How would you paint Skeletons?

[Ferevendír]

Hello. I was wondering how GamesWorkshop painted their TombKings Skeletons, and here\'s the scheme:

Undercoat black
Basecoat Bestial Brown
Highlight with SnakeBite Leather
Highlight with Bronzed Flesh
Highlight with Bleached bone
And the last highlight with Skull White.
Then they inked the recesses using a mix of Brown ink and Chestnut ink.

Now, the thing is, wouldn\'t this take a long time. How would you paint TK Skeletons?

 

[Tuubje]

I try to paint em real fast, but still try to maintain tabletop quality. So here\'s what I do.

-Line the unit up and paint one stage, then take another skeleton paint same stage etc...
-undercoat white (I am a victim of the cult of white primer)
-Everything bone gets a wash of thinned scorched brown.
-drybrush with leather
-drybrush with bone colour
-drybrush white (just a tad, not too much, I like my skeletons dirty)
-do the details

All this takes about 20 minutes to complete a skeleton, sometimes longer, it depends on the details. (sometimes faster if I rush things)

 

[Ferevendír]

Originally posted by Tuubje
I try to paint em real fast, but still try to maintain tabletop quality. So here\'s what I do.

-Line the unit up and paint one stage, then take another skeleton paint same stage etc...
-undercoat white (I am a victim of the cult of white primer)
-Everything bone gets a wash of thinned scorched brown.
-drybrush with leather
-drybrush with bone colour
-drybrush white (just a tad, not too much, I like my skeletons dirty)
-do the details

All this takes about 20 minutes to complete a skeleton, sometimes longer, it depends on the details. (sometimes faster if I rush things)

I think I\'ll go with the GW scheme, although i won\'t do the inking.

 

[freakinacage]

i haven\'t painted any undead for a while but i bought my cousin some tk for his birthday on friday and i\'ll tell you what i told him. white undercoat, chestnut or brown wash (its up to you but i\'d use brown - it looks dirtier) drybrush/highlight (depends on your style) vomit brown, d/h bleached bone, d/h skull white and then do the details

 

[frenchkid]

Yeah my 100th post :bouncy::bouncy:
I have a feling that this postis never going to end. Each time I have asked this question I have gotten a different answer. If you go to the paintingclinic.com ( yes I know I mention this site a lote but it has tones of usfull articles that helped me a lot when I started) they are about 6 different articles on painting skeletons. And if you want to paint skeletons to GD standards you should look at the abbadon article in the article section ( duh!!). I think I\'m going to start a TK army because they look so cool, and I love egyptian civilisation , so I guesse I\'m going to have to find my own way to paint skeletons. My advice would be to experiment your self because the color you want your skeletons to be might not be the one that other people like.

 

[dave3555]

Gw actually used the method for the skelletons that is detailed in the khemri armies book. Over a white undercoat they did the following:

Use a controlled wash of brown ink - thined with a couple of parts water.

Highlight by blending (not drybrushing as stated in the armies book) in bleached bone.

Add further highlights by adding white to the bleached bone and fianl highlights with pure white.

Hope this helps

Dave

 

[Flashman14]

Sometimes I think the \'Eavy Metal team is asked to use as many GW paints as possible - such that to recreate what they did you need to buy every one listed.

Just a thought . . .

Personally I really like what Rackham has done with their Morbid Puppets:

or here if the image isn\'t working (how DO you get those to work??):

http://www.rackham-store.com/boutique_us/fiche_produit.cfm?type=16&ref=MVRG_0803&code_lg=lg_us&pag=2&num=3

Believe me - the bone isn\'t 17 different colors - looks more like 2-3 blended together very well.

There\'s as many different responses becasue there are as many different ways of doing it that work. You can do the \"fresh from the grave\" look or the polished bone like Rackham does or even a sunbleached stlye that I see out there on occasion . . .

 

[mouse]

congrats FrenchKid!!

A warm round of applause for Frenchkid\'s 100th posting and more to come!!!

Yahooooo!!!

Ferevendír, check out the masterclass on WD issue 278..hmmm...or is it 279....

Anyways, there are several ways to paint skeleton...even TK skeleton. Do you have GW\'s army book on TombKing?

Try out various way of doing it.

It can have a dirty look (like its just out of the earth), a bone picked clean look, a wash out bony look and many more.

The various look will determine how you get it painted.

The basecoat of skeletons are normally black but i had tried it with white basecoat and the recesses are basically washed with ink or watered down paint. It also works beautifully and its fast cos the bones are already painted that way (PS: that\'s for pple who need to raise an army fast enuh)

 

[DELTADOG]

hmm I haven`t paint a undead army yet, but tons of skeletons for my dioramas. A final way to paint them equal I haven`t find yet.The Problem with skeletons is that the bonecolor should fit to the rest. A normal undead skelett with normal Metalarmour and leatherparts looks best when started with black, and should not highligthed too much because the bone of this skeleton had couching in a climatic situation like middle europe. A Kemri skelett I would paint starting with brown and highlight to pure white. the brown fits better to the Kemri weapon and armourstyle. Highlighting them to pure white looks natural, because the bones had underlie a strong sunlight this will bleach bones quiet more.

 

[supervike]

congrats on the 100th!

Way to go Frenchkid! It sure didn\'t take long for you to get to 100+!

 

[frenchkid]

Originally posted by supervike
Way to go Frenchkid! It sure didn\'t take long for you to get to 100+!

Hummm wonder if I\'m the fastest guy to reach 100 .How long did it take all of you to reach 100??

 

[Chrispy]

Oh, 5 seconds..

Actually, I remember the days when there was aonly about 5 posts in the Painting & Conversions forum.. that\'s how old I am!

Anyhoo, Ilike to add a bit of green to my skeletons for a more morbid look. Not too much, just a bit of Rotting Flesh when highlighting. As for seletons being dirty, the older they are, the more stuff has been eaten and decomposed off of them, and ground is usually moist (not around here, though..) so using a bit of white for a final highlight is recoomended. Even in the desert, a bit of white gives a wind polished/sun bleached look.

In the old days I simply primed white, added my skeleton ink (careful mix of brown/black, makes rib cages and joints look brownish, but makes eyes and teeth look more defined) and then just drybrushed bleached bone and white. It\'s really effective for tabletop, but I wouldn\'t go to the GD\'s with it....

 

[freakinacage]

well done frenchkid on the 100. sorry i haven\'t said congrats sooner.

chrispy - what do you get when you reach 1000?

 

[Chrispy]

Posting Freak, which I am already.... Also, if you browse back all the way, I have some of the first posts on this fourm!

 

[laurence]

Congrats

Way to go Frenchkid, Happy 100 posts ...
@ Ferevendir, Generally speaking skeletons begin with a undercoat of white primer a wash of brown ink and a basecoat of brown paint eg: Snakebite leather. Then the highlighting begins >> Add more and more bleached bone to your base color until you reach pure bleached bone and then add more and more white to the bleached bone till you get it as light as you want it. Highlight vertically along the length of the bone and gradually get lighter as you get closer to the edges. I hope this makes sense...

 

[Glaurung]

Well I paint skeletons for my Tomb Kings army this way. I undercoat them black. Then I paint a basecoat of scorched brown and highlight this with 50/50 mix of snakebite leather and scorched brown. Next highlights of snakebite leather, 50/50 SL and bleached bone and finally a highlight of bleached bone. You can find pics of my skeletons here http://www.pbase.com/glaurung/tomb_kings... By the way, this is my first post on these forums

 

[Flashman14]

wow . . that\'s really neat effect Glaurung. It\'s best seen on the horses - that\'s a look that\'s more like the \"fresh from the grave\" school . . but I like it . . . damn we\'re really spoiled for options aren\'t we?

 

[Flashman14]

Glaunrung - these really kick some @$$ . . . post\'em properly - I think they are better than your current postings (no offense!)
Especially the catapult - what\'s the bone recipe on that one?

 

[dauber22]

Glaurung

I agree with Flashman. You should definately post those here on CMON! Very, very nice skeletons. I find most skellies incredibly boring, but I really like the \"just arrisen\", covered with the dirt and mold of centuries look of these guys.

 

[Sand Rat]

Skeletons

I go for a down and dirty look - prime (once it was grey now its black) - ivory then washes of burnt sienna followed by black.