Welcome back to The Art of Caesura!
Hello one and all, and welcome back to The Art of Caesura!
Similarly to last week's post on sculpting hair, today's Sword Brethren post is another - according to modern parlance - chonky boi. The reason for the post being so long and detailed is that each of these miniatures is the equivalent of a character - they all have loads of detail and bare heads, so there is a lot to discuss. And discuss we shall!
Today we'll focus in on the grim visages of these hardened heroes. I mentioned before that I purposefully selected scarred, shouting faces where possible to highlight the veterancy and melee-focused nature of these guys.
I painted four of them with Caucasian skin, and the Castellan with dark skin. From their black undercoat, I painted the light-skinned heads with a mix of Cadian Fleshtone and Wraithbone.
...before painting pure Cadian Fleshtone around the eyes and lower face. The trick with faces is to thin your paints even more than usual which helps to blend the hues more naturally.
After the pure Cadian Fleshtone, I mixed in some Dark Fleshtone from Vallejo; this was mostly for around the eyes and mouth.
I gave the nose and cheeks a bit of life with Red Terracotta.
...and finally, I glazed some Doombull Brown (a reddish-brown) into the deepest cervices of the face.
All of the steps mentioned thus far got me to here:
The final step on shading the skin was to mix some Abaddon Black into the Doombull Brown and further darken the eyes.
With the faces fully shaded, let's take a closer look at the faces before any details or highlights have been applied.
I like to paint the eyes at this stage - prior to starting the highlighting. This means that if (when) I make a booboo it will be easier to fix rather than waiting until the face is otherwise complete.
I start by dropping some white into the eyes.
Now, let's dot in those pupils.
Then I like to give the skin beneath the eyes a glazed mix of Cadian Fleshtone and The Fang; it's a subtle effect but adds a bit of cool depth to their faces.
I then begin to highlight the faces with my original mix of Cadian Fleshtone and Wraithbone adding more and more Wraithbone for successive layers of highlight.
With the highlighting complete, so were the faces. I started on the hair that I had sculpted. I wanted to have a nice mix, so I went: one blonde, one black, one ginger and one grey.
For the blonde, I started with XV-88, then Averland Sunset with more and more Wraithbone added in.
This gave a bit too much of a "frosted tips" appearance for my liking, so I filtered it with Contrast Snakebite Leather and it made it luscious and luminous!
For the big beardy guy, (the one with the lightening claws), he reminded me of a Space Wolf / viking so I gave him a Celtic ginge-tinge. I used Skrag Brown for the base and added more and more Wraithbone for highlights.
Once again, I re-saturated the hair colour with a filter; Gryph-hound Orange in this case.
For the last two: the black hair and the salt and pepper, I started by mixing more and more Grey Seer into Scavenblight Dinge, before coating them in Black Templar
That is where I left it for the black-haired dude, but for the grey-haired one, I worked up through Scavenblight Dinge, Dawnstone and Grey Seer...
...finishing with Corax White. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Corax White is a really horrible paint to use; everytime I use it, I have to get a toothpick out to really stir it up - it's clumpy and separates, but it is a handy off-white hue.
When I attended a lecture at Warhammer Fest by the chemist behind Citadel Paints, he told us that whites are notoriously difficult pigments to make - they're either made out of lead (which is extremely toxic) or titanium (which is extremely difficult to grind up very small), so paint-makers often cheat by adding a bit of another colour (grey in this case).
So, with all those heads done, it was time to turn my attention to the squad leader, the Castellan.
As I previously mentioned, I decided to use the "stock" head for him with a darker skin tone, so I painted him separately. I stayed in the zone while painting him, so I don't have too many work-in-progress shots. I started with a mix of Vallejo's Dark Fleshtone and Doombull Brown
I then worked my way through the paints you can see below: Scale 75's African Shadow, Vallejo's Dark Fleshtone, S75 Indian Shadown, and finally S75 Golden Skin.
I'm really happy with how he turned out and indeed how they all turned out. There are a few errant pupils here and there, but on the whole they're pretty good especially for gaming models.
Watching: The Substance (2024)
Reading: Parable of the Talents - Ottavia Butler
Next Week:
Ho ho ho!
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