Painting a Warrior

Introduction

The third figure painted for one of my RPG (MAGUS) groups. He will be used as an elf warrior.

Planning phase

This guy is mostly leather, with some parts metal. I wanted to keep his paint scheme similar to the Knight and Soldier, but at the same time, I had to think of something else, too, so the large monochrome brown surfaces wouldn't just be... bland. I looked up some advice on what contrasts well with brown, and most design sites said light blue... so I went with that.

Painting

With such a dark and metallic color scheme, I went for a black primer.

Lay on the basecoat. Similar to the Knight and Soldier: dark brown, gunmetal, skintone. I then laid on leather brown on the overcoat, to establish the color right away.

I picked out the leather straps with ochre brown, adding a third leather coloring to the palette.

I then took care of the pants area.

I edge highlighted the light blue with even lighter blue by mixing in some white.

I then painted up the surface that's under the leather blue coat. I followed a tutorial on worn black leather: black basecoat, triple edge highlight with black mixed with more and more bonewhite. I am ambivalent towards the result. Still, at least it is different from the other leathery surfaces.

Apply the final elements of the basecoat: bonewhite horns on the helmet; bronze details on the swords; dark red gems; then go for a generous black wash on all surfaces except the black leather and blue pants which are already finished.

For whatever reason (I was bored with painting so much brown) I took a break and did some basing using my home made putty:

Back to painting! Edge highlight all the leather. This really enhances and differentiates the already existing 3 tones of brown (dark, leathery and ochre).

Then edge highlight all the metal. As before, with gunmetal, silver and bronze.

Final highlights: edge highlight the bonewhite horns. Apply a bit of gold over the bronze for extra shiny metallics. Highlight the gems by going from dark red washed over with black, through dark red and blood red, to white.

Basing

I wanted to place the elf in a natural environment, so I went with a green, grassy base, similar to the Daemonettes. 

Start with a basecoat, to avoid any white see-through:

Apply soil:

Then grass:

Seal the flocking with PVA glue. Apply extra PVA glue to hold on bushes.

The piece of flocking used for the bush in the back was larger then I wanted, so I placed a spoon over it for the night so that it will dry like that.

Unfortunately, it dried to be too small and flat.

I salvaged the situation by applying a little more watered down PVA glue to the bush, then sprinkled on more grass. Take it as a grassy mound, overgrown bush, or however you like.

Finished!