First, apologies in advance for the poor photos. It took me about 2 hours to photograph these skeletons because my normal procedure was either making them brilliant white or washing them out entirely. At the absolute end of my rope with the camera, I did the exact opposite of what I normally do and darkened the exposure compensation to its maximum. So, if you're ever shooting white miniatures, that seems to be the trick...
These are a group of skeletons for Frostwallon, originally Rackham Morbid Puppets. These seem to be pretty rare to find these days and I'm really happy I was able to track them down because they have a certain dynamism that most 28mm skeletons lack. I especially love the "en garde" skeleton and the tired, crouching skeleton. Pictures (as I mentioned) don't really do these guys justice and I tried a few new techniques on them. For the bones, I basecoated everything in Antique White, did a first highlight in 50/50 Antique White/White mix, and then did a heavy wash of Vallejo Grey wash, then picked out areas of deep shadow by doing a selective wash of P3 Armor wash, and finally came back and highlighted select areas with pure White. This gives a nice aged appearance to the bone that simply washing with browns or tans would fail to achieve.
Otherwise, there isn't much else to them, but I tried to keep the palette limited to earthy tones - browns, greens, and greys - on the tattered scraps of clothing present, with liberal washes of Vallejo European Dirt wash. The armor was (as normal) painted in GW Boltgun Metal and Testors Steel. However, I wanted a heavily rusted appearance, so I tried a new technique. Using acrylics as washes, I laid down several washes of Testors Rust, Vallejo Red Brown, and Chocolate Brown. After sealing, I then came back with dry pigments but applied them as washes by diluting them in Isopropyl alcohol, which I really like the effect of. I also did a similar effect with the dirt on the bases.
These are a group of skeletons for Frostwallon, originally Rackham Morbid Puppets. These seem to be pretty rare to find these days and I'm really happy I was able to track them down because they have a certain dynamism that most 28mm skeletons lack. I especially love the "en garde" skeleton and the tired, crouching skeleton. Pictures (as I mentioned) don't really do these guys justice and I tried a few new techniques on them. For the bones, I basecoated everything in Antique White, did a first highlight in 50/50 Antique White/White mix, and then did a heavy wash of Vallejo Grey wash, then picked out areas of deep shadow by doing a selective wash of P3 Armor wash, and finally came back and highlighted select areas with pure White. This gives a nice aged appearance to the bone that simply washing with browns or tans would fail to achieve.
Otherwise, there isn't much else to them, but I tried to keep the palette limited to earthy tones - browns, greens, and greys - on the tattered scraps of clothing present, with liberal washes of Vallejo European Dirt wash. The armor was (as normal) painted in GW Boltgun Metal and Testors Steel. However, I wanted a heavily rusted appearance, so I tried a new technique. Using acrylics as washes, I laid down several washes of Testors Rust, Vallejo Red Brown, and Chocolate Brown. After sealing, I then came back with dry pigments but applied them as washes by diluting them in Isopropyl alcohol, which I really like the effect of. I also did a similar effect with the dirt on the bases.
