Assembling and painting Broga Hourigsen pt.4

Here's the next part of painting Broga. As you can see, things have moved on a little from the last stage! I do have pictures of that stuff - but to be honest, it's not particularly interesting, so I thought I would skip on to the skin and talk briefly about the bits I missed out.

Since the last stage I painted the inside and outside of the cloak. The inside was painted in the same way as the armour - I took the highlights quite pale and then glazed and deepened with red ink. The colours were different to the armour though - I kept the whole thing darker and deeper.

I also painted the scales - these were base coated with Chainmail, washed down with green and black ink (with a little matte medium added) and re-highlighted with Chainmail. I picked out the shape of them by adding a fine highlight to the centre ridge and the points with silver. I glazed a few of them with thinned down turquoise.

The skin was a fairly straightforward process - mid tone first, then shadows, followed by highlights and warmth. The base colour was a mix of mid flesh with a little brown added. Our favourite flesh colours are Wargames Foundry - Flesh 5, then I add a little Dusky Flesh 6 to give it some depth and warmth. As with most areas - apply a few thin coats of paint to get a good, even coverage - rather than one thick one.

A good basic thing to remember after this is to keep the shadows fairly cool and the highlights warm - so at its most basic level this means, add a little blue for the shadows, and yellow for the highlights. In reality it means that I add some flat brown (and by that I mean a cool tone) and just a spot of deep blue (nothing too strongly pigmented) for the shadows and highlight with a warm bone colour. I do add some quite strong blue round the eyes and to the side of the nose - but applied very thinned down and in a controlled manner. I think this gives a little extra depth round the eyes and makes them stand out. You can see from the second picture in sequence where the shadows were applied. It's common sense really - the more recessed the area, the deeper the colour. So the sides of the temples are a little deeper than the base colour, but beneath the chest and main shoulder muscles the colour is really quite dark.

After the shadows are in, it's simply a case of building up the highlights. I start with the base colour and re-apply to the areas next to where the shade tones have been applied. Then I add a little light flesh tone, bone and warm off-white as the highlights get lighter. I like to 'light' the miniature quite strongly from above as it gives more of an out-door look, and apply the highlights accordingly. When the highlights are finished I add a little colour to the sides of the cheeks, lower lip and nose - you have to be quite subtle here of you can get more of a clown look than you might have wanted... I add a tiny spot of red to a deep flesh tone and apply as very thin glazes. I then add a small highlight over the top to blend the colour in a little.

The stubble effect is a mix of the base tone with a little mid-grey added. Again - I apply this in thin, controlled glazes, and add a highlight over the top. The last picture in sequence shows the skin basically finished (I do tend to go back in a smooth things out if/when I see something I don't like), with some lining round the areas that border the skin, and the eyes and mouth blocked out in deep brown.

That's it for this stage, I'll try and get another part out tomorrow - as I said, I want to get it all wrapped up before we release Seraphine! Ali has just finished painting her, and if you're on the mailing list, you'll be getting a preview ahead of the release.

mike