WIP: Swordmasters of Hoeth Part 4

Previously on... WIP: Swordmasters of Hoeth

As I said, I will follow the same tecnique I used to paint the metallic parts in the High Elves Seaguard. The idea behind the process is exactly the same so I won't explain the reasons and conclusions of it. If you want more information about it, make sure you check out the Seaguard process. Here are some of the elves ready to be painted. In each of the elves, I have masked one of the blades on both sides of the sword.


Here is how I would apply the paint on the sword, gradually, with airbrush, applying thin layers of semitransparent paint. Remember that the colour in the airbrush is only changed after the whole batch of elves has had that colour applied, on both sides of the sword.

The first colour applied is turquoise blue, right out of the paint pot.


First shading is done with the same turquoise, mixed with some blue ink.


Further shading is done adding more blue ink as well as green ink.


Final shadowing is done with just inks, and adding a little bit of black.


Now it's time to do the same on the other blade, so I mask the blades I have just painted.


Before I continue with the sword painting, I get a sudden rush of motivation to continue painting the captain, and I need it completed before I move on to the rest. Always follow your muse!

So what I do is change the bracelets and the right shoulder pad back to silver. I think it works much better in greyish metals than in gold. It's much more coherent with the general scheme, and also with the Seaguard.


And now I change the red of the hair, which needed some serious work since long ago. I made the red much colder, adding some blue tones, and made some fine work on the hair to highligh and shadow, especially in the back part of the hair which unfortunately you cannot see in this photo.


Back to the metallic airbrush work. Same way as before, some turquoise to shade that polished silver.


I won't be using the airbrush to shade metals after I finish with the sword metals, so I use this last batch of shade colours with airbrush to make some shading on some parts of the armour, and also paint the helmet manes. Regarding the armour, the key is to shadow those metallic elements which are closer to blueish parts of the miniature. In this case, all the miniatures are very similar so I just have to concentrate on the metals that are close to the blue manes of the helmets. You can see in this one how I shade the side of the helmet and the top part of the bracelet.


The same must be applied to the back part of the helmet. Though I must say, in this case I exceeded myself. I'll have to fix that with some airbrushing of silver metal.


Next shadows with blue inks, as well as green inks.


Basic work on helmet manes is easily done with airbrush. I need to mask the elements that surround them or else I will destroy for sure the work already done in swords and armour. Here's where all that liquid mask (Maskol) comes in handy. First, the base with turquoise blue.


Then shadows, adding blue and green inks to the mix. Check how I didn't paint the top part of the mane to leave it white. That's my maximum light and I want to leave it white for now as it will give me a very nice contrast when the unit is displayed altogether. Also notice how half the helmet has turned blue. No problem, the mask will do its job perfectly.


So once this serial work is finished, I take off all masking. here's how the whole unit looks like.


I believe serial airbrush work is finished. I will start using brush from now on.

Continue to WIP: Swordmasters of Hoeth Part 5