me, and was a time in my life that I look back on fondly.

But, life, studies, part-time work, moving out of home, more studies, full-time work, and on and on, all happened and my painting fell by the wayside.

Recently, and I can't even remember why, but I started thinking about that time in my life again and how much fun I had. I talked about it with my wife and we decided to check out our local Games Workshop. It was just how I remembered - well, almost.

The Games Workshop in my city was a dark and dingy room; uninviting to anyone who wasn't in the know. The guys behind the counter always seemed to have an air of 'I know more than you'. Now though, it's well lit and welcoming and the guy running the place is one of the nicest, most enthusiastic people I've ever met.
And I suppose, I'd changed as well, when once I was a cash strapped and awkward teen, now I'm an awkward adult with a disposable income.

We looked around and I pointed out to my wife all the different factions and armies and who are the goodies and the baddies. I showed her the space marines and chaos and pointed out the models I had as a kid, but there was this nagging feeling.

I didn't like the grim dark.

I was so in to it as an early teen. Legion of the Damned and Black Templar space marines came out and I painted all of my units black. Dark Eldar came out and I painted those little bondage-space-elves so hard.It was gritty and it was dangerous and - I just wasn't into it now. I didn't want to spend my time painting shades of black and skulls and guns. I thought I'd made a mistake.

Then we turned around and looked at the other side of the shop. Age of Sigmar? I had no idea what that was. It was Warhammer Fantasy Battles when I was in the game. Bretonians and High Elves and Chaos Knights. The kits were bright and colourful and fun looking. Yeah, I can get into this.

And then I saw the skinks. Oh, the skinks! Bright blue box art, they just looked so cool and fun to paint. A perfect combination of funny, cute and tough. I knew instantly that these were my guys. I don't know what attracted all of you to the lizards to begin with, I'd be curious to hear your stories, but for me those skinks just looked like so much fun. I was sold, and I knew one more thing instantly; I wanted to paint those little lizards pink.

Maybe it was the incongruity of the image - fearsome jungle lizard warriors in bright pink, or just the fact that pink and skink rhymed - I don't know, but I instantly decided to build an army of pink skinks!

 

Welcome to the forums, nice work on the skinks - good bold colours. Looking forward to seeing more!

 

Awesome they look great!
I got into lizardmen because well, who doesn´t like dinosaurs??

 

Welcome aboard! The colour scheme is amazing! I really like the green eyes! They look incredible. If you have any questions on AOS feel free to ask.

 

Looking good man.

 

Very well painted. Looks almost slaneeshi with the color scheme... [heresy]

 

Heresy?! Don't knock it till you've tried it. We've got "fun" and "games".

Resistance is futile.

 

[must resist]

I am curious how the saurus are going to look now though, maybe a darker version of the skink's color scheme?

 

Me too! The skinks turned out so well; I'm sure the Saurus will be awesome!

Love the bases.

 

Thanks everyone for the kind words!

@Crowsfoot, next up will be the Skink Starpriest then an Oldblood on Carnosaur. I've got those two just about finished.
After that the rest of the start collecting box and the beautiful bastiladon. I've also got some more kits coming in the mail... don't tell my wife.

@Warden and @NIGHTBRINGER, I'm really not sure on the saurus colour scheme. I was planning on doing them the same colour as the skink scales which is GW's xerxes purple with some highlights, but now I'm not so sure. Any suggestions?

 

I think two good options are:

1. Paint the saurus in the exact same colour as the skinks. I've seen a really great Lizardmen army on miniwargaming's youtube channel where the entire army was painted with the exact same colour scheme. It looked fantastic because it was so cohesive.
2. Paint the saurus one shade darker than the skinks. Start with a basecoat colour that is one shade darker than you used for the skinks, and finish off with you highlight layer that is one shade darker than you used for the skinks. That way, you have enough differentiation between your Lizardmen subspecies, but they also share enough of a colour palette that they tie into one another. This can be done for either the skin or the scales independently or both simultaneously.

Of course I'm definitely not a painting expert, so take my ideas with a grain of salt. @Crowsfoot will probably have superior insight and advice.

 

What he said.

Also I found some cool examples doing a search:

Spoiler: purple saurus

Originally found on pinterest, posted by notabusiness:


These were created and beautifully based by our own @Kirkegaard (link)



This next army takes the "slaneeshi" part seriously from what I can see, but is beautifully done. Also uses what looks like some tyranid bits? Posted by nar_sheptha over on the Warhammer Forum. The saurus are waaay down the page but are nicely converted and based, and only some of the details are actually purple, like the weapons. And one of them has two heads, another has a skink head...



The last one I liked was actually a cool picture of the older version of kroxigors, AMAZING bases, posted by Lister also on the Warhammer Forum along with another short round of pictures by iccapod who saurus are also purple.

 

Beautiful color on those skinks. Very nice!

 

Pink skinks! :O That scheme is so snazzy, it really does them justice (never thought I'd see skinks in a pink scheme!) As for the saurus back scales, washes or glazes (as well as the aforementioned scale tone that's slightly darker) might serve you well- depending on if you want to drybrush, layer or slightly tint them a different shade. If you do go down the route of glazes, I would however advise using something like Lahmian medium over water when watering down a pigment, as water leaves marks around the edges where it pools (like when painting with watercolours). With washes, they will darken the areas you put them onto significantly (as they add a ton of shading, but are also prone to pooling. Control and the amount you put on a brush is key with washes). Of course, as the others mentioned it might be better to have them all similar to tie the army together (then go all out crazy with the big dinosaurs!) Hope this helps- there's so many options to choose from in terms of painting! Definitely looking forward to seeing the rest of the army!

 

Thanks for all of the comments and the feedback on the skinks, everyone.
@Warden, thanks for all the reference pics on the purple saurus! @Soxii, thanks for the advice on the Lhmian medium, I've given the whole glazing thing a little bit of a crack over Easter and I totally agree with you about the brush loading being key. (Happy egg stealing btw fellow lizards).

So, painting-wise this past week: I've done a bit of an experiment with glazing and shading on a couple of old metal space marines I stripped and re-primed. They're just an experiment in really pushing my highlights and shadows further than I was comfortable. I don't know if I'm particularly happy with the result, but it was a really good exercise for me. Does anyone else "practice" their painting like this?

 

I don’t practice my painting, but I think I may start. This is a really good idea.

 

And then on to the main event. More pink skinks!
I finished off a Skink Starpriest. This model was so much fun to pain. Looking over the GW website - it was one of the first models I saw that I really wanted paint. I had so much fun with this one. The feathers were a new experience for me. First I did them yellow and then glazed over with the green and the blue. It could probably be a smoother transition, and If I had to do them again in the future I'd probably try to wet blend them instead (but that's another new technique I'd have to experiment with). I also realize that I've stuck the square base on top of the round base, but I figure it's such a cool model it deserves a bit of extra height. I also haven't done his little dagger that goes on his back, not sure that I will to be honest. Love this model... I might buy another one in the future just for the joy of painting it again!