Atheros Undead: Wraith Hoplites and Skeleton Warriors

Some test casts have arrived: Undead hoplites. 

I'll be painting these up soon to see how they handle before cleaning the master casts for a production mould (and I'll likely make up some alternatives with head and weapon swaps for variety.

Tentatively aiming to get 4 wraiths and 6 swordsmen in the mould - the shields take up a lot of space. If I'm lucky I'll squeeze in 8 swordsmen.

Tox Trooper Paint Tutorial

Here's a speed paint tutorial for my Tox Troopers. Quick and easy and only 9 steps start to finish.

1. Assembly. 

I always texture the base prior to painting, the barb wire is simply two thin metal wires wrapped around each other for effect. The rest is beach sand affixed with PVA glue.

2. Undercoat. 

Do 2-3 light coats of Black undercoat spray, once dry do a thin wash of Chaos Black (is it still called that?) to cover all the recesses the spray missed.

3. Colour Blocking.

All colours here are from Citadel:

• Stormvermin Fur - for the grey coat and sleeves
• Ushabti Bone - for the helmets face place
• Rhinox Hide - for the gloves, boots and pouches on the models belt
• Steel Legion Drab - for the shoulder pad straps, the boot gaiters and the soil on the base
• Leadbelcher - for all the metal areas on the model
• Mephiston Red/Skull White - for the shoulder pad markings

4. Black Wash.

Nuln Oil - wash the entire mini, only avoiding the boot gaiters and the base.

5. Brown Wash

Agrax Earthshade - wash the base, the boot gaiters, all the metal areas, the faceplate and should pad straps

6. Colour Development

Go back to all the base colours and paint the raised areas/avoid the recesses - the wash has created the shading. This stage is most evident on the coat and face plate. This effect here should be subtle, the next stage will build upon it....

7. Highlights

• Dryad Bark - paint fine edge highlights on the gloves, boot caps and belt pouches
• Baneblade Brown - paint fine edge highlights on the boot gaiters and the shoulder pad straps
• Leadbelcher - fine edge highlight all the metal areas, and then scratches on all the black armour areas (I went overboard here, as usual - subtle is always better)
• Stormvermin Fur 70% mixed with Ushabti Bone 30% - highlight the raised edges on the coat. You can even paint thin vertical streaks at the edges to suggest fraying and damage.

8. Lens Detail

• Paint the entire lens Black
• Paint the bottom 50% of the lens with Mephiston Red
• Within that red area, paint a further 25% of the lens with Evil Sunz Scarlet
• Paint a final tiny streak of Wild Rider Red in the extreme bottom corner of the lens
• In the opposite top left corner of the lens, paint a tiny streak of white 

9. Base

• Drybrush the entire base with Baneblade Brown
• Paint a further drybrush of the entire base with Terminatus Stone
• Daub the metal wire on the base with Skrag Brown
• Paint the edge of the base with Steel Legion Drab
• Dead field grass was applied in patches with PVA glue

Tox Trooper Scouts WIP

New Tox Trooper minis WIP...