How to Paint Trench Pilgrims Fast

The Setup

Starting these Ecclesiastical Prisoners for Trench Pilgrims with just four paints. One gets the oil paint method, one gets streaking grime—showing you two options.

I don’t even have a cup of water this time. Got to use condensation to clean my brush off.

The Base Coats

Battleship Gray from Army Painter Speed Paint for the clothes. Then a mix of Army Painter Flesh Wash and Bony Matter on all the flesh—feet, hands, chest.

Oil Paint Method

Modified Zorn palette—mixing burnt umber and black. Using the back of the brush to put in drops of mineral spirits.

The whole point of showing you how janky my process is: it’s just about getting stuff done. This brush is pretty ragged. I forgot my water cup. I’m using an envelope from mail that was on my desk as a palette. It doesn’t have to be too hard, guys.

Slather the oil on. Clean your brush off in the lid of the cup (since I forgot any responsible solutions).

Wiping Off

After it sat a bit, come in with the makeup sponge removing the bulk. Getting that brown-black mix into the shadows. Focus on the top of the clothes, leaving a lot of that brown in the cracks and on the underside of the pants and feet.

Flesh Tones

Yellow ochre, small amount of burnt umber, dash of red, dash of white. Just mixing different flesh tones right on the envelope palette. There isn’t really a process—just jam out with the Zorn palette. However you mix it, it’s going to work and look good.

Hit the chest, hands, and feet. Put it on with one brush, then come back with a filbert brush to blend it in.

The Mistake

I came in with gray on the bottom of the pants. In retrospect, I should have kept it that brown color. It kind of washed together and I lost the high contrast. Don’t do the bottom of the pants as crazy as I did.

Streaking Grime Method

Grime time, baby. This is back to the one we painted with just acrylics. Lathering them up in streaking grime—the magic sauce for painting grim dark.

Let it sit, then with the makeup sponge go left to right across the model (up and down might break it). Work those upper surfaces.

The acrylic one turned out better just because by this point I knew to keep more of the brown in the shadows.

Mixing Methods

I put streaking grime right on the still-wet oils. It mixed together, so I cleaned my brush, put a little flick on the model, and just dabbed it off. Didn’t want to make a huge mess, just wanted shadows back.

The Results

15-minute Trench Pilgrim Ecclesiastical Prisoners. You’re not going to win a Golden Demon, but these are going to look amazing on the tabletop.

These guys’ role is to die on my Anchorite Shrine’s wheel or run up, score an objective, and then die. I don’t want to spend a huge amount of time on them.

Final Touch

Quick dry brush of metallic silver on the helmets and chains.

You could come back and paint edge highlights on the ruffled clothes or add more texture. I’m going to paint cross tattoos on the chest in blood—I’ll show that in the next video.

Transcript

Okay, going to start uh these ecclesiastical prisoners for trench pilgrims with just these four paints. Starting off with battleship gray from Army Painter Speed Paint. Just putting it in. And I don’t even have a cup of water this time. Got to use condensation to clean my brush off.

Got to come in with a mix of Army Painter Flesh Wash and Bony Matter here and hitting all the flesh. So like the feet and the hands and the chest with it. And on this one, we’re going to just use acrylics with streaking grime. And on that guy in the background, we’re going to use oil paints just so I can show you kind of two options. Here’s the oil paint version.

Uh we have our modified Zorn palette and just mixing up some of that burnt umber and black here. Getting straight to it. I don’t like wasting your guys’ time. It takes about 20 minutes real time to get both of these guys done. And here you can see I’m using the back of the brush to just put in a little drop of mineral spirits.

And the whole point of me showing you kind of how janky my process is is like it’s just about getting the stuff done. Like it doesn’t have to be perfect. This brush is pretty ragged. Um I forgot my water cup. Not using a palette.

I’m just using an envelope from mail that was on my desk. It doesn’t have to be too hard, guys. So again, just slather that on him. I’m cleaning my brush off and the lid of the cup because again I forgot uh any real responsible solutions. So now after it sat for a little bit, I’m coming in with the makeup sponge and removing the bulk of the oil we just put on and just getting all that that brown black mix into the shadows.

I knocked them off here. It was a little bit too rough. And you can see as we’re removing this, like this already looks awesome. Uh, and that’s the cool thing about Tren Crusade, like you don’t have to overthink it. You can just go right in and start painting and just jam out on it.

Really just focusing on the top of the clothes. And I’m I’m leaving a lot of that brown mix in the cracks and on the underside of the pants and the feet itself. So, here we’re working on a flesh tone. So, a little bit of the yellow ochre, a very small amount of the burnt umber, a dash of red, dash of white. Uh, just working on a couple different flesh tones here.

Just mixing it right on our envelope palette. And I left this in just so you can see like we’re really just kind of jamming out like there isn’t a process to this. We’re just using that Zorn palette. And however you mix it, it’s going to work and it’s going to look good. So, we’re hitting the chest and the hands and a little bit on the feet.

And the same thing like we did with our guy yesterday. I’m putting this on with one brush and then coming back in with that filbert filbert brush to blend it in. Here I am doing the gray for the robes. So white, black, a little bit of blue. And this is my midtone I’m making here.

And then I just add some black and a little bit more white to one side. That gives me the shadows. Little bit more blue. And I’m coming in from the underside. And I actually I shouldn’t have done this in retrospect and I fixed it later in the video, but I should have just kept the bottom of the pants that brown color.

Um, when I did this, it kind of all washed together and I lost a lot of that really high contrast in the shading. So, don’t do the bottom of the pants as crazy as I did. I would maybe just put a little bit of the shadows on it and blend it into the brown that’s already there. I’m happy with the highlights I did here. So, again, that’s just white and blue on the other side of it.

And I would did this much sparingly, much more sparingly, so it doesn’t get totally washed out and we don’t lose all that contrast. But again, I’ll show you what to do, how to fix that once we get through here. And I’m really I’m leaving a lot of this footage in so you can actually like see the oil process. I didn’t really edit much here because I wanted you to see just how easy it actually is to get these results. Um, I zip through the base coats of contrast paint because really the only trick there is don’t let it pull up.

Don’t don’t glob that on like you do oil. So, here we go. This is base coat oil on the left. All right, it’s grime time, baby. This is back to the one we painted with just acrylics, and we are lathering them up in streaking grime, the magic sauce for painting grim dark.

And it really is this easy. Uh so here, let them sit for a little bit. Then uh here, there’s no streaking grab on my brush right now. I’m just moving around what’s there. And the makeup sponge.

And I’m going left to right across the model where possible. Um and that’s because if you go up and down, you might break it. So just being very careful trying to go left to right and working on those upper surfaces. Uh, I think the acrylic one turned out a lot better just because uh, by this point I knew to keep more of the brown in the shadows. But here we go.

Uh, like I said, you can definitely see the difference in the streaking and grime versus the oil. So, I’m just going to come back and put streaking and grime right on the oil. Now, because those oils are still wet, uh, I I went pretty quick here and you can see that the streaking grime is mixing with the oils. So, I just cleaned my brush off, put a little flick of it onto the model there, and now I’m just dabbing it off. Uh, because I didn’t want to make a huge mess.

I just I did want to get some of the shadows back in, but I didn’t want it all to mix and just totally ruin it. And there you go, guys. Uh, 15minute trench pilgrim ecclesiastical prisoner. Um, I try to get a different camera angle and fix my audio for this one. So, we’re working on improving every time.

And again, you’re not going to win a Golden Demon, but these are going to look amazing on the tabletop. And especially these guys, like their role is to to die on my anchorage shrines wheel or run up, score an objective, and then die. So, I don’t want to spend a huge amount of time on them. And the last bit, uh, we’re going to come in just dry brush on some metallic silver. Straight forward.

Pop it back out on the helmets and the chains. Oh, I got the spinny thing. I’m getting legit now, guys. So, thanks for watching. And again, this is the minimal effort to get something good.

You can come back in, you could paint uh edge highlights on all this on the ruffled clothes, or you can add more texture in. Uh I’m going to paint in some cross tattoos on the chest in blood. So, I’ll definitely show you how I do that in the next video.