A new way to paint skeletons

Transcript

Today I’ve got a new way to paint skeletons. So, this is what we end up with. Here we go. All right. So, while while that other project’s drying, I printed this off a couple days ago.

It’s been sitting. I got to clean off the supports a little bit still, but uh I have been a fan of Westfalia Miniatures and specifically Boris Woloszyn. Hopefully I’m saying that right. Really since I think the Elven campaign, and they of course are doing a competition for painting Skelly Joe from Mörk Borg. I can’t put it on the video because I don’t want to get copyright claimed, but I went to grab this to put it on to listen to while I was painting and I realized it’s been so long since I’ve actually looked at the Mörk Borg rule book that the head I wasn’t going to use is the Mörk Borg cover head.

I think I’m pretty sure skeleton guy, the skeleton version. And then this is the one that has the actual fur on it. Okay, so I was thinking about it. I’m not going to use this base. I’m going to use a slotted base.

Uh, one because if I risk cutting this and snap a leg or break it or something, I’m not going to have time to reprint one and still get it painted. And two, I have the actual cast version of this from Westfalia, but from before they had their Tribe. So, go subscribe on MyMiniFactory to Westfalia. They make awesome miniatures. I painted some of them on the channel uh back in the trench crusade days.

Shown a lot of the sculpts off. Uh but I just don’t want to risk breaking it, especially because I got crazy with that over there, not masking taping it and uh and raw dogging the glue. So, I don’t want to get too overzealous with this and screw myself again, you know. Starting this off on this just normal base with the old super glue and baking soda trick. I want to keep this pretty simple.

I don’t want the attention to go to the base and I’m in a hurry, too. So, black primer, going over top of the black primer with Tenebrous Grey. Hitting this from the top and the bottom. I’m pretty much just replacing all of the black with Tenebrous Grey and going to start our work up from that. And this whole paint idea actually came from when I was painting that infinity commission.

And I figured this out by accident when I was trying to paint those sandstone bases. So now uh phthalocyanine blue ink through the airbrush all over the model. Arcane Blue on top of that just from the top down. And now we start to get into the the secret sauce, this tangerine ink. Uh so it comes out uh it’s going to kind of give us a green base with uh the blue.

We’ll still have that dark blue ink in all of our shadows. and then coming in with a very liberal zenithal highlight. Um, if you don’t have an airbrush, I think you could probably dry brush this and get a pretty cool result cuz you can kind of see, you’ll see at the end of the video, I add a lot of texture in through stippling. And I I might try the other one without an airbrush and try a dry brush method, but I don’t know cuz I really like how this one turned out. So, now we’re coming to the secret sauce, the sunny skin tone.

uh bright bright orange. For some reason, when it goes over top of this ink, it turns turns into white. Um I don’t know. It’s a maybe this will be that one video where I say get these specific paints cuz you can see as soon as it starts coming out of the airbrush and when it hits that ink, it’s very white despite in the bottle showing that very orange color. So now I’m doing this uh zenithal style.

Like I don’t want to get any of it on the bottom, but I am making sure that I cover up all that tangerine ink. So I keep the blues and the shadows. And as I get closer down to the ground, I have less on it. But I I definitely want to wash out all that bright bright tangerine ink. And now we come away with this very nice looking bone texture.

Uh, and with with an airbrush to get to this part, it really only took like 10 minutes. I think it took me longer to clean the pot out like usual um to get to here. And I’m really happy with this result. And I figured this paint recipe out when I was doing the infinity bases uh on the sandstone. And I didn’t want this effect then.

So So I’m glad I could come back and test it out on this bone cuz I’ve been dying to ever since I finished it. And this is what you get with just the flatout airbrushing work. So, if you have an airbrush, you could get to here. You could slap some wash on it and you could probably be good good to go if uh if you didn’t want to enter this into a competition like I do. So, now just burnt umber on the palette and then it’s like 50/50 water down next to it.

That’s what that second pile that I’m pulling this brush out of. And I’m treating this like a wash, but I’m not just slathering this on the whole model. You can see I’m being very intentional with where I’m putting it. I’m painting it into the cracks of the shin bones right now. And I’m It’s so wet.

And you can see here on my thumb just how wet and translucent it is. I’m pulling this down from places of where I don’t want it and pulling the brush into the the crevices and the holes where I do want it and then pulling the brush out of there. And by doing that, I’m going to avoid any like teastains or water streaks or getting the wash any place I don’t want it. And it’s gonna make it so this acrylic wash almost seems like a oil wash. And again, I’m just being very careful with where I put this.

I want every brush stroke on this model intentional. And normally, uh, if I wasn’t on such a time crunch, I would have gap filled that that hairline. It kills me to look at right now. Uh, but I didn’t have time for green stuff to cure. And I staged my pictures so that you can’t see that that gap in the back of the head.

So, uh, I cheated a little bit there, but normally I would gap fill that cuz it’s driving me crazy looking at it now in voice over. So, on this back part, I’m being a little bit more liberal with slamming the wash in. But again, not slathering the whole model, being very selective, getting in between the figures, the fingers. Uh, and now coming in with that sunny skin tone. So, this is the color we airbrushed.

And because it’s coming out of the brush now, the pigmentation is going to be higher and it’s going to be brighter. So again, this is stippling, coming in very intentional on where I’m putting this paint at, and only hitting the big highlighted portions. And I’m letting all those parts where I scratched in ink or where I scratched in the burnt umber, not ink. Um, any place that I accidentally put too much paint on, I just wipe away with my finger. And here we here’s where we are.

So now I have some some pure white. you I I’m intentionally out of focus so you can see the palette back there. That’s pure white mixed in with that Sunny Skin Tone right there. And now I’m going to come in with pure white. And I’m just going to very very carefully stipple this in on the brightest points, the places that would be like worn off from friction or rubbing against itself.

Going to get the camera in focus there. And again, same thing with my finger. If I put too much paint anywhere, I’m just going to wipe it off just like you would an oil paint. And these are these colors are all scale colors, so they’re very thick, very heavily pigmented. And the I’m I’m sticking my finger straight on it and then back off of it.

I’m not wiping it. I’m cuz one of my fingerprint and all the like super glue on my fingertips are going to add texture. So, I don’t want to swipe it because that’s going to make it look like somebody swiped paint across it. But by dabbing it, I’m getting some of the paint off while creating texture. So, I’m just hitting all these specific spots.

Sorry, the cat just opened the door on me. So, again, just working through the whole model, stippling on this pure white, and being very, very selective where I want it. And so now we’re going to have this this whole bone is going to be tinted greenish from the initial airbrush work that we did. And our shadows are still very blue even though it’s it’s hard to photograph. Uh and I it also kicked my ass trying to get photo submissions, but you can really see it in the legs how our shadows are very green and blue and nasty.

And I’m just coming in and stippling in pure white now on top of this. And it really really kicks it up and just adds that dynamic volume into the model. And I think in my opinion really takes it to that next level, especially considering how little time I actually spent on this. I think total time spent on the model was probably 4 hours. And I’m really happy uh with everything that came out.

Um sadly, I lost the footage painting the head and the weapons in the shield cuz my phone actually got crunched. So that’s also why the daily hobby streak came to an end. Rest in peace. My 20, I don’t know, 240-day hobby video streak. I kept the hobby streak alive still.

Uh, but very sad. I just didn’t have a way to record or upload. But I’m finally back into everything, which is why this video is finally getting uploaded now. And at least the bone’s done. This is that’s what it is.

Just a bunch of stippling in that final white. You end up with this. Very happy uh with this this outcome. Especially the bone. I’m really happy with how this bone came out and had to share this new way.

I haven’t seen anybody try to do it before. I’m sure I’m wrong about that. Here’s some closeup of the bone. So, you can see these are all just intentional stippling and intentional brush strokes to really keep create this nasty warm bone effect. Here’s the full model.

Um, I definitely still need… I have a whole light box setup. Still can’t get decent photos. I hate the face. Not really happy with how I did the face. Uh, I don’t know.

Looking at it now though, I’m a little bit happier actually. Love the sword. The sword and the shield. I’m going to make a video on how I actually painted that cuz I was kind of testing out things. But uh thanks for watching.

I’ll see you tomorrow. The hobby streak is coming back.