Skaven heros?

 These guys were a lot of fun to paint I'd been looking forward to starting on them a couple of weeks before I'd finished the knights. You can't deny the quality of modern sculpts but the character that comes across in the older ones can't be beaten. So here they are Gnawdoom the grayseer and Throt the unclean of clan Moulder now also the star of a total war game.

I painted up Gnawdoom first as I was excited to try out some osl on his orb. Coming up with a colour scheme wasn't easy requiring many Google searches with mostly variations of cream, blue or gray being found none of which really appealed to me. I knew the orb had to be a warpstone green so went with the classic Christmas combo of red and green with a purple hood because I seem to paint everything purple lately. 

He was looking good but that wasn't going to cut it so he was made a little more fancy and alot more Warhammery with the addition of black and white checks. I also gave everything a covering of seraphim sepia while painting to try and bring in a bit more character and interest. I don't know if it worked but while I was painting Thanquol and Boneripper I used athonian camoshade on the metals rather than nuln oil or earth shade and I really liked that effect so it was worth a try.

For the orb I picked out some greens then slapped them on randomly until I got something I liked then added washes and more paint. In the begining I had plans of doing some great osl with a nice fade and bright highlights closer to the orb and on his chin to make him look sinister and powerful. This seemed quite difficult I had no confidence in my ability to pull it off and coupled with my fear of making a mess of a mini I was happy with I decided to rethink things. It was then I spotted the bottle of ak clear green. After a quick test on another mini I started adding layers of it onto Gnawdoom getting closer to the ord with each layer. Took about five minutes and it looks fine definitely a compromise I can live with.

The only problem I had was with how glossy the green was. I gave the mini two blasts with army painter Matt varnish but it was still very glossy although I may have over done the first coat. I ended up going over the green with some contrast medium which helped then over the ord again with some Ard coat making it look fancy and helping to blend all those greens together. My only complaint is that the horns are still a little glossy although the green never made it up that far that's why I think the first coat of varnish went on to thick. Love the mini and possibly my favourite paint job to date.

Throt was a fairly straightforward mini to paint first I coated him in a dark metallic then covered that with some watered down dirty down rust. Once that was done I put him aside for a few days while I painted Gnawdoom. When I got back to him it was really just a case of picking out all the non metal parts using some sepia here and there to keep him tied to his grayseer. The cape got purple and green, I used army painter air gnome cheeks triad for the flesh and his thing catcher was given a coat of wild wood with some kind of brown dry brushed over. It's worth mentioning at this point that I am doing significantly better with my dry brushing no idea why but it used to be my painting nemesis. 

The metals got a tidy up with the base colour and a wash in the recesses to bring some more interest to the mini as it was looking a little mono chrome for a while. I tried out some of the two thin coats paint for his swords bone handle. I wasn't sure about it at first as it was a little thick for my liking but after being on the wet pallet for a minute it was fine. I think the quality is there but the bottles are smaller than normal and on the expensive side not sure if I'll get anymore although I may replace my citadel paints with them when they run out. 

The only other interesting part was his warpstone charm eye. I tried a few things at first painting it like Gnawdoom's orb then putting more yellows and washes on. In the end I painted it a bright metallic and coated it the an old technical paint waystone green. This then got some green wash round the outside and metal highlights in the middle.

Both the rats were quick paint jobs but incredibly fun and satisfying to do. Both have rightfully earned a place in my display cabinet and given me the urge to buy more Skaven. Sadly time and money won't allow for such things and my painting pile is big enough already. There was a third mini I was painting up at the same time but to say he wasn't coming together is an understatement. Nothing I tried was working out so he's been set aside while I work on bigger and better things. Now I'm off to stare longingly at Skaven on eBay.

Thanks for reading.