Painting the Everblight starter set

In my last post I explained the building experience of this set, now it was on to the painting.

I was happy to follow the official colour scheme for the Legion but I couldn't get hold of the P3 paint set while at Salute. I did manage to pick up some individual paints, most importantly Coal Black which is a key colour of the faction and quite unique. Monday afternoon I went to the local art shop and bought a Vallejo Sky Blue to help with the skin colour as I didn't own a light blue. This blue is much bluer than the Frostbite colour used in the tutorials, but it was a lot closer than what I had.

I jumped in with two feet, feeling somewhat under pressure to get these models finished for the weekend. Problem was I didn't have a plan in my head about how to achieve the result I wanted and just started painting. Four coats of paint later my Shredders were looking pretty bad and I was no closer to my goal. I was also in danger of starting to obscure some of the finer detail due to sheer volume of paint on the miniatures. I swear these things would bounce if you dropped them!

I went back to the drawing board, gave them a liberal coat of the Sky Blue then washed them with a diluted Fenris Grey. Tuesday morning I sat down and started to highlight with thin layers of the Sky Blue, hoping to find something that I liked. This resorted to heavier overbrushing to get a more solid result (above).

Meanwhile Lylyth's armour had been painted, washed and highlighted the night before (whilst waiting for the various Shredder coats to dry) but had absolutely no harmony with the little beasties. I tidied up the metallic drybrushing overspill and started on her blue skin, which would (eventually) match the beasts' skin. Basecoat, wash and first highlight later things were looking a little better (above).

The weather wasn't helping much. Constant rain made it difficult to get the last Shredder and the Carnivean spray undercoated. Eventually there was enough black spray on there to warrant a paint brush for the gaps.

Tuesday evening I managed to complete the undercoating of the last Shredder and the Carnivean. This was swiftly followed by a basecoat of Fenris Grey, a liberal overbrushing of the Sky Blue (two coats in the end on the big beastie), then a wash of the diluted Fenris Grey.

Wednesday morning saw a heavy drybrush of Sky Blue over the Carnivean and Shredder. Finally the wargroup was starting to look like they belonged together.

I had an hour's window of painting time when I got in from work so decided to make full use of it. I highlighted the Shredders with white, watered down to a ridiculous extent so that I could build up highlights slowly and more subtly. Though quite rushed by my standards, I'm pleased with the direction they are going. The plan is to add some shadows back in with the blue then a final (small) pure white highlight to key places. That should give me the ice-like quality I wanted the dragonspawn skin to have. I then have to repeat the process with the big fella. Armoured plates and spikes will be in a contrasting black.

I used some of the remaining white on my palette to give Lylyth a quick skin highlight and, again, my group of miniatures look like a cohesive crew.

With only a couple of hours on Friday night to paint before Saturday's game, I'm not likely to finish but that's ok – every model has paint on it now. I'd like to take that time to add some highlights to the Carnivean and get Lylyth's cloak started.

I realised that I haven't attempted to paint this many miniatures at the same time for over three years; with Malifaux I paint one model at a time. Not sure I like going back to the multi-mini approach, I certainly haven't enjoyed it as much due to the pressure I've felt. However, I think I've broken the back of this lot so I should enjoy painting the details. Once this group are complete I can add to them a model at a time (unless I add units) and enjoy the painting process more.