Draconis does….. The Silver Bayonet

8th October 2025

One of the random enemy types that can be encountered is ‘Living Armour’. Basically an animated suit of armour.

To make mine I used a Perry minis War of the Roses Foot Knights sprue.

I chose a torso with a tabard on, so that I could add some faded colour to the final piece. I also chose a head with an exposed face, which would allow me to drill out the face to make an empty helm, to be more ‘spooky’.

I went for a more upright torso, adding a two handed sword. It was sprayed black, then I built up layers of gunmetal, lead belcher and a final light drybrush of chainmail.

Next I painted up the tabard. I started out with dawn stone grey, then highlighted up through ivory to white. In hindsight I think I would have been better off painting it white and adding a grey wash.

I then painted one half yellow, and added some faux heraldic markings to both sides (front and back) and to the shoulders. This was followed by a thinned wash to make the fabric look old and worn, followed by a light drybrush (with some highlights) of pale sand to tone down the vibrancy and make it look faded.

Finally I picked out the dagger, leg straps, sword handle and suchlike, and added some basing materials. One living armour ready to go.

5th October 2025

The Italy supplement introduces the potential of needing more than 3 werewolves. Add to that that I may need more than 2 werejackals, and I knew I was in need of some “spare were’s”….

I had a sprue of the Wargames Atlantic werewolves. They are a touch smaller than I would like, but are suitable for this. Usual prep and prime was deployed.

I knew that I would want to use them for both Europe and Egypt, so planned to put them on clear plastic bases (yes, another different base type…). So for prime and paint they were temporarily fixed to some spare old bases.

I wanted a mix of colours, so planned out white, grey and brown schemes. The white was given a thinned skeleton horde wash. Drybrushed up with ivory then white. The grey was space wolf grey, with a darker grey for the fur. All given a very light drybrush of pale sand. The brown was snakebite leather, with the fur being a mix of contrast medium, Goregrunta fur and wildwood.

Claws were picked out in black, then teeth and eyes were painted up (red eyes for brown and grey ones, blue eyes for the white wolf). A touch of pink and red for the inside of the mouths. Overall they will do the job.

3rd October 2025

Earlier this week I painted up this chap. Since I don’t plan to play the competitive scenarios I will probably use him as a vampire, or Briganti Lord or suchlike. However, I really like the model so wanted to get him.

Started out with the usual zenithal prime.

I liked the studio scheme of mainly red and black/grey, so decided to emulate that to some extent. I used Flesh Tearer contrast for the red and mixed up some black and blue for the sash and tabard. The cloak was done in a dark(ish) grey. The fur was painted using grey and brown contrast mixed.

I then highlighted up the bits, pushing the highlights up further on the cloak bottom and edges and on the tabard corners and sash middle. Again I am trying to push these further than I normally would, to get a bit more pop.

Onto the rest then. Hair was black, picked out skin, teeth (a red wash in the mouth). The main thing here that I was happy with was the gem on the chest armour. Then some gloss onto the black leather areas, some basing and he was done.

12th September 2025

Earlier this week I painted up my forest witch. Only now getting around to the update, and will keep it short.

She had the usual zenithal spray.

I then laid down contrast plaguebearer for the green dress, contrast for the skin and Wyldwood for the staff.

The jacket was painted using my foundry leather triad, and the cloak was castellan green.

I then applied a wash of Agrax over all of the clothing, but not the skin or hair.

I followed this up by highlighting the jacket with two stages of the leather triad, and highlighting the cloak with Castellan green, followed by Castellan mixed with ivory.

Further weathering was applied using drybrushing of browns onto the bottom of the cloak and dress

The snake was picked out in castellan, then highlighted with Warpstone Glow, and I then added some banding using Moot green.

Finally it was picking out buckles, highlighting the hair, adding black eyes with a gloss varnish over and some ‘foresty’ basing.

30th August 2025

So, onto the rest that I built. I used the same core painting technique as I had done on the living versions of these.

The French guard had greatcoats started with Leviadon Blue contrast. The French infantry had a Kantor blue jacket… oh the red piping was annoying again shall we say 😊

The Austrian was a new scheme to me, but was basically mostly white – so I used a Soulblight Grey shade all over to start. Then used a light blue for the inner jacket, cuffs and collar.

Then they all had the various straps, packs, pouches etc lined, then picked out in the appropriate colours. Liberal use of Agrax over various parts to add dirt and wear, then finally some Agrellan Earth dabbed on in places for more weathering.

I then tried to add some bone separation lines on the hands of the group, to make them look a bit more skeletal.

26th August 2025

Haven’t had much time to work on these of late. Initially I was planning to work on all six at once, but I have pivoted to just working on the Brits (mainly..) for now.

They have been painted up using the same basic process as for the living brits and the revenants.

I used a darker Flesh Tearer contrast for the jackets. Then I picked out the straps in off white and brown, painted the bags, pouches and water bottle.

Cuffs were done in yellow. Everything was given a wash of Agrax, thinner on the trousers. I then picked out the straps with some white again.

This was followed with some pretty heavy weathering, focusing on the lower legs, knees and elbow areas, plus the bottom of the backpacks and the jackets. I did the final stage of this with Agrellan Earth, and some final dabs of Vallejo ‘Splash Mud’.

Some basing work, and these two are done.

20th August 2025

The Italy supplement introduces skeletal soldiers to the mix. Having built revenants previously I decided that I would try to build a handful of skeletal soldiers from my existing bits. I did however have to get a few skulls from a friend. I also got a half skeleton, which I decided I would chop into three parts.

The basic build for four of the soldiers was straightforward, mostly just the addition of a skull rather than the normal head.

For two of them though I wanted to go a bit further. Using the half skeleton parts I used my rotary tool to ream out part of the torso. I then cut down the half skeleton, and through an iterative series of trimming sanding and filing I managed to get the partial skeleton torso to ‘fit’ inside the cavity of the soldier.

I added rips and tears to a few places on the soldiers clothing for a bit of variety, but with that the build stage was complete.

15th August 2025

A couple of scenarios in the Italy supplement call for more Black Dogs…..

The first one I did was quite large, but at the time I thought I would need a maximum of one. Now I need four more.

I rooted around my old minis and found four ‘Blink Dogs’ from 1985. They are small compared to my first Black dog, but I thought that if I put them on 30mm round lipped bases they would work. They were stripped, cleaned, based and primed.

I then painted them up using four different blacks…. To be honest I don’t think the zenithal prime was worth doing here 😊

To give them a bit more depth I gave them a drybrush of dark grey, and gave some of them a wash of nuln or agrax. (2nd pic below)

Then to finish off I picked out their teeth, the tongue on one and painted the eyes. These were mephiston red, followed by a dot of orange.

A few different types of grass for the base, and they were done.