"From the City of Shadows" - Arkanaut Company (Painting - Part 1)

The City of Shadows has a dubious reputation 

amongst the Overlords, often labelled pirates 

or worse by other duardin of their rival sky-ports.

Barak Mhornar - Games Workshop

Welcome back to another Friday on The Art of Caesura!

Let's pick it up from last week and dive right back in to the Arkanauts. Last time we saw them they were all grey and naked. No longer!!

This is going to be part one of a two-parter on the painting of these guys before we look their bases and then at the finished Company in the following weeks. I was going to try to cram it all into one post, but wow there is a lot of detail on these guys, and we're in no hurry, so best to spread it out and give it all it's due. 

Barak Zilfin Colour Scheme

When the Kharadron Overlords first came out I was looking at all the colour schemes and thinking "man, Barak Zilfin all the way! I mean look at all that copper!" But over the year, my tastes have...matured and I came to really love Barak Mhornar's navy-grey and creams. I enjoy the contrast of the colours, and thought the scheme looked appropriately nautical; it also helps that I like painting the colour Ushabti Bone! It came as an added bonus that in the lore, these guys are the pirates of the skies!

Barak Mhornar Colour Scheme

Nailing down the colour scheme is an important consideration to make, because I am not an army painter. After Black Templars, Orcs and Goblins / Ironjaws, this will be only the third army that I've ever painted. I like to have a lot of different things on the go at once, and love painting one-off miniatures. Long term readers will have seen the intentional trend of this blog: sticking with one thing for a few weeks before moving onto the next and then returning to the first. It keeps things fresh for me, and hopefully for you. 

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not going to devote the next straight year and a half to only posting Kharadron Overlords stuff, but I'm just explaining my trepidation at starting this new army, and my desire to really have a colour scheme figured out that I'll still enjoy painting towards the end of the project. 

Preamble over.

I started undercoating the 10 of them with black primer (Imperial Primer) and then painted their environmental suits Ushabti Bone (I know it says to do them Zandri Dust, but I've seen other people run into problems highlighting up the Zandri Dust on the small creases and wrinkles of their suits). Then I did all the leather with a 2:1 mix of Doombull Brown and Abaddon Black. Once the suits and leather bits were done, I gave the bits I'd painted so far a pretty liberal wash of Agrax Earthshade. 

After the wash dried, I started on the armor with Stegadon Scale Green - I actually don't think I'd really used this paint before, but I really like the nice dark teal it gives. Plus, as a base paint it covers well. 

With the coloured armour panels undercoated (don't forget their codpieces, I had to go back and paint a couple that I'd missed), I painted all the silver bits with Leadbelcher. I started with a big brush, whacking it on to their weapons and grille of the backpacks and moved on to smaller and smaller brushes for the trim around their feet and then all the rivets. 

Then I whacked Nuln Oil on the silver and Stegadon Scale Green armour. 

I decided to get all the base coats and washes done before moving on to the highlights (rather than, say highlighting up his jump suit before moving on to the armour, as I would sometimes do) because I was painting quick and loose, doing the 10 of them at once, and knew it would be easier (and less devastating) to touch up little mistakes before I'd highlighted another section to completion rather than after. 

Next was the copper. In the past I've always used Hashut Copper, but I wanted to go for more of a dirty brassy / bronzey look on these guys. I tried another paint that I'd never used before: Screaming Bell, and although it turned out to be even more coppery than Hashut Copper, I think I've got a new favourite paint!! Screaming Bell is such a rich reddy copper; it's quite gorgeous! Even after a focused Agrax Earthshade wash to all the copper (the next step) it still kept its warm lustre. I went with Agrax instead of Reikland Fleshshade, because again, I'm aiming for a more weathered look on these guys. 

With all of the base colours in and shaded, things were looking good. 

Let's pause there with the company coming together, and next week we'll pick it up with the highlighting and cool details! See you then on The Art of Caesura!


Watching: Collateral 
Gaming: Bloodbowl 2


Next Week:

The Company continued...