Saurus Warriors Scales

Hey guys. As most of you guys know, I'm working on my first 20 Saurus Warriors. I've started batch painting them and I'm now at a point where I need to know what the finished product will look like before I keep going forward.

I've been using the GW scheme that you can find here for my 1st unit. My current problem is that I've tryed highlighting the scales like they said in the tutorial and I'm not really happy with the results. The Saurus Warriors scales sometimes lack definition and I probably currently lack the skills to make it look as good as in the tutorial.

Any tips on how to make the color scheme work??? I'm looking for a fast and easy way to get those scales done. So far, I've given the scales a basecoat of Regal Blue before washing them with Badab Black. What should I do next?? Could I just lightly drybrush them instead of highlighting them? The tutorial says to go 1/1 Regal Blue with ice blue and then give the scales a final highlight of Spaces Wolves Grey but like I said, I don't think I can successfully highlight such small scales with my current painting skill level.

I appreciate any help you guys will be able to give!!!

Thanks !

 

Honestly, I recommend you try. How will you know if it won't work until you do try it? The only way to improve your painting skills is by pushing them. You can think of a highlight as a very careful drybrush, just get a fairly fine brush and instead of roughly going over the whole area put a bit of a splotch in the middle of each scale. It will take a little longer than drybrush, but worth it and once you get into it, its fairly fast as well.

If you don't want to, then yes just replace where it says highlight with drybrush and as you get brighter use less and less paint. The space wolves grey layer should be extremely light for example.

Finally, yes either the sculptor or the casting did miss a lot of definition on one side of the shoulder on the saurus. It is rather annoying, and for that area in particular it definitely benefits from highlight rather than drybrush since you need to somewhat create the detail yourself.

 

Hi Strewart, thanks for the reply.

I thought highlighting was painting the edges, not the middle. I tryed painting the edges, I could try it witht he middle. So i go from bigger dot to smaller dot right?

I tryed drybrushing and I really like the results. I went from drybrush (1:1 Regal Blue/Ice Blue) to light drybrush (Space Wolves Grey). Now my problem is that the scales, while they look very nice, look way to pale for the skin color scheme the tutorial suggested...

I think I'm gonna try drybrush to highlight (1:1 Regal Blue/Ice Blue) to highlight (Space Wolves Grey) and see how it goes from there.

I'll be posting pictures when I get back from skiing.

Stay tuned!!!

 

If you take a look at the way i did my saurus, I kind of just "blipped" paint onto the scales, leaving a little of the previous layer to be seen. Most of the time you want all of the highlights coming from the same general direction, but in all reality it doesn't matter too much. You can see on mine that i just went whatever direction because i applied the paint wherever my paint brush decided to land (hehe). It's really quite fast once you do it on one or two models. (I'd say I could probably "blip" paint those scales in about 10-15 minutes across 4-5 models after only having done 3) I would definitly recommend doing a batch of them at once though, so you don't have to keep mixing all the paint. I personally am going to have to figure out my mixes again since I haven't touched them in so long lol.

 

You can do either. Highlighting is usually done on the raised areas, and with a lot of LM the scales are actually somewhat pointy so the middle is the raised area. I am highlighting mine from darker at the edges to brighter in the middle, and it is easier to do because yes you do just go from big dots to smaller dots. If you highlight the edges instead and stay dark in the middle, it will still look good but take longer, and look different. Actually if you look at the tutorial you are following, I am fairly sure the middle of the scales are the brightest right?

A quick wash will darken them up and probably help the highlighting look smoother as well... Or you can keep it brighter than GW scheme if you like how it looks, pick what you like best!

And good work getting some painting done! I still haven't managed yet.