Quick "Small" Greenskin Recipe - ArcWorlde Boglin

Last week I put together a little tutorial on creating easy dirt bases. This week I'll be focusing on the critter to go on the base, an ArcWorlde Boglin, and how I painted up his skin tone.

This particular recipe, which I made up on the fly, is a quick one and I believe to be well suited to small greenskins, such as Grots, Goblins and this here Boglin. It creates quite a high contrast in tone, which is great for miniatures from Warploque as they have lovely angles to play with.

There are two sets of paints required - the basics and then a couple more to push things further.

The basic set is the trio of Vallejo Deck Tan, P3 Ordic Olive and P3 Sanguine Base.

The next couple that are optional are a flesh tone and a purple - I went for the first ones I came to in my paint draw - Vallejo Basic Flesh and Scale Color Sunset Purple.

I mix my paints with a few drops of water then a drop each of Vallejo Thinner, Glaze Medium and Matte Medium until that desirable milky consistency that people keep yammering on about.

Firstly I primed the miniature with Halfords grey primer then applied a single coat of Ordic Olive to all of the mini's skin. It doesn't matter if it's not an even layer and everything is completely green or not - this is just to get the basic tone in.

The next step is to mix up some of the red and green until you have a brown that is on the red side of brown. This is your initial shading tone and should also have maybe another drop of water added to make it a little looser. I then applied this murky tone to anywhere I thought shade might fall - under the chin, at the ankles below the trousers, insides of fingers and ears, folds on the torso etc.

This doesn't have to be neat, as you can tidy up any areas you think you've overshaded later with some glazing of the mid tone.

The next step looks at the highlights. I started off with Deck Tan on the palette and added green a little at a time until I had what was basically a green tinted cream shade. I didn't quite dry brush this on, but I applied it with more care than I applied the shade. Areas that got hit were the tops of the ears, the upper angles on the face (lips, nose, eyebrows), toes, arms, the fingers and hand that are upwards towards the light.

Once you have your highlights and shade in place, you can look over the model to see where more of either are required, or to see where your mid tone has vanished entirely. At this point the glazing starts, washing the Ordic Olive back over areas of highlight and shade until you are happy. You can take the highlight up to pure Deck Tan and the shade to pure Sanguine Base if you want to for increased contrast.

It was at this point that I was initially tempted to stop as the little guy had taken maybe 45 minutes by then which was on the way to being record time (as I was painting the base and taking photos for you lot as well), but I was told that I should throw some extra glazes on his face to really make it pop.

I added some flesh tones instead of deck tan to the green that was added to his lip, nose and eyebrow to give it a little more warmth and glazed in some purple under his chin, under his eyeball, the lower parts of his inner ears and also on his upper cheek below the angle.

Slightly washed out picture - sorry!

That's the skin tone done! It was really simple and quick to get together, which is great as he's the first greenskin I've painted up in probably over 5 years. I can't remember which blue exactly I used on his jacket and hat/patch but the trousers were based in Scale Color Peanut Butter (as is his eye with a black pupil) before being shaded with one of the browns I had on the palette from painting the base. The same goes for the club - I just went for tones I was already playing with to keep the continuity between model and base.

Unfortunately the photos are still a little too bright and washed out, but it does serve to show off the contrast on the skin nicely.

He was a nice quick model to paint being so small, which really helps boost the mojo.

Oh, and if you missed the link on our facebook page, the ArcWorlde: Troubles in the North expansion from Warploque went live on Kickstarter last night and has already started working on cracking into the stretch goals!