Painting skeletons

Introduction

I assembled these guys a long time ago but lost interest. I primed them and painted the bone parts when I started playing DnD with my necromancer, then lost interest again. Now that I'm playing again, and they've seen already action, we're back to painting!

Ancient metal

I tried this color scheme as provided by Warhammer TV, but translating to Vallejo as always.

Basecoat Gunmetal.

Wash Agrax Earthshade.

Paint Typhus Corrosion. GW skeletons have embossed shields and other fancy details where this is supposed to go into the recesses, but we don't have that here, so I just did a liberal coat over 90% of the metal.

Highlight Silver. Mostly edges, but broad highlights on the helmets and follow all the indentations on the swords and shields.

Apply patches of Gore Grunta Fur.

Then Nihilakh Oxide in the deepest recesses.

Not terribly impressed with this color scheme. Looks like a hodge-podge of techniques. Perhaps on a more detailed surface it would look better.

Other details

Dark brown wood - weapon hafts, back of the shields.

Filthy cloth on all the scraps. This wasn't a very good idea, as the black surfaces took several basecoats to fully cover. Then the minis are already on the light side with all the bone color. Oh well.

Medium leather on the straps and boots.

Cold white feather and simple black raven. Although I noticed that this black technique works well on large surfaces only; on this small raven the highlights were way too stark. So I went over with Basilicanum Grey and it looks quite nice.

Painted shields

I decided on something special for the shields that look wooden. Instead of the ancient metal above, I went for freehanded shields.

These two get the medieval and current coat of arms of Hungary, which I have to say is much easier to do than Romania. But more on that later.

Heavy Red basecoat, Dead White stripes. Black Templar for the drawn lines.

Two or three layers of white strengthen the color, but also widen the stripes.

You can see all the splodging on this close-up. I carried on to draw the hills with Heavy Green.

Correct the outlines with Heavy Red. A small crown was added later to the base of the cross with Heavy Goldbrown.

For the coat of arms of Moldova, start to draw the outlines using Stonewall Grey.

Fill it in.

Correct the outline with Heavy Red.

Draw the lines with Black Templar. Add the star with Heavy Goldbrown.

For the coat of arms of Wallachia, basecoat Heavy Blue.

Draw the eagle using Heavy Goldbrown.

Several coats were needed to fill it in. Then I drew the lines with Black Templar.

Add the beak and legs with Heavy Red.

Shields painted. What, no highlights?

As the rest of the models is all battered and rusty, I needed to bang up the shields as well. I sponged on Charred Brown.

Highlight with a smaller sponge and Chainmail Silver. Wash Agrax Earthshade. Then stiple on Agrax Earthshade once more selectively.

Eyes

I wanted to leave the eyes vacant, but they actually have sculpted eyeballs. I painted them Bonewhite. Then I experimented with Aethermatic Blue.

And Blood Angels Red. This latter one needs more work, as I had to drop some Wraithbone in the center of the eyeball to make it "glow".

And so I went with the White Walker look.

Basing

Add gravestones and home made putty for texture. 

For the one skeleton bursting from the ground, paint the earth Wraithbone. Then paint it all Wyldwood.

Paint the gravestones grey and add moss.

For the rest, I just painted the putty with Wyldwood.

Apply grass and flowers for a tranquil cemetery look.

Finished!