3 Citadel Tribesmen (improving my verdaccio technique)

To continue my Barbarian warband, I bought these three oop Citadel Tribesmen on ebay for £1 each plus packaging, a proper bargain in these days of higher prices for nostalgia. I see these three as initiates for the warband, not yet fully blown Barbarians, mostly because they wear trousers and also because the scale of these 80's sculpts is slightly less heroic than the other miniatures I have already painted. I also decided to go for some black hair, as this is much more in the Frank Frazetta style and looked good having all three (brothers?) looking similar as the sculpts seemed to dictate this. There's a bit of Frank Zappa about the left guy too.

I went for my usual slightly rusting metal look and decided to have some exploration of how to work mostly with browns for their clothing, including a range of different leather appearances on the hide shield to the left. 

Here's the crew all posing their best pose for the photoshoot:

I again experimented with the verdaccio style of under-painting skin tones green, thinking I could refine it and speed it up from my previous attempts on Thrud. Which I think I managed, but make your own mind up; the process:

1. Over a white undercoat I liberally applied some Camoshade with a touch of washing up liquid to help it flow. (no photo here) 

2. I then built up a series of lighter highlights, adding white to the Camoshade in the raised areas

3. Then over the highlighted green I applied a very dilute glaze of a Citadel Contrast flesh tone. This was made up of some of the paint, some additional water, medium and a touch of washing up liquid. Here you can see it halfway through application. 

4. I then highlighted up with some very thin applications of a very pale flesh tone (Elf Flesh and a lot of white, thinned) 

5. I then reapplied a few glazes of warmer reds over the nose, lips, ears and cheeks, elbows and knuckles. Basically those areas that looked too pale and needed warming up. 

6. A small, very dilute purple wash in the eye sockets and then I could work on all the details.

And there we go! I have five more models to go for the warband - I would like to do a Frazetta inspired conversion of a Barbarian leader on a sabre toothed tiger and I already have a couple more old Citadel sculpts and a converted shaman ready to paint next, so until next time...

Thrud (and painting in verdaccio)

The iconic Citadel Thrud, long admired by me and one of those miniatures that I was always keen to get and paint, even though he was much more expensive than I would have liked. When I had the lump of lead in my hand, I contemplated my approach to painting him; I felt he deserved a slightly different approach to my usual style and process, partly because it is Thrud and also because there are such large areas of skin to paint. I searched for some other examples of painted Thruds and found some to be way too smooth, almost disguising and flattening the sculpt, or some that were too sinewy and textured, mkaing the anatomy look a little too awkward. So I aimed for something in between. 

It also struck me as an opportunity to experiment; I remember from my Art History degree a technique used by Renaissance and pre-Raphaelite painters where they would under-paint the skin tones with a green hue, known as "verdaccio", which would help create the illusion of veins beneath the skin and to cool down some of the warmer skin tones.

Here's the finished model which I'm very happy with:

My image research led me to an example of verdaccio as seen on Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling painting:

And here is the processes in getting there using this green under-painting:

Over a white primer I washed in a diluted Athonian Camoshade (a little washing up liquid added to help it flow). A second darker wash was added to the recesses/shadows.

Once dry a subsequent wash of Darkoath flesh was applied

I then started building up my layers of highlights using very dilute applications of Elf flesh with increasing amounts of white. This helped blend some of the warm reds into cold greens.

This creates quite a washed out effect (although the lighting here hasn't helped)

So I glazed with both warm flesh tones over the highlights and cold green for the shadows

Final highlights were then applied very sparingly.

I think the experiment was quite successful although I probably hid too much of the green under-painting with my layers. It's definitely a technique I would like to explore further and I have a Marauder Giant that has been primed years ago that may be the ideal candidate. For now I am currently painting a second Bob Naismith miniature as a companion for this Thrud and I've already made a little scenic base for them both. More on this next time.