The Dogs - Spring Clean Challenge 2026

After all of the work so far all that needs doing now it to get the metal lovely and shiny.  Elves never knowingly less that dazzling so I need to go bright on the metallics.

Fortunately I’ve found some great paints to get a high shine on metals.  First we have the steel.
I use Darkstar Baroque to put the basic metal shine back onto the figures.  Not a complete overpaint layer, I’m leaving the edges and low points in the Enchanted Steel.  Over that just on the edges of weapons, tips and high shine points on armour I use Vallejo Metal Pale Burnt Metal.  This is almost a chrome finish – the clearest I’ve found as the pigment is very fine so it doesn’t make the finish grainy.

Now on to the gilded armour and gold weapon fitments.  To get a bright shine I have to add an extra layer.  Starting with Regency Gold I overpaint in the same way as I did on the steel, leaving the original colour in recesses and at the joins between colours.  Next I went with another Darkstar paint, Renaissance Gold.  This is very bright and would normally be the top highlight but we want our elves extra shiny.  This went into the usual highlight positions at the top of high points and edges.  I also picked a notional direction for light, from the upper left of the front of the miniature, at 11 o’clock.  Then put patches of highlight onto the flatter plates and surfaces where this light would hit them.  Finally a top and edge highlight using Vallejo Metal Gold. In small quantities this has a colour appropriate chrome finish.

Now a couple of finishing touches on the character miniatures.  A touch of black here and there and a snow leopard pattern on the musician’s animal pelt.  The pattern is much bigger than in real life but it needs to read as leopard at a glance so the characteristic circular loop spots need to be clear enough to see and are therefore upsized.

As with the Wardancers the basing will have to wait until I get back from Salute with the stuff needed to finish them.

Shiny 🙂