The result so far. At this point, I was really happy with the decision of a black gambeson, as the rest of the elements looked really nice with that background.

here are some more advances in this process! After finishing all the inner elements and the hands and axe piece, it was the moment to tackle one of the most challenging parts of the bust, the cloak. Why challenging? Well, because being it so predominant on the figure, I decided that I wanted to paint it with a “herringbone” pattern, to avoid a boring surface…
Here are the colors I used for this part: Cavalry Brown 70.982, Sunny Skintone 70.845, Dark Sea Blue 70.898, Black 70.950, Orange Brown 70.981, and Chocolate Brown 70.872

I started with an overall basecoat of Cavalry Brown 70.982

Followed by a rough sketch of highlights and shadows, adding Sunny Skintone 70.845 and Dark Sea Blue 70.898 respectively. There is no point in trying to do a really fine work here, as I was going to cover the whole surface afterwards.

The most complicated part of the design was actually planning a system to apply it and making it look realistic. Sometimes you need a few attempts, sometimes it works at the first try. I started drawing really thin parallel lines with a medium shadow tone, which would serve as a guide for the herringbone pattern. When doing a woven pattern on a piece of cloth, you need to make everything as even as possible, as it cannot be thicker in some points and thinner in others. Every line needs to run in a parallel way and the whole thing needs to be consistent.

Over the space between the previous lines, I drew really small consecutive diagonal lines to simulate the pattern, using a medium highlight tone. You need to be patient with this, trying to make them as even as possible

In order to conceal the guide lines, that are not so striking in the real fabric, I applied a glaze of pure Cavalry Brown, first directly over the dark lines and later as a thin overall coat over the whole surface. That way, I brought back some intensity and make the whole thing come together.

Now that I knew how to do it, I repeated the process in the rest of the cloak sections. This was the single most time consuming part of the whole painting process but, you know, no pain, no gain

To finish the cloak, I added some subtle washes in the shadow areas with the pure Dark Sea Blue and also some Chocolate Brown 70.872. For the decorative trimming, I opted for a simple design that would not distract from the already richly decorated surfaces. The background tone is a mix of Black 70.950 with Dark Sea Blue, highlighted with the last tone pure. The design was painted with the previous tone mixed with Orange Brown 70.981 and highlighted adding more of the last tone.

I confess that I find really fun to document and retrace the steps I did when painting a miniature. It actually helps to understand why I did certain things in the way I did them and get an insight on how my mind works when painting.

OK, the last remaining bits are the shield, the wolf pelt and the optional helmet that comes with the bust. I started with the shield and used the following tones on it: Black Red 70.859, Black 70.950, US Olive Drab 70.887, Dark Sea Blue 70.898, Flat Red 70.957, Sunny Skintone 70.845, MC Jet Exhaust 77.713, MC Silver 77.724, GC Charred Brown 72.045, and Cavalry Brown 70.982

After a previous attempt with a different approach that was not quite satisfactory (mistakes are part of the process, even for experienced painters, let’s face it!), I painted the front of the shield with a combination of two tones, Black Red 70.859 and Black 70.950. I painted the whole surface first in Black Red and then I made very easily the design with some masking tape, cut in the right curved shape and used as a rough template to paint the limit of each area with Black

After that, I highlighted the surface to enhance the wooden texture, using a mix of US Olive Drab 70.887 and Dark Sea Blue 70.898 in the black areas and some Flat Red 70.957 with touches of Sunny Skintone 70.845 for the red areas, For the shadows, I applied a couple of thinned washes with Black and Dark Sea Blue.

Using all the previous colors, I detailed even further the whole surface, adding some imperfections, cuts and bumps that I conveniently enhanced using highlights and shadows

In some of those imperfections and also here and there I simulated chipped spots on the painted surface where the wood underneath can be seen. For that, I used US Olive Drab highlighted with Sunny Skintone. It is better to add a few spots, check the result and add more chipping bit by bit until you get the right appearance without overdoing

The umbo was basecoated with a mix of MC Jet Exhaust 77.713, Black and Dark Sea Blue. For the shadows I used thin washes of Black and added some MC Silver 77.724 for the highlights. A touch of rust was added in the rivets with a thinned wash of Cavalry Brown 70.982.

The leather edge of the shield was painted in a very simple way. A basecoat of GC Charred Brown 72.045 with some Sunny Skintone added for the highlights. I added some washes of Cavalry Brown in the mid-tones to enhance the whole thing a bit.

The next bit was the back of the shield and the wolf pelt parts. I made them at the same time, as some of the pelt is incorporated in the shield piece. The tones I used were: Goldbrown 70.877, US Olive Drab 70.887, Stone Grey 70.884, Chocolate Brown 70.872, Black 70.950, and Orange Brown 70.981.

For the back of the shield, I applied a basecoat of Goldbrown 70.877 to get a vivid look. After that, I applied some thin washes with US Olive Drab 70.887, Chocolate Brown 70.872, and Black 70.950 to add tonality and outline the limits between the planks. Finally, I used the basecoat and Stone Grey 70.884 to draw thin lines along the planks to simulate the grain of the wood. The final points of highlight were made with pure Stone Grey

Let’s talk about the wolf pelt. For me, the right way of painting animal fur is to try to set where the different spots of tonalities are, then blending them together taking advantage of the fur texture and add any necessary highlights or shadows depending on the plane of highlights where each spot is. As the bits of fur present on the figure are not really big and correspond to different parts of the animal, it is easy to work on each detached part without really needing to connect them as whole. The most complicated part is the head of the wolf that required observation of real animals to understand how the different spots interact. I used Chocolate Brown, Stone Grey, Orange Brown, Black, and also partial mixes of these tones to apply basecoats on the different spots of the fur.

Next I refined the sketch, blending together the tones, enhancing the fur texture and adding highlights and shadows where required. After the head, I proceeded in the same way with the rest of the fur parts in the shield

OK, now all was done excepting for the optional helmet. The cool thing about it is that the kit includes 2 different options for the face protection, a simpler nose guard and also a mask, typical of the period. The colors I used were: MC Jet Exhaust 77.713, GC Ink Blue 72.088, GC Ink Violet 72.087, GC Ink Green 72.089, GC Ink Black 72.094, MC Silver 77.724, Chocolate Brown 70.872, Goldbrown 70.877, MC Gold 77.725, and Orange Brown 70.981

As a start, I applied a basecoat over the whole helmet with MC Jet Exhaust 77.713. I like to work alternatively with this tone and also another one, MC Burnt Iron 77.721 (not used this time), as basecoats for steel or iron parts. The first has a subtle violet tonality and the other is more brownish. Both are really useful, depending on the effect you want to achieve.

I wanted a dark battered look for the inner plates of the helmet and a slightly lighter tone for the reinforcement bands and rivets. To get the depth I needed, I worked with several washes of inks to build a certain subtle sheen. I used GC Ink Blue 72.088, GC Ink Violet 72.087, GC Ink Green 72.089, and finally GC Ink Black 72.094 in the recesses

I insisted with the inks until I got the depth I wanted.

With some MC Jet Exhaust, I brought back the basecoat tone, insisting more on the reinforcement bands than in the central plates.

And finally I added some final highlights with MC Silver 77.724 to enhance the edges and rivets.

For the bronze decorations, I applied a basecoat with a mix of Chocolate Brown 70.872, Goldbrown 70.877 and a bit of MC Gold 77.725

I added a first highlight adding more Goldbrown 70.877 and MC Gold 77.725

And some final highlights with pure MC Gold 77.725

The last thing to do was adding some shades and effects to the metal areas. I applied some GC Ink Green on the shadow areas of the bronze, and some subtle rust in the joint areas of the steel parts with Orange Brown 70.981.

And finally, I painted the optional nose protections in the same way as the rest of the helmet.

It is done! Thanks for watching everybody, it has been a pleasure to share all this steps with all of you and I hope they are helpful. See you in a future painting guide!

Iscriviti alla newsletter settimanale

Riceverai via email le notizie su modellismo statico, fiere, storia moderna, e mezzi militari storici dalla testata online più letta in Italia su questi temi.

TI POTREBBERO INTERESSARE ANCHE

CONDIVIDI

APPROFONDIMENTI

ARTICOLI RECENTI

IL TUO ARTICOLO SU ORLEE PLUS

SEGUICI ANCHE SU INSTAGRAM

FACEBOOK