Painting Skeletons Tips?

[pixelgeek]

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.

Ah. I thought it might be some thinning agent or something along those lines

[Helen]

Thanks for the tips.

[Misneach]

I've heard good things about GW's Skeleton Horde contrast paint over an off white base, with a drybrushed highlight. Seems to be a really quick way to get good results, especially if the base coat is sprayed. I haven't tried it yet though

[Mr. White]

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.

Agreed!
No way would I pursue this project if those were the necessary steps.

[SotF]

I'd worked out a rather workable paint setup for a skeletons a while back, though they were the more heavily armored Mantic ones. Largely using craft paints...

Primed in a grey, base coat the bone areas in a parchment color, leather in a medium brown, metals in either gunmetal or copper, and the cloth parts were in a dark blue (Swap blue for whatever army color you want).

Thinned down some acryllic burnt umber ink as a wash followed by a more focused black wash using thinned ink for the gunmetal areas along with the face. You want a heavier/thicker wash for the bone areas of the burnt umber, and I normally start with that and then thin it out more for the rest. But let it dry between each.

You can normally just go with a lighter drybrush and highlight of the parchment to handle the bone parts, a little bit of white mixed in for the highest ones. The brown can be highlighted with the original, perhaps lighten it with some of the parchment. For the metals, a light drybrush of the original, followed by highlights of silver on the gunmetal and gold over the copper.

Thin out a brick red and terra cotta and stipple them into areas of the gunmetal/silver for rush effects. Use a good blue-green patina color and thin it out more than normal and mix in a couple drops of rubbing alcohol in for the copper/gold areas to have an old coppery bronze look.

Then I take a dark red and a bright pink, the red for the internal of the eye with just a tiny dot in the center to highlight it...end result looks good. (I'd actually use the Reaper Gore Red and Breast Cancer Awareness Pinks for it, only actual mini paints used for these)

For the cloth, I'd actually started with a layer of a blue mixed with black ink to thin the consistency and darken it, then I stippled the areas with first the original blue, and a brighter blue while paying attention to the shading and highlight positions with it.

Hardest figure with skeletal parts for me to paint was the most recent one I finished...Reapers translucent wraith king that was given out for Halloween...and that was more of trying to keep some of the translucency for parts of it and still make it fit in with my other, more recent ones.

Each of the main paints were about $1 for the bottle...the white was about $4 because it was the bigger bottle. The acryllic inks were normally $5, but discount coupons for half price. The two minis paints were freebie colors

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Ah. I thought it might be some thinning agent or something along those lines

No problem (and apologies for the brevity: tech issues meant posting from an awkwardly placed - in time and space - desktop PC).

[zebcook]

Coincidentally, I've been painting up 60 skellies over the last two weeks. Like you, I didn't want to invest heroic effort to complete the task. I used the painting instructions on the Skull and Crown Miniatures blog (since I'm painting minis from them) as a starting point and modified it for the colors I had on hand. The simple step-by-step instructions can be found here. The picture shows the results I've managed for a unit of 20 -- took about a week off and on to do (still have to finish the bases).

http://skullandcrown.blogspot.com/2017/06/painting-triumph-of-death-by-numbers.html

[nozza_uk]

Pretty much your first approach.

Primed with Halfords white primer.
1) bone - GW Contrast Skeleton Horde
2) wood, belts and straps - GW Contrast Snakebite Leather, Cygor Brown & Wyldwood
3) Metal - GW Typhus Corrosion & Ryza Rust.

Worked well. Got 40 Skeletons painted up in a week.

[Psychopomp]

I've been playing undead since 1997 with a 5e WHFB Undead army (pre-split) and kept it up, overhauling the basic skeleton warriors every time GW released a new kit.  This is the formula for your basic, bleached white bones that I finally settled on:

1 - Prime white with whatever smooth white primer you use (I use Dupli-Color sandable from AutoZone or other car part stores.)

2 - Airbrush a solid coat of Vallejo Heavy Warm Grey

3 - Give a good coat of Army Painter Strong Tone (the ink wash, not the dip), but down drown it.  Just enough to glaze the basecoat a bit while really filling the recesses.

4 - Drybrush with Vallejo Bleached Bone or Army Painter Skeleton Bone, whichever you have.

5 - A very light touch drybrush of pure white anywhere the light might be hitting.  Drybrush the domes of any unhelmeted skulls a bit harder, as that makes them pop.

And that's it.  Painting the bone part is easy.  Having to go back and paint metals and cloth tends to take more time than the bone, as you need to do that after you drybrush the whole thing with bleached bone.

[Mr. White]

So many fantastic suggestions in this thread...it's made the decision a little more difficult. ha!
The rotting, decayed skeletons sound interesting, but then again so do so many of the others. Do folks happen to have links or photos of their skellies?

This can sorta turn into a skeleton showcase thread...

[ZeroTwentythree]

I like a some variety in colors on my skeletons, and I use a lot of cheap craft store acrylics so I don't have a simple formula, but the process is simple and not far from what you and others have described. This assumes more bone than armour or tattered clothing is exposed and I'm working in batches.

Prime grey. Or white last week since the last can of grey primer I bought seems to have a bad nozzle.

Paint bone, some with a pale creme color, others with antique white (slightly darker.)

Wash all bone. My favorite is Sepharim Sepia, but I also use Reikland Flesh and Agrax Earthshade. Sometimes I'll even mix two washes, either before applying to the figure, or right on the figure.in the case of the latter I'll brush one color on some parts, then the other areas with a different one and let them run & blend into each other.

I like a dark base for the rest, so I brush thinned out black on all the leather, wood, and metal bits.

I then paint the wood weapon shafts one color brown, the leather another color, and silver on all the steel. If there are brass or bronze bits (buckles, etc) I paint those now too.

Then I wash all of those areas just painted with Nuln Oil.

At this point, they're probably good enough, but I usually add a little detail/extra steps.

Double check that the eye sockets are dark enough. Sometimes they need a little extra wash for my tastes.

I like to paint rust on the steel. i did a step-by-step of the "full" rust process, but sometimes I do just the orange part where there's just a small area of surface rust. https://www.zerotwentythree.com/2017/02/rust-tutorial.html

Sometimes I do a little highlighting on the leather or wood bits.

If you want to see how they turn out: https://www.zerotwentythree.com/search/label/Skeletons

[nozza_uk]

Pretty much your first approach.

Primed with Halfords white primer.
1) bone - GW Contrast Skeleton Horde
2) wood, belts and straps - GW Contrast Snakebite Leather, Cygor Brown & Wyldwood
3) Metal - GW Typhus Corrosion & Ryza Rust.

Worked well. Got 40 Skeletons painted up in a week.

Best picture I can rustle up at the moment.

[Thargor]

For my Mortal Gods skeletons I use the following method:

Prime with Army Painter Skeleton Bone spray.
Wash with GW Seraphim Sepia.
Highlight with Army Painter Skeleton Bone.
Light highlight with ivory.

Spear shafts:
Foundry Spearshaft trilogy.

Shields:
Foundry Bronze Barrel Shade.
Wash with GW Seraphim Sepia.
Highlight with Foundry Bronze Barrel Light.
Spray with hairspray and spinkle on salt.
Foundry Charcoal Black Shade.
Clean off salt with a wet toothbrush (this will take off bits of the black paint).
Paint on Vallejo verdigris and whilst still wet dab some off with a paper towel.

Denizens of Hades by PTB Photography, on Flickr

[pixelgeek]

Spear shafts:
Foundry Spearshaft trilogy.

Is that an actual thing?!?!

Spray with hairspray and spinkle on salt.

Regular salt or kosher salt?

[Elbows]

Definitely another vote for the "spray with Bone coloured primer" and then paint the details and use a wash/dip.





It won't win you any awards...but if you're doing an army, it'll be fine.  Mine are all painted to my "minion" standard.