On the painting table...

Malifaux – I just began a new commission for a Victoria crew. My client needs to have them for a tournament on Oct. 8th, so it's going to be a tight turnaround. Since he requested tabletop quality, I began as I usually do. The first step is to block in the base colors of the models. For typical caucasian flesh this means a dark flesh color as the base. When painting models a good tip is to "dress" them, start with the flesh then put the clothes on. After basing the flesh I then will block in the colors of the models. Then block in the colors of the base.

For this job, the client wants them to look like colorful individuals. Knowing that these are all mercs and having painted other models for him I decided to share a few of the colors across the board. This way they still look like individuals, but when on the tabletop they should feel cohesive.

After blocking in the orange, green, red, khaki and metallics I washed the models with a light Devlin mud wash. I've found this gives a basic level of shading to most colors as well as giving a "road-weary" feel to the model. It also picks out all the details and does a bit of "black-lining" to make things pop. I prefer a brownish color for this rather than black because in nature you never see black outlines, its always a shade of gray or brown.

The next steps are to go back and do basic highlights with the base colors, pick out the details, and then do a final highlight, and than do any individual color washes to smooth the transitions out. I'll try to post more of a step-by step process for these models, as I progress.