Waaagh! It’s Spring Clean!

Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas. For the figures Elven cloaks I used Vallejo Model Colour Green Grey. I then added black into it and shaded this into the recesses. This was then blended with less black to make the transitions smoother. I then added Administratum Grey and finally worked up to pure Ulthuan Grey ( both GW colours) for the highest highlights on the cloaks.

For the green cloth on Aragorn and Legolas I started with Vallejo Model Colour Yellow and shaded with this mixed with black. I then took the base colour and highlighted with increasing amounts of scale 75 Thar Brown. Extreme highlights were pure Thar Brown. For the leather on Gimli I started with a 50-50 mix of Mephiston Red and Rhinox Hide from GW. Then added warmer browns into the mix for highlights. Shading was done with Rhinox hide.

I wanted clear differences in the skin tones on the models. For Aragorn I wanted a weather beaten look so started with Barbarian Flesh from The Army Painter. This I shaded with an equal mix of an old Citadel Flesh Wash and GW Seraphim Sepia. I highlighted this with the original flesh colour and worked this up with a mix of this and Vallejo Game Colour Pale Flesh. Around the nose and cheeks I glazed GW Screamer Pink and mixed this with GW Bugman’s Glow for the lips. His facial hair was done with repeated glazes of GW Thondia Brown.

Legolas was painted in a similar fashion although here I started with the Pale Flesh colour and the wash was less intense. Highlights kept the overall skin colour much lighter in finish than with Aragorn.

I wanted a ruddier finish with Gimli so the base colour was GW Bugman’s Glow. This was washed with the very red toned GW wash. Highlights were worked up to Barbarian Flesh. His beard started with GW Doombull Brown which I then washed with Liquitex Burnt Umber Ink. Highlights were then achieved with the original base colour and then GW XV-88 and finally sparingly applied Balor Brown.

These were the first unit I finished a set of 13 Warlord Games metal figures. They were principally from the SS Charlemagne set and two were from the early war set. I did a bit of conversion work on them by removing all the shields that bore the tricolour on the left arms and added bits from my spares box. These included different hands and weapons and I even replaced one of the heads with a Wargames Atlantic one.

I have painted WWII camouflage before but never Oak leaf so I decided to attempt both Spring and Autumn types here. In both cases I started from an equal mix of GW XV-88 and scale 75 Thar Brown. For the Autumn pattern I started with irregular patches of GW Thondria Brown and applied Vallejo Bright Orange within the brown patches. I then washed the uniform with GW Agrax Earthshade. Dots of GW Fire Dragon Bright were  then placed on the original orange colour. The rest of the uniform was then highlighted.

For the Spring uniform I added patches of Vallejo Yellow Olive and the same process was then repeated as above with the final dots being made with Vallejo Deep Green. Jackets and trousers that were plain uniform were either Army Painter Field Grey or Uniform Grey respectively.