Random Digression Wargamer: tombkings

Working on the Cold One Chariots I decided to try my hand at sculpting chain mail. Scouring the Internet I gleamed a few tips and was pretty confident that I at least had a shot to make it look half way decent. Here are the shots from my first attempt.

To build my "chain mail" tool I took a hypodermic needle and filed away one side so that it formed a "C" shape when looking at it from the end. I then mounted it into an hobby knife handle. I added the paint to make it easier to identify which direction the "C" was facing. To sculpt the chain mail it was as simple as pressing in a row of "C"s in a straight line across the surface and alternating the direction of the "C"s on adjacent lines.

While I'm happy with how the chain mail came out I'm leaning towards switching to some sort of plate mail for the remainder of the cold ones.

As my army uses a fair amount of cold ones I thought it made sense to do a tutorial. Here are the steps I use to take Dark Elf Cold Ones and convert & paint them to make them work with my Tomb King Army. The tutorial below is specific to my Necropolis Knight conversions as opposed to the cold one on my chariots that have a bit more conversion work to them. Be warned that this is a rather long tutorial as I tend to finish one section at a time before moving onto the next section. I also want to mention that the basis for the paint scheme comes from an article off the GW website by Nick Bayton. Finally, those of you that know me I'm become a Vallejo paint guy over the last few years. As I still have a vast collection of the Citadel paints and I wanted to exactly match some of my previous work you will see that I chose to use those rather than Vallejo throughout most of the tutorial.

Assemble the Cold One. I use brush on poly cement as I find it gives me a little more control. Once the glue is dry remove the mold lines from the Cold One. Focus on the top side as this will be the most visible part of the model once it is based. Next remove the Dark Elf details from the model. With an hobby knife remove the hooks that are hanging off of the reigns. Remove the sharp points on the armor on the chest by cutting them off at a 45 with a hobby knife and rounding the area over with a sanding stick. Remove most of the pommel and round over both ends of the saddle with fine grit wet sand paper. Remove the point from the metal ends on the saddle straps. Finally set out to make the Cold One look more like a dinosaur by removing the spikes along the the head, back and tail with a pair of flush hobby clippers. After going over the area with fine grit wet sand paper use a hobby knife to cut in any of the missing lines separating the scales. To give some variety to the different Cold Ones in the unit you can leave a few horns on the nose and head.

Prime the Cold One. As there is going to be several coats of paint and washes on the Cold One start off by giving the model a very light dusting of Krylon white primer. to avoid losing any of the details on the model. A couple of light passes per side works best. My goal is to have some of the gray still show through the undercoat.

Orkhide Shate Basecoat. Basecoat the model with thinned Orchide Shade. For thinning I use 1 part Golden Flow Release, 1 part Golden Retarder and 4 parts Water. I mix it up in a dropper bottle and add about 1 drop of solution to 1 drop of paint. For the base coat make sure that you get good coverage and that there is no white showing on the model.

Knarloc Green Drybrush. Give the whole model a heavy drybrush of Knarloc Green. Be careful not to have to much paint on the brush and try to leave the Orchide Shade showing in all of the recesses of the model

Thraka Green Wash. Give the whole model a thinned down wash of Thraka Green. I use the same solution mentioned for base coating to thin the Thraka Green wash. Once the wash is applied to an area avoid brushing the area again as it will ruin the effect by make the area splotchy. Let the model dry over night before going to the next step.

After 24 hours:

Camo Green Drybrush. Lightly dry brush the scales with Camo Green. I substituted Camoflauge Green from Vallejo as I didn't have Citadel Camo green available.

Calthan Brown Underbelly Base Coat. Base coast the underbelly, throat, underside of the tail with thinned down Calthan Brown. Be as neat as possible along the finished scales to reduce touch ups.

Grethcen Green Underbelly Base Color. Apply a base color to the underbelly, throat, underside of the tail with thinned down Gretchen Green. Leave a thin line of Calthan brown showing where the underbelly meets the scales.

50/50 Camo Green / Deneb Stone Underbelly Highlight. Over brush the areas of the underbelly that have a reasonable amount of texture with thinned down mixture of 50/50 Camo Green and Deneb Stone. For the flat portions without distinct texture paint the high spots with with the paint mixture. Along the bottom of the tail paint thin vertical stripes with the paint mixture over the Gretchen Green.

Deneb Stone Underbelly Highlight. Highlight the raised areas of the underbelly with thinned Deneb Stone. Along the bottom of the tail paint thin vertical stripes over top the previous highlight. Make sure to leave some of the previous colors showing.

Mechrite Red Mouth Base Coat. Paint the mouth, gums and tongue with a base coat of thinned Mechrite Red. Make sure to get the inside of the mouth and between the teeth.

50/50 Mechrite Red / Deneb Stone Mouth Highlight. Highlight the mouth, gums and tongue with 50/50 mixture of Mechrite Red and Deneb Stone. Be sure to leave the Mechrite Red base coat showing in the deep recesses of the mouth and under the tongue.

33/33/33 Mechrite Red / Deneb Stone/ Pale Flesh Mouth Highlighttonque.

Charred Brown Teeth Base Coat. Paint the teeth Charred Brown. Make sure to get the teeth completely covered, even the portion on the inside of the mouth.

Devlan Mud Mouth Wash. Wash the mouth and teeth with Devlan Mud.

Lyanden Dark Sun Eye Base Coat. Base coat the eyeballs with Lyanden Dark Sun.

Sun Yellow Eye Highlight. Highlight the eyeballs with Sun Yellow. Make sure to leave Lyanden Dark Sun showing at the edges of the eyeballs.

Charred Brown Pupil. Paint a vertical stripe of Charred Brown cutting the yellow eyeball in half.

Devlan Mud Eye Wash. Wash the eye socket with Devlan Mud. Let dry before continuing.

Sun Yellow Eye Final Highlight. Highlight the eyes with two dots of Sun Yellow. One to the left and one to the right of the Charred Brown vertical line. The purpose is to brighten up the eye after the Devlan Mud wash from the previous step.

Deneb Stone Teeth Highlight. Over brush the teeth with Deneb Stone. Make sure to get the teeth inside and out.

Charred Brown Claws Bash Coat. Apply a thinned base coat of Charred Brown on all of the claws.

Deneb Stone Claws Highlight. Highlight the clawas with Deneb Stone. Apply it it in small stripes from the base of the claw to the tip making sure that some of the Charred Brown is still visible a the base of each claw.

50/50 White Primer/Turquoise Straps Base Coat. Apply a 50/50 mixture of white and turquoise to all the straps. The White serves 2 purposes. First it gives the base coat better coverage and second it makes it easier to tell where the base color needs to be applied