Krule, yeah, I wouldn't mind redoing it as a paler, grey wood... but this is already my second attempt at painting the base and with only a little time left before CB I decided to not mess with it anymore. Actually, if I could redo the entire figure, I'd paint the Saxon in warmer tones and the base in cooler ones. Right now the whole red-angry, blue-calm implication is working against me. That's a lesson I will have to keep in mind for future projects.
Thanks, BFK. Looking forward to seeing those new figures! As for the dirt, I wanted more of a dry arid look, so I switched up my colors. For the initial painting, I started with Reaper's basic dirt and then used Khaki (50/50 Basic Dirt with Khaki Shadow, then Terran Khaki into that, and at about 90/10 I started to mix in some Khaki Highlight). When I got to the pigments, I switched up those too. For the Saxon I was working with a dark red pigment (Violet), a dark brown (dark earth), a lighter brown (I forget which, but probably terracotta earth), and a yellow brown (yellow earth). It's a nice range and gives some good variation as I mix and match with the colors. For the knight I kept the yellow earth and terracotta earth, but added the some paler green browns (green earth and ancient earth). I also tossed a little bit of Burning Sands into the mix. These are all from Secret Weapon Miniatures, I've got their whole pigment line, but other companies like MiG produce stuff that is just as good. I go back and forth between colors and mix them together too, so the types of colors are more important than the specific ones.
You can compare the latest images of the knight with the ones on the previous page, but I attached a comparison of the ground from the two. Top is just the paint and the bottom is paint and then pigments. I also dabbed some blood (Tamiya Clear Red) onto the ground, just some drops/splatter here and there. It's hard to see in the pictures (I kept it subtle, figure it would soak into the ground) but you can catch a few drops midway between the horses legs and a little more than halfway from top to bottom. There's more by the ax too, but even I can't make it out in that photo.