Kingdom Death: Painting the Great Game Hunter Pt. 1
Let’s get one of these Kingdom Death Pinups painted up. Grab your paintbrushes and follow along.
With 8 pinups to choose from it took a bit of thinking to decide which to paint first. The Great Game Hunter has always been one of my favorites. There’s something about her outfit in particular that put her in the lead over the two runner-ups: the Twilight Knight and Forsaker.
After giving her a basecoat of tamiya fine surface primer, I start on the flesh with P3’s Beast Hide. All the colors I’ll be using in this article are formula P3. I begin adding highlights by blending some Menoth White Highlight in with the Beast Hide. I follow along with the same steps on Crossbow Boy.
For what it’s worth, it would be quite easy to make our hunter here more modest just by painting her legs with something other than a flesh tone. I’ve done this before, specifically with an Infinity Reverend Moira who I just couldn’t imagine going out on the battlefield with her butt hanging out of a thong. Instead she wears blue tights. But this is a pinup, so what the hey, let’s get a lil’ saucy.
Next I add some shading with Idrian Flesh. In a few places where I want some darker shadows, I use a mix of Umbral Umber and Beaten Purple.
I add a little eye shadow by mixing some Gnarls Green with a little Beast Hide. The eyes themselves get a coat of black. Usually with eyes I try a coat of black first. If you paint the white carefully over the black, it will leave an outline that defines them. The lips are painted with some Skorne Red.
I wasn’t able to get the eyes done just right, so I’ll have to try to carefully paint in a black outline next. I highlight the eyeshadow by mixing some Menoth White Highlight in with it. More definition is added by blending some Exile Blue in at the highest point of the eye socket’s arch. If you noticed Crossbow Boy has gone missing, it’s because I transferred our girl here to something smaller and easier to hold onto. Having both models on the base seemed like a good idea, but it was too big and unwieldy. Now they’ll be painted separately.
The eyes get their blacklining, but I was unable to completely keep it completely within the lines. It was necessary to clean it up with the Beast Hide/Menoth White Highlight mix. Of course even then I couldn’t let it completely be. If you compare this shot to the intro shot, you’ll see that there were a few more corrections made over the course of painting this model. Freaking eyes man, they just never get any easier.
I’m not sure what made me decide to do the hair this way but I’m pleased at how it came out. I started with a base of the same pale green I use for my undead flesh: a mix of Menothe White Highlight and Gnarls Green. It just wasn’t enough, so I wet blended the green into a mix of Beaten Purple and Frostbite.
The next step was to add the shading. I used my Umbral Umber/Beaten Purple mix as a shade tone throughout. I used thin watered-down glazes of the color so as to keep the need for wet blending to a minimum, although it was necessary in a few places. I also added highlights in a few places by adding some Menoth White Highlight. Once I was satisfied with the hair I moved on to the cloak, which was painted with a mix of Beaten Purple and Gnarls Green.
While the base coat is still wet I start blending in some highlights adding increasing amounts of Frostbite to the basecoat.
I blend a little pure Gnarls Green into the midtones and some pure Beaten Purple into the shadows as I even everything out.
Here’s the back.
Eventually I decide it’s just not quite green enough and give it a thinned down wash of green ink. While I thought I was finished with it at this point, I found I couldn’t resist going back in to tweak it just a little bit more later on. There will be another picture of it from behind in the next article so make sure to check it out.
With the cloak completed I move on to her greaves. I decided to go for a greenish bronze to compliment the green cloak. Since I’m not matching her to any existing army, I try something new and start the bronze with a basecoat of Cryx Bane Base.
~ Check back soon to see how I finish her up.
