Painting Skeletons Tips?

[Mr. White]

After the holidays, I'm planning to begin my journey into the Marches of Oathmark. I'm looking at starting with about two boxes of skeletons which is 60 models (soldiers x20, soldiers x20, spearmen x20).

Up to this point, I've only really played skirmish games and a 16 model Blood Bowl team can feel daunting...so I need folks here to help me get through 60!

Now, these look fantastic and I don't expect to paint 60 models to this standard and maintain steam.


But what I do notice there is that they're really only three colors.
1) bone
2) same brown for the wood, belts, and straps
3) aged metals

I think i can do this, but want a good recipe. It's really the aged metal that I'm unsure how to handle, and again, I don't expect to work mine up to look nearly as good as above.

My initial thought is two approaches. Lemme know which is better or if there's an even faster way. I don't recall paint names, so help me out if you can

Approach One:
prime models white or light grey
1) bone - citadel contrast bone
2) wood, belts and straps - graveyard earth washed in agrax earthshade
3) whatever I need to do for metal....help!

Approach Two:
prime models white or light grey
1) bone - bleached bone wash in agrax earthshade
2) wood, belts and straps - graveyard earth washed in earthshade
3) whatever I need to for metal, but uses a wash with agrax earthshade

The two approaches aren't too different. Approach One has three different wash colors (contrast paint is sort of a wash), and approach two is faster where I just wash the whole model in agrax earthshade.

Anyone have thoughts or suggestions to help motivate me to get through this pile of bones?

[Ogrob]

Aged metal isn't super hard. These specific ones probably have a few fancy tricks thrown in, but you can go far with a drak bronze colour and then making a wash from a teal or turqoise colour. Vallejo has verdigris paint if you want something pre-mixed. You can water that one down depending on how heavy you want it.

[snitcythedog]

Your initial thought on painting is sound.  Since you asked for suggestions here you go.
For the bone your earthshade will work but would be better with Seraphim Sepia as a base wash then a thinned wash of null oil.  Highlight back up with the bone base again and then if you want to go all out highlight up with a white.  This will give you more of a bone colour base that is then toned down with the black from the null oil. 

For old bone that is blackened by rotting flesh you can paint the base colour, add a wash of seraphim sepia, a wash of null oil then a wash of Athonian Camoshade.  Do not let the second two pool up.  No highlights on this one.  Gives your bones a good rotten and decayed look.

For the wood and leather you are spot on with the earthshade wash and keeping the colours simple. Null oil would work here too.   

To get a quick bronze look like your example paint the metals a dark brown.  Then a couple of thin coats of Nihilakh Oxide will add the verdigris.
My two cents so hope that helps.

[pixelgeek]

Oddly there isn't an article from Northstar yet about how they painted those

[pixelgeek]

My quick method for skeletons is to prime them with Army Painter Skeleton bone primer. Then give them a wash of Seraphim Sepia and then drybrush with Skeleton Bone snd then Iraqi Sand.

[pixelgeek]

After the holidays, I'm planning to begin my journey into the Marches of Oathmark. I'm looking at starting with about two boxes of skeletons which is 60 models (soldiers x20, soldiers x20, spearmen x20).

No archers?

[Mr. White]

No archers?

They don’t look that strong. Seems swords and spears might be better? Though...  they’d be easier to paint!

Maybe I’ll do 15 soldiers, 15 soldiers, 10 spears, 10 archers, 10 archers. If I end up not liking the bowmen I can stick them in the last ranks of the soldier and spear units as ‘counts as’.

Lots of good painting tips here all around. Thanks, folks!

[pixelgeek]

They don’t look that strong.

They suck individually but in a block of 20 they are fun. The biggest benefit is that they have the Fire Over ability meaning that you can place them behind a unit of warriors and fire over them to soften up your opponent.

You need big blocks though. 10 skeleton archers are ineffective.

[MattW]

Michael Anderson posted this paint guide on Facebook:

1. Spray black
2. Zenithal highlight with wraithbone spray
3. Build up thin layers of contrast Skeleton hoard ( slow and controlled, not one thick coat!)
3. Wash bone recesses with thinned Agrax earthshade.
4. Highlight with a light dry brush of wraithbone
5. Basilacatum grey contrast on the cloth
6. Wyldwood contrast on the leather straps
7. Snakebite leather contrast on wood followed by wyldwood
8. Warplock bronze on all metal areas
9 thinned nihilakh oxide technical in patches over the whole metal area
10. All recesses in metal area is neat nihilakh
11. Wash whole figure in thinned Athonian camoshade
12. Wash metal areas with mix of waaagh flesh mixed with agrax and thinned.
Now the weird stage...
13 edge highlight all sharp raised areas with a white coloured pencil
That’s it!
Sounds a lot of stages but it doesn’t require a huge amount of technical skill. If I’d painted this my normal way it would have been closer to 3 per day but I wanted to demonstrate how quick it can be to paint large units for oathmark (yes, I know they’re not based for OM 😂)

[BZ]

My quick method for skeletons is to prime them with Army Painter Skeleton bone primer. Then give them a wash of Seraphim Sepia and then drybrush with Skeleton Bone snd then Iraqi Sand.

I did something similar: https://oathgrave.blogspot.com/2020/10/10-painting-skeletons-and-rusty-iron.html

[Ultravanillasmurf]

My quick method for skeletons is to prime them with Army Painter Skeleton bone primer. Then give them a wash of Seraphim Sepia and then drybrush with Skeleton Bone snd then Iraqi Sand.

I did something similar: https://oathgrave.blogspot.com/2020/10/10-painting-skeletons-and-rusty-iron.html

Me too.

Briefly:
The figures (without shields) were undercoated with Citadel Chaos Black spray followed by Army painter Skeleton Bone.
Armour and weapons were painted with Citadel Abaddon Black.
The axe handle was painted with Citadel  Dryad Bark.
Straps and belts were painted with Citadel Steel Legion Drab.
Cloth straps and the skeleton's teeth were painted with Army Painter Stone Golem.
Everything was dry brushed with Citadel Terminatus Stone.
A final wash of Citadel Agrax Earthshade showed off the detail.

The shields were painted on the sprue:

The weapons (and armour) were painted with a mix of Citadel Abaddon Black and Humbrol Dark Green.
A wet mix of Citadel Abaddon Black, Humbrol Dark Green, Humbrol 90 (a light green) and Citadel Lahmian Medium was then painted on to give a verdigris effect.
They were then dry brushed with Citadel Nurgling Green.

The shields were clipped off the sprue and the damage caused by the clipping tidied up. The shields were glued to the figures hand with superglue.

A final wash of Citadel Camoshade brought up the detail on the shield

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Aged metal isn't super hard. These specific ones probably have a few fancy tricks thrown in, but you can go far with a drak bronze colour and then making a wash from a teal or turqoise colour. Vallejo has verdigris paint if you want something pre-mixed. You can water that one down depending on how heavy you want it.

I started off with a black green (based on some wiki-fu on Bronze Age artefacts).

I mixed my verdigris with Citadel Abaddon Black, Humbrol Dark Green, Humbrol 90 and Citadel Lahmian Medium with a wash of Citadel Camoshade.

I did buy some Coelian Greenshade for the next ones, and then also bought some Citadel Nihilakh Oxide technical paint - probably the same sort of thing as the above but in a jar.

[pixelgeek]

What is Humbrol 90?

[robh]

Michael Anderson posted this paint guide on Facebook:
.........

That is a very long winded and overly complicated way of doing something that is much much simpler than he makes it appear.
Not to mention bloody expensive, that's over £50 worth of paints he says you need there.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

What is Humbrol 90?

The paint is called Beige Green, a bit like Nurgling Green I think.Or Tamiya XF-14 according to a chart somewhere or RAF Sky (?) or duck egg green.