Five Armies, Twelve Days - Part 2

   The Battle of Five Armies challenge is off to a fierce start! Yesterday I finished my first batch of goblin warriors, and today I've finished my second. That's 8 sprues, or 24 stands out of 120+!

   When I first starting painting 10mm Warmaster-scale figures, long ago, I used the same techniques I had always used for 28mm figures. After hours of work I realized that all the extra highlighting I had done was only visible when I held the figure up to my nose. Once you put the stand of figures on the tabletop the finer details disappear.

   This was an important lesson for me. 10mm gaming is not about the individual models, it's about the massed spectacle of huge armies marching off to war. You can kill yourself trying to super-noodle individual figures, but the real secret is to go for clean, simple blocking, and a wash to tie it all together.

   Using Army Painter shades and colours this is what I am doing with my BotFA figures... (apologies for these poor quality snapshots).

Step 1: primer

 
   First step is chose a colour to prime the figure. My logic here is pick something bright, and will allow me to work from the inside out. Bright because the shade will darken everything once it dries, and inside out because, at this fiddly size, it's next to impossible to paint in between details without messing up your work.

   My primer choice for the goblin infantry was, of course, Goblin Green.

Step 2: metal bits

   Step two follows the working from inside to out pattern. Next up I paint helmets, chainmail and spear and axe heads. Again I have chosen a very bright colour as I want the figure details to be visible in normal room light, and the shade will darken everything.

Step 3: red clothing and shields

   Each of the armies in BotFA has a strong, unifying colour to separate it from the others. In the case of the goblins that colour is red. So, at this stage, I paint the shields and clothing a bright red. This is by far the most time consuming step. I could have chosen a red base spray instead of green. That might have saved me some time, but I shudder when I think about trying to paint all those little goblin arms and legs green. I think I made the right call.

   As a side note, red is a notoriously poor colour when it comes to covering other colours. Normally several coats are needed, to get an even finish. As these are goblins, however, I find the unevenness actually adds to the overall rag-tag look of the models.

Step 4: little details

   Step four is the trickiest part, as I use a light tan colour to paint the belts, weapon handles and leggings of the little goblins. Patience is the key... there's no fast way to do this. Well, there is, I've used the same colour for all three things. It looks fine, and speeds up the process.

Step 5: Give it a wash

   Up until now the figures have looked blocky and comically bright. But now we apply the shade, in this case Army Painter Dark Tone. This darkens the recesses, softens the edges, and brings out the little details like faces and armour.

   So this is the technique I am using on my goblin figures. There are sixteen sprues like the one pictured above, and, as I said, I'm half-way through them. The goblin infantry makes up the single largest number of models in the game, so I am focusing on these first to break the back of this project.

   I'll be back tomorrow with another update, and I'll try to see if I can get a decent photo of a finished stand, to give you an idea of what it looks like when it's done.

See you tomorrow!
-Andrew