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Monday, 20 January 2025

The Skeleton Horde: My first painted figure in nearly 5 years!

 


Well, I came home from school and had a go at painting one of Bree's plastic skellies. Sticking with my homemade palette of 'Citadel Colours' I had a whale of a time painting up an axe wielder. Trying to ape the more flesh and red colour scheme of the original Skeleton Horde was great fun too, and I mostly used my Bronzed Flesh paint with increasingly large measures of white.  

Previous skeletons I've painted in the long past were always too bright for my liking (probably even then I was subconsciously trying to 'be the horde') so I held off using pure white, save for the stones on the base of the miniature. I am very pleased with the colour tones of the bone but not the execution of the finer detail.

Oh, look at those terrible blobby ribs! Here's hoping that with the remaining figures still to do I'll sharpen up and I can come back and tweak the finish of this example later on. I plan to have a go at some freehand shields too when all four models are complete.  


I am happier with the back of the model. I was loosing up a bit when it came to my brushwork but even so my technique is awful. I used to be able to fine line tiny details back in the glory days of the blog and I hope I can achieve a similar level of skill. My lighting is poor, with that borrowed school lamp so perhaps some more natural light in spring and summer with ease the old eyes. 

Without a suitable back drop, I used my battered Citadel Colour box as a quick background. It looks suitably '80s to me. 

Looking at the finished model, I will probably need a final highlight around the skull, hands and ribs to make things 'pop' but I'll get the other models finished before experimenting with that. 

Orlygg


17 comments:

  1. Cool beans, nowt wrong with that!
    Could you get a daylight bulb to pop in the lamp whilst you use it?

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    1. I hadn't thought of that. Its just a standard bulb that came with the lamp... I shall enquire. Thanks Mike.

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  2. Good job on that. Keep pushing!!! No step black!!!

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    1. I push the skellies and they push back.... eyesight vs undead (; Thanks Fanskaven

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  3. That's cool. Every project starts with a single mini, so here you are!

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    1. Hey Suber, thanks man... and yes, all projects begin with one model. I'm hoping to paint as many figures as time allows this year.

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  4. I think I used the guide from WD211 (as that was closest to the paints I had) - you can see it at https://seanswgcorner.blogspot.com/2018/12/white-dwarf-guides-for-building-and.html?m=1

    Also got the McVey guide, if anyone still has brown and yellow inks around.

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    1. I never thought about yellow inks actually (not that I have any) but a yellow wash might add an interesting boney effect. Something to try... thanks for the tip

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  5. Looks great, it's fantastic to see you getting back into the hobby.

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  6. So great to see you writing and painting again! Welcome back.

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  7. Looks great! Still some of the best plastics out there imho!

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    1. They are indeed... I wonder why GW never did a 'simple' skeleton set again... but got bogged down with armour pieces and what not.

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