Skaven Painting Challenge

I finally got the red cloak and the colour on the magic potion and the burners hanging.

Then it was dropped.

No one is taking ownership.

When I attended to it on the 30th a wheel was so close to falling off that I had to take it off and reglue it. The staff was very wobbly so I secured it with some superglue. The triangular post above the bell had snapped off along with one of the spikes on the metal work next to the bell. The spike was lost and I improvised a spike from a plastic toothpick end, never used (just for hobbying).

The repairs really cut into the time I hoped I would be adding to the finished touches of my entry.

These are the final entry pics.

I will try to detail out my paint choices and techniques later, but for now this was a good as I could make it in the month.

I took a lot of gaps in painting it, found the amount of component details that needed to painted off-putting and challenging from the outset and this isn’t even as fussy as some of the GW big models out there.

This model taught me a ton of lessons and time again I know I could perhaps do a better job; certainly the next big model I face won’t be as daunting.

The magical smoke from the potion, bell and burners was all the same paint process. I laid down four colours in my wet pallette. On this occasion the white primer was helpful as a base colour.

Ork Flesh Contact, Nighthaunt Gloom, Apothecary White Contrast and Nihilakh Oxide.

I wasn’t careful around the metal of the potion and burners as I wanted the deep green to offer a glow or over pouring or smoke and knew I would be back with gold and bronze later.

I laid down rough percentages of the colours as they came from the pot and then used the mixes I made on the pallette to blend them into one another. I had to work fast but enjoyed the task. I have been told that there are several mediums out there that would have extended the drying time to make the blending easier, but the painting chosen were all glaze type thin Contrast colours already and I managed to get the task completed without it. I have never used that technique so decided not to try anything too radical on a challenge piece.
At the end I used thin coats of Army Painter Bright White at the end to complete the blend to white at the end.

For the other colours it will be hard to list them off because it feels like I used my whole paint collection. Certainly a lot of my Contrast paints for the wood to try and make it look as varied and natural as I could.

The cloak was the Flesh Tearers Red Contrast with highlight of Mephiston Red with I think a dash of Trollslayer Orange mixed in with the red as a high area highlight at the end.

The grey metals were a Leadbelcher base. I adder Nihilakh Oxide sparingly and hit the bolts and a lot of edges with Runefang Steel. I felt the blue of the Nihilakh Oxide would be a nice cold contrast against the warm browns of the wood.

I used crackle paint on the back wheels. I wanted it to look like old cracked paint, but I didn’t lay it on thick enough. It still laid down a nice foundation for my blue and green Contrast paints for some extra colour on the model. As part of the brief this seemed important to add more colour and shows that some wood has been repurposed to make this contraption. As an after thought it also ties in with the green and blue of the smoke effects at the front too.

The big blind rat at the back was enjoyable to paint.

Started with a Bugman Glow base with Army Painter Barbarian Flesh mix as a highlight. There was at least one Reikland Fleshshade wash and highlight back up again. The veins looked fine highlighted with Barbarian Flesh, but in the end they got a highlight of a Nighthaunt and Bugman Glow mix to make them look more like veins.

The fur started out as Wyldwood Brown Contrast but his dried very glossy. Some gloss would make if look greasy, but the gloss at the time looked wrong. I went over it with Agrax Earthshade and this knocked the gloss back a touch and there was a final highlight of a mix of Mornfang Brown and Wyldwood Brown.

The spines on the back were a Morghast Bone base with a Wraithbone edge highlight.

The tail got an extra wash with Darkoath Flesh that stood it apart nicely from the flesh.

The model was bought built and primed  on eBay in early 2020 by it’s owner, given to me to paint for him in May 2020 approx and sat in my house in danger of destruction by bad house keeping chaos and a mad Labradoodle and somehow survived. Not only survived but ended up being entered into a competition. The model has now been returned to the owner and he seemed very happy with the end result which made my day.

The only sad bit was not getting the quality of photos I wanted to really sell the paint job and give it a chance of winning the competition I entered it for. It was just too big for the photo booth that I owned, but I did manage to get some nice shots with the nice red background.

Thanks for all the likes and comments. Much appreciated as always. I will maybe chuck in an extra comment if I get a nice honorary mention when they give out some prizes on the lasshammer Instagram account. Happy Hobbying.