McDeath: Speed Painting Mogro Neckbreak

Warning, this may cause addiction. 

Yes, speed painting may become an obsession. You may start arranging your paints into 'homebrew' triads of your own (or covet Foundry's excellent range), deep searches of the lead pile will be mounted in search of that 'perfect miniature' for the job or the dreaded of dreaded... You may trade the family silver for a Citadel sheep as it requires only two real colours!

I must admit to having spent most of this week pondering over which model to tackle next in my new found love of speed painting. My self imposed rules are simple: the selected model can be based and undercoated before starting work, a hair dryer can be used for obvious reasons and the model must be finished within one hour. It seems simple, doesn't it? Well, it is - but its also great fun... And did I say it is a bit addictive too?

So addictive that I had another crack at a model - though this time I opted for a black undercoat. Looking at Mogro, you can see why - most of him is swathed in chainmail! So it was fairly simple to drybrush him up (using Foundry's triad for chainmail, strangely enough) before using a little black ink to create some more distinct shading around the equipment and folds. 

Next up I tackled the skin. This was just straightforward layering. I started with a base of Goblin and Snot green - before working up the highlights by adding larger amounts of rotting flesh. As part of this process, I blobbed on some dark purple in Mogro's mouth - using the lightest green mixed in with the base purple to highlight it up quickly. Foundry's bone triad made quick work of the teeth and axe handle. 

By this point I was about half way through my time. I decided to use a spot colour on the belt - and selected a dark red. Again, simple layering worked this up in a few minutes with Blood Red and an orange being used to highlight straight out of the pot. It did the eyes at the same time. Mogro's helmet took longer and nearly destroyed my chances of getting the model finished in time. I wasn't at all happy with the contrast after the drybrushing, so repainted it with about twenty minutes to go. I sued gold as a base. Washed over with black (dried with hairdryer) and then washed again with a verdigris colour I mixed from various blues and greens. Again, the hairdryer meant that I was ready to highlight within seconds and used gold to pick out the edges. Remembering the belt, I quickly worked up the buckle in the same colour. 

By this point I had about ten minutes left on the timer. And the shield hadn't been started and the shoes still needed work! Grabbing an old Bestial Brown, I blobbed it down on the palette on top of the still wet orange paint. It took a fair while to cover the shield in the base (leaving the black highlight for contrast) but was fairly simple to add a bone colour to help create several rounds of highlights. With seconds to spare on the clock, I grabbed a grey and smeared a quick highlight onto the shoes - covering the silvery flecks left by the drybrushing - and my time was up. 

The model was finished but I hadn't done anything with the base. So that was tidied up later. Looking back, I really enjoyed the challenge with this model and I think Mogro stands up to the other orcs I have in my collection. I am already looking around to think about what to paint at speed next!! 

I am please to report that two other Oldhammer veterans have had a go at a similar challenge. There may be more of you out there? And if there are, I would love to see what you achieved in an hour. The first contender was Jon Boyce, over at Magpie and Old Lead, who produced this rather noble looking Rogue Trader tech-priest/medic bloke. Have read of the link above for further details on how he achieved this in an hour. 

Then came Welshman extraordinaire and wearer of yellow fleeces, Steve Casey, who had a crack at one of the most bizarre Citadel sculpts ever to grace the pages of White Dwarf. The infamous 'Slugman'... Take a look.

Anyone else up for it?