All of my Plagued for Deadzone are
painted! Well, they were until Mantic decided to mail me a sprue of
Plagued to show off how they look in hard plastic. I wrote most of
this a couple months ago along with taking some in progress shots to
accompany this blog post. I took dozens of pictures both during and
after the painting process, but ended up with only one usable photo
after I adjusted the lighting levels. I tried multiple lighting set
ups and camera settings and still do not understand what is going on.
This unfortunately means I have no in progress photos. I still have
that sprue of Plague in hard plastic I mentioned. I may wait to
paint them until after I obtain a new camera or see if it is a case
of needing better lighting.
Clean up was a bit of a mixed bag. I
like these models more than the Privateer Press plastic. Clean up is
easier and the details are sharper by comparison even though the plastic has a similar feel to it. Mold lines were still annoying,
but not to the same extent as the Privateer Press models. Games
Workshop and Wyrd both produce better plastic models that are much
more enjoyable to clean, but the Mantic models are very cheap in
comparison and did not have me ripping out my hair.
I started by priming the models in
black. I tried an experiment of hitting the models with a can of
chestnut spray paint to have a brown undertone that might peek out a
bit in the shadows in an attempt to tie everything together. It did
not really save me any time so I am unlikely to repeat this step if I
paint more Plague models in the future.
Experiment One
The first test model was entirely too
dark. It is the dark model in the group shot if the reader cares to
take a gander. I was attempting to go with a reddish/pink skin tone
sort of along the lines of the official studio scheme, but I wanted
to reign it in a little bit as the studio scheme is more vibrant than
I was originally looking for. I was trying for a bit more sickly than meaty. I documented the colours used so far in
order to help me keep things straight.
I brushed on Reaper's MSP HD 29801 –
Crimson Red all over the model's flesh and made certain to get into all of
the crevices.
The flesh was built up using MSP HD
29801 – Crimson Red, Old GW Red Gore, Vallejo Game Color 72100 –
Rosy Flesh, and Old GW Rotting Flesh.
For anyone without those colours on
hand, that is dark vibrant red, vibrant medium red, salmony-pink
fleshy colour, and an offwhite desaturated green.
The bone protrusions were painted using
MSP HD 29801 – Crimson Red, P3 Gun Corps Brown, P3 Hammerfall
Khaki, Old GW Bleached Bone, and P3 Morrow White.
In other words, dark vibrant red,
somewhat cool medium brown, khaki, bone, and white.
I did some glazing and deepening of
shadows using GW Reikland Fleshshade, Old GW Leviathon Purple, and
Secret Weapon Washes Baby Poop. The Baby Poop was a bit overpowering
even when thinned out with water. These are basically doctored inks
intended for tinting paint on miniatures. They are all fairly high
pigment paints thinned down with additives that are more transparent
and slightly thicker than actual ink.
I was okay with the colours used, but I
wanted to build up to brighter mid tones. In the photo it looks like
it might be a skintone of someone of African descent so looks much
better in the photo. In person it is a mess with too much pink with
streaks of green going through it.
Experiment Two
My second test model is the same pose
as the first one. I painted the skin on the second one using the same
colours but dropping the Baby Poop and Leviathon Purple. It's
lighter, but not light enough. I am thinking about dropping the
Crimson Red from the flesh tones altogether even though I used a lot
less this time. It makes a pretty rose colour when mixed with the Red
Gore and Rosy Flesh for the deep shadows, but I need to lighten up
the shadows and mid tones a bit.
Experiment Three
Started by painting multiple coats of
Red Gore with the Rosy Flesh to cover up the black on the flesh bits
for the rest of my Plagued. The mix was somewhere between 2:1 and 1:1
with more Red Gore than Rosy Flesh. Right now they look slightly
darker than raw beef which I liked as a basic look for Plague once I saw it.
I lightened up two of the puppies and
three of the infantry with a mix of roughly 2:1 to 3:1 with more Rosy
Flesh than Red Gore. I also mixed in some Liquitex Slow-Dri medium
and Vallejo Glaze medium as I made one decent sized batch that I did
not want to add water to as I wanted to try my hand at two brush
blending. I think I used too big of a brush for applying the paint as
this is the primary colour now. Next step was some tight highlights
with pure Rosy Flesh. I reintroduced the base coat to both smooth
things out and to darken the flesh up as it was losing that raw beef
look.
Bone
The base for the bones was Red Gore,
Rosey Flesh, and Gun Corps Brown at roughly a 1:1:2 mix. I built this
up rather thinly in layers to blend it into the flesh. The next layer
was Gun Corps Brown with Hammerfall Khaki in a 1:1 mix. Then pure
Hammerfall Khaki. This was followed up with Hammerfall Khaki mixed
with Morrow White. Finally, I did highlights that were larger than
they probably should have been with pure Morrow White.
Clothing
The base for the pants was OGW
Ultramarine Blue. The base for the shirts was MSP HD Ice Blue 29814.
I was intending to paint my Plagued as police officers, but thought
some might find it offensive. I wanted a cohesive look for a group
that would have access to both guns and dogs on a colony world
bordering the Dark. I started this before Ferguson so that was not
even a part of the consideration at the time. I went with dark blue
pants with a light blue top, but decided not to paint any badges or
insignia of any sort. If I do add something later then it might be a
symbol for the Corporation. Doctor Simmonds' clothes were base coated
using Dheneb Darksun with Iyanden Darksun for accents. I neglected to record what colours were used to highlight or shade the clothes (beyond the washes later) and do not recall what I used at this time. I think the pants might have been highlighted with Ice Blue, the base for the shirts in order to keep the overall number of colours used down, but I can not say for certain.
Leather and Gun Casings
These areas were base coated with MSP
HD Armor Grey 29837. I then highlighted up mixing in some GW Hawk
Turquoise and finished off with pure Hawk Turquoise. This is a really
dark neutral grae and turquise.
Bases
The bases were base coated with GW
Astronomicon Grey then highlighted with P3 Frostbite.
Finishing
After base coating and highlighting I
went over most of each model with a selection of washes before
hitting the areas again with the final highlight. This step is to
create a little more contrast and possibly smooth out some odd
transitions. An example of this in the flesh areas is spot
applications of red wash followed by purple wash before highlighting
with Rosy Flesh to pull those highlights back out where needed. I
ended up taking the flesh areas on the larger models up to pure white
with very tight spots of light in an attempt to make the skin appear
to glisten slightly. The bases had a collection of washes and
Astronomicon Grey applied to them to offer some variation before
highlighting back up with Frostbite again. I hit all the models with
matte varnish (Testor's Dullcoat). I repaintied the tiny bits of
white on the skin of the big guys as those spot highlights were
knocked back more than I cared for. I still was not happy so followed
that up with a brush on gloss varnish on the skin. The largest of the four models had the gloss varnish applied to the inner parts and I tried to avoid the strip of ripped flesh that would have been on the surface when she was Human.
I am working on my Enforcers for
Deadzone now. I am not bothering to get in progress pictures, but I
might see if I can find somebody to take some finished shots.
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