Before
Mostly just basecoat. I did wash and highlight the shields and axes, although I overdid the highlighting and the wash is barely visible. Another thing is their overcoats. The artwork of the game shows them in chainmail, so that's how I painted them up. However, a closer look at the minis makes it look like a rough woolen coat over the chainmail (visible below, on the thighs).
After
Fixing the basecoat
I initially wanted to leave the basecoats alone. However, without priming, the paintjob is chipped in many places. But first, basecoat the woolen cloth in Bonewhite.
Fix the skintone basecoat. As Elf Skintone is a light color, the original basecoat was uneven, did not cover the plastic everywhere, and I managed to slop over with other colors in several places.
Use Heavy Brown to fix other parts of the minis: axe handles, shields, belts. Also give the fur trim of the boots a distinctive look. Use Gunmetal to fix the axeheads, the metallic decoration on the shields, the helmets and the chain skirts.
On to retouching
Wash the woolen coats in Seraphim Sepia. Also used this on the blonde guy's beard.
Wash the skin areas in Reikland Fleshshade.
Agrax Earthshade goes over the wooden areas (axe handles, shields) and leather (boots, belts, bracers). I originally wanted to shade the recesses of the overcoats, but then I just went with an overall wash. The surface is still more sepia, but the recesses took on a brownish quality. I'm happy with how it looks.
The axeheads and the helmets get black wash.
Highlights
Back to Heavy Brown to highlight the middle of each plank of the shields. Also do highlights on axehandles and the fur trims.
Chainmail Silver highlights on axeheads, helmets as well as the larger metal pieces on the shields.
Soft Bonewhite drybrush on the overcoats.
Highlight the flesh with Elf Skintone. This includes fingers, knees, muscle groups on thighs and arms, as well as faces: brows, cheekbones.
Whip out Leather Brown to highlights the belts, bracers and straps.
Two of these guys have bare arms and legs, while the other two (probably the older guys) are wearing matching overalls (old west style). The base colors is a mix of red and brown (I think), so I just highlighted with Gore Red.
With already a lot of brown-washed Bonewhite on the minis, I did not want to do the horns the way I usually do (using the same color palette). So I based them in Heavy Brown, then started mixing in Bonewhite and painting less and less of the horns...
... until the tips got covered in pure Bonewhite.
Painting their hair and beards in different colors was a stroke of genius. Now I just added a touch here and there.
Brown hair and beard got washed with Agrax Earthshade, then highlighted in Heavy Brown.
I wasn't happy with the lack of shadows, so I re-applied Agrax.
Blonde hair and beard (not sure what the original base color is) got washed in Seraphim Sepia, then highlighted with Sun Yellow.
Finally, grey hair and beard got a white highlight for extra aged look on that old veteran. At this point I filled in the eyeballs.
Now these minis are not sculpted to an extra high level of detail, so I fussed around quite a bit with the eyes. In the end I did not do
the usual process, just white base and a dab of black for each.
New bases
In the boardgame, these guys land with ships and are situated on a sandy beach - so they get
sandy bases.
Finished!
