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The last miniature painted in January, but not quite the last of my January Catch-up! (Yes, I’m conscious we’re nearly halfway through February)

After painting up all those skeletons earlier in the month, I needed something to lead them. I’d had one of the heroes from Cursed City sitting on my shelf for a while, intending to use it as a Necromancer in the bigger Soulblight army, so it seemed a natural choice.

Apart from the mask/gold trim and the staff, everything was painted with a Contrast Paint or equivalent, over a zenithal primer + white drybrush starting point. I wanted a fairly “classic” feel, so I stuck to the pallete of purple (Arcane Purple), blue (Ultramarines Blue), and red (Life Red), which were all over 4th Edition Undead armies. Most areas are unhighlighted, but those that were were done by mixing Ivory into the original starting colour.

For something that took less than an hour to paint, I’m really happy with how this turned out!

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I finally got around to painting the “Oldhammer” plastic skeletons from the 1990’s, which I bought in the lead up to the Soulblight Grave Lords release. Colour me disappointed when the new edition of Age of Sigmar removed the chance to build massive units of skeletons!

Nevertheless, it would be a shame to let these guys never see the light of day just because of some rules. Given the size of the batch I needed to keep the painting process as easy as possible if I wasn’t going to go insane!

The skeletons were primed with Trench Brown from Colour Forge. I’ve become a big fan of the Colour Forge spray primers – they have good coverage, are reliable, and have several which colour match to GW colours well. From there, I airbrushed on Vallejo Bone White from slightly above, leaving some brown in the recesses. Spears and any armour pieces were painted black, and their tips/plates drybrushed with Gun Metal from Coat D’Arms. Any bindings or straps were picked out with Rhinox Hide. From here, the entire model was given a thin wash with a mix of brown and green oil paints (Burnt Umber and Sap Green, if I remember rightly).

The shields started from a black primer, with the icons kept separate at first. The trimand icons were painted with Decayed Metal, and the backs drybrushed with Wood. The shields faces were tidied up with Coal Black, and the icons glued in place. The trim and icons were given a wash of Turquoise Light oil paint, with dabs of thicker oil paint to provide variation.

Bases were painted Dark Teal, washed with Dark Kraken, and lightly drybrushed with Ionrach Skin. The rims were painted with Midnight Blue.

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I really hated painting the newer-but-just-replaced Skeleton Warriors (the ones from the previous Start Collecting! set), so I had an urge to get hold of the older kit from 1994ish. These are obviously much simpler, with no spindly rags and kibble adorning them, so should be much simpler to paint. I’ve managed to get hold of 40, all-told, so can bulk out my shambling undead hordes quite substantially.

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I’ll be honest, I hated painting these, but they’d been sitting on the shelf for so long I couldn’t put it off any longer.

Mostly simple basecoats, then oils and enamel washes to hide my lack of entusiasm and make them look semi-interesting.

Pretty much the only thing I found fun to do was the basing – I went with what I imagined a land lit only by the moon might look like, so it’s lots of blue/green tones: Instar Dark Teal, washed with Dark Reaper, drybrushed with Ionrach Flesh, and then the rim painted with Instar Midnight Blue.

I’ve got another 20 of these to build and paint and I’m really not looking forward to it. I think my hopes of having the beginnings of an army ready for the Soulblight Gravelords release just took a major hit.