Hello everyone, I'm brand spanking new to Lizards, but have been painting GW minis for several years now. I've admired Lizardmen from afar since pretty much the beginning, but it took the Sigmar reboot for me to reconsider starting a new game system. I've played a whopping 1 game of it so far (borrowed dwarves and stomped some elves) but enjoyed its simplicity, so I'm in. To start, I purchased a Start Collecting box (Saurus Warriors, Knights, Carnosaur w/ Cold One), a box of ripperdactlys, and Kroak. Maybe an odd start, but I tend to buy models I want to paint more than logical units to field. I'm looking forward to powering through this first bit and maybe another unit or two of troops so I can really get going on the fun big dinos. I've got the whole Start Collecting box assembled, scraped, and did some greenstuff work on key models. Now that the whole set is primed, I can see I probably should have done a bit more, but screw it, on to paint! That reminds me, I've done a bit of searching, but have come up with conflicting answers. What's the consensus: do drummers and banner carriers count as having the standard weapons of their squad? I modeled this guy up with a shield and axe strapped on his back regardless... Actually started painting everyone last night, but no pics yet. Will update once I'm done with all the base coating.
Saurus only have the choice between hand weapons and spears, the musician and standard bearer count as whatever the rest of the unit is using. Ps. are you know as Deet the impaler ?
I've got the whole lot based now, minus the throne and reins parts from the Carnosaur. This is the first time I'm painting an army in the official GW paint scheme. I've kind of decided to use these guys as a challenge to myself- see how close I can get in quality to the official GW photos of each unit. I'm not necessarily trying to match the paint job, but use similar colors and match the quality within my own style, if that makes sense. I started with the Saurus, painting all of them some variation on the official Sotek Green. I say variation because skin tones vary within a species and, well, it's just more fun to paint some variation. I gradually mixed in small amounts of Fenrisian Grey as I went, so the Saurus I painted toward the end were more to the powder blue side of Sotek with all variations in between. Next I moved on to the mounts. These I painted Vallejo Heavy Green moving towards Mutation Green. Couldn't quickly find an official color scheme and I always prefer dropper bottles anyway, especially when using an airbrush. The lighter chest portions are Screaming Skull/Ushabti Bone. Finally, we get to the Carnosaur. I actually intended to grab the official colors on this, but when I got to the local hobby store (I haven't been to this one in a while) I remembered that they stock just about every single paint brand and product out there EXCEPT Citadel. So, Vallejo Gory Red it is for the base coat. He'll get some slightly lighter Scarlet scales eventually. Underbelly is the same Skull/Ushabti combo. On this guy I may go back and try to match how the 'Eavy Metal painter did his because I like his transition from red to tan with the splotches and stripes. There it is. I'm impressed I managed to get all of this done in one week. The boss passed out early a lot this week and I had more time than usual. I'm itching to get to the next steps. Primarily brush work from here on out. ~Deet
@Deet Could you show us how you use the airbrush as a few of us have just taken the plunge and after as many tips as possible, great work so far keep the pics coming.
Can you elaborate? Not quite sure what you're asking. I mostly use it for base coats, and occasionally gradients as I eventually will on the Banner here. I've done a few posts on things over the years. Power Weapons. My buddy Trip showed some good stuff on his Ghost Ark. If you dig around on our blog a bit you'll find some examples of our process. I guess as for basic tips, if you've got adjustable pressure on your compressor, don't be shy about dropping pressure down if you need to get close to do some really tight or precise work. You've got to practice a lot with your paint control (the draw on your trigger finger)- see if you can find that sweet spot where barely any paint is coming out. That paired with low pressure will let you get really close to the model for sharper details. Practice spraying thick and thin lines on a piece of scrap paper, then try to get a bunch of equally sized dots. One good afternoon practicing that stuff will go a long way with your skills, comfort, and enjoyment. Also, use the shape of the model to your advantage. On the mounts, I sprayed the tan underbelly first, then made sure I didn't overspray over it by angling the model so I could only hit the top surfaces while I sprayed the green. I'm hardly an expert. If you want recommendations, I'd check out Angel Giraldez. He's the studio painter for Infinity. I don't particularly go for his super-chrome style, but the skill is undeniable. Lots of good lessons to be learned watching that guy, and he's incredibly humble and nice if you meet him in person. Also, Buypainted on YouTube is a personal favorite. He's a paid subscription now, but there's plenty of his early work still up for free. My buddy did a good post a few years back on our blog about getting in to airbrush for cheap if anyone is interested.
Super slow going as I am A: not a fast painter, B: don't have a ton of painting time, and C: there's 21 freaking guys to paint. Just painting the scales took me 20-25 min/model. More than 8 hours of identical work. Ugh. Here's a progress update. All the various Saurus have been painted with their darker Kantor blue scales and I'm now moving on to brown undercoating. Basically everything that will be leather or gold later gets undercoated with Rhinox Hide. I'm going to hold off on the Knights for a while to focus on the Warriors, mostly for my own sanity and needing to see some more substantial progress. The Carnosaur is there if I want to maintain momentum but can't stomach more of the same on endless repeat. Always good to have a fun model around to keep you motivated.
Nice job! If you want to save some time on the scales try basecoating the whole figure using the brighter color, thinning the darker paint with acrylic medium (lahmian medium from GW, matte medium from Vallejo or matte medium from Liquitex work wonders) and painting thin layers of the darker color, letting the brighter one show through on the raised areas, it will help you finish faster and get good results with little effort. I agree with you on keeping a different figure handy for when you get tired of painting the same thing for the thousandth time, it's not fun when it feels like forced labor Keep up the good work and keep us posted!
Hah! It's actually just a thin coat of Rhinox Hide. It's just the undercoat for what will be gold. I may not have mixed it well so it came out a little glossy and looks metallic in the pictures. But now that you mention it, i do kind of like the dark copper look...hmm.
Wow is it really just rhinox hide? It´s actually kind of weird, as the old blood seems to have two different colours on the armour and the spear! If not was unintended it looks real cool. I might investigate mixing rhinox hide with a bronze metallic colour to see if it turns out somewhat similar!