Dwarf Wrecker

I took a break from the Praetor and started working on one of the old Rackham Dwarf figures.  Some friends on Cool Mini are doing a Rackham Dwarf Paint-A-Long, so I thought I'd paint one too.  I've got a couple sets that I painted maybe 6 or 7 years ago.  I was hanging on to them to strip and redo, this was a good excuse.

I put a lot of effort into his face.  I started with the same mix as the White Speaker: Chestnut Brown, Rosy Shadow, Rosy Skin, Fair Skin, Fair Highlight, and Pure White.

From there I took the GW red glaze, thinned it down, and applied several coats to the tip of the nose, lower parts of the ears, in the cheek, and on the forehead crevices.  Then I took the GW blue glaze and mixed it with the red to create a purple.  This went into the darker shadows, cheeks again, the temples, the crease in the middle of the nose, etc.  Lastly I took a touch of just the blue glaze and added it under the right eye.

For the scar tissue I switched it up a bit.  I started with the rosy skin and mixed in some Imperial Purple.  Just a little bit goes a long way.  Then up to Rosy Skin with a bit of Imperial Purple.  For the highlights I went to Fair Skin with a but of Amethyst Purple and then Pure White.

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I then went back with the red and purple glazes, made a glaze from rosy skin, and then redid the highlights with Fair Highlight.

While this is a 28mm scale figure, the head is really closer to a 75mm scale figure.  So you can work in a lot more detail.  The eyes are a good place to spend more time.  I usually lay down the basic skin shadows and then paint the eyes.  I began with a base coat of Violet Red mixed with Rosy Skin.  While this will mostly be covered up there will still be a bit showing at the corners of the eye.  From there I paint the whites of the eye.  It's important not use pure white.  While it seems like an obvious choice, it will make the figure look off.  I worked with Weathered Stone and then a mix of Weathered Stone and Leather White.  Not a lot of shading for the white of the eye, just a little.  For the iris I started with Brown Liner.  I begin with just a small dot to get the general placement and then slowly expand to get to the final size.  For figures with two eyes I'll go back and forth making minor adjustments left or right so both eyes are looking in the same direction.  I mixed in some Sandy Brown with the Brown Liner to brighten up the iris.  I worked from the inside out to leave a very fine dark border.  As you can see below I'm applying the highlights to the lower part of the iris, not the top.  With that done I took just a touch of pure black.  I used the brush, but the tip of a toothpick  dipped in black might have worked just as well.  Last was to add the catch light. For this I switched over to pure white.

When painting around the eye you want a dark line at the top (bottom of the upper eyelid).  I used brown liner for this.  A bit of fair highlight along the bottom of the eye (top of the lower eyelid).  You'll also notice a little bit of the blue glaze in the shadow around the lower eyelid.

Praetor WIP 3

The armor was a bit of a challenge on this guy.  While I feel pretty confident painting white, I'm still very apprehensive when it comes to painting black.  As with white I want to stay way from the neutral black and grey mix.  I've done some brown-blacks but this time around I wanted to do more of a blue-black.  I guess the standard approach would be to start with a black, mix in some dark blue (like a Prussian blue), and then use some skin tones to create the highlights.  However I took a bit of inspiration from the Sons of Horus and picked a sea green shade instead of a dark blue.  From the Reaper line the paints I choose were black, marine teal, and tanned skin.

Of course I don't use pure marine teal or tanned skin.  I work from pure black to about a 3 parts black to 1 part teal.  Enough so you clearly can see the difference from pure black, but not too light.  More of a dark to medium grey.  I then take the black/teal mix and start to add tanned skin.  Depending on how light you want it maybe you get to 2 parts black/teal to one part skin.  These are just rough estimates.  Mix in a little bit at a time and see how it goes.

The idea for the brown black is the same, you just switch out a dark brown for the blue/teal.

The shoulder armor is done in read to match the Justaerin color scheme.  I like to go with a bit of a purple tone in the shadows, so I started with burgundy wine and then violet red before I got into one of the brighter red shades.  The red leather strips still need a lot of work but I think the little bit of color there helps.