Hordes: Painting the Sacral Vault Part 3
Alright, let’s finish up the old gal. I know this is part 3 but there’s still so much to be done. Grab a brush and follow along.
Let’s work out these albino gators now. They each got a slightly different base coat. For the one on the left it was Thrall Flesh with a little bit of Ordic Olive mixed in. For the one on the right it was nice simple out of the pot Underbelly Blue. As for why they look like they just finished a color run, well, this is just another one of those times when I think it’s important to cram as much color in as possible. Sure most of it will be covered up as we do more drybrushing, but I feel like something like this will yield better results than a single color basecoat.
It’s already time to start painting over that color. I give them a wash of Nuln Oil with a little Guilliman Blue mixed in. If I had it to do over again I would have watered it down a lot more. It looked about right at this stage, but as I drybrushed lighter colors over it it started to get a little darker than I wanted.
The first layer of drybrushing is done with the initial base colors ie, Underbelly Blue and the Thrall/Ordic mix.
The next drybrushing step is Menoth White Highlight.
Then for the last step I do some Ink shading, just like with the gator priest in the last article. Only this time I use Nuln Oil rather than Agrax Earth. They’re not the most beautiful things I’ve ever painted, but the results are successful. Like I said at the start, I’m only really going for high tabletop quality here. Not trying to win any contests with these guys.
This guy on the other hand is trying very hard to win the the world’s deadest man contest. I start him off with a nice exsanguinated mix of Ryn Flesh and Frostbite.
I shade this with Great Coat Gray.
And some more Great Coat Gray. I also add some Menoth White Highlight. As a highlight.
The pants are Gun Corps Brown shaded with an Exile Blue/Umbral Umber mix, and highlighted with more of that sweet sweet Menoth White Highlight. The belt is Thamar Black highlighted with Umbral Umber and Ryn Flesh. The ropes are the same formula I’ve been using for ropes this whole time: Sanguine Base highlighted up to Sanguine Highlight with some Sulfuric Yellow mixed in for a final highlight step. Alright, enough of this dead guy.
I already drybrushed some skulls in part 1, but here’s the simple version if you don’t feel like clicking back: wash a Menoth White Base basecoat with Agrax Earth, then drybrush with Menoth White Highlight. The candles are another color scheme I’ve used several ties throughout the course of this article. Usually you see white, or even red candles, but both of those colors are well represented on this model. So I went back to the Black>Coal Black>Underbelly Blue highlight scheme I used on gator claws and leering stone faces.
Then once again I used a little too much Nuln Oil to wash them. Washes are a great way to even out imperfect blending, but I didn’t thin the wash and lost a lot of detail. Take it from me. Always thin your washes when necessary.
Now I just have to repeat that last step on all the candles. All of them. So many candles. Seriously that’s a ridiculous amount of candles. After the candles themselves are done, the flames have to be painted. Khador Red (it’s more of an orange really) Highlight is painted on the whole top of the candle. A bit of Cygnar Yellow is painted in the very center, then the tip of the flame gets more of the Khador Red Highlight.
Then there’s the base of course. Given how much of it would be inaccessible to painting once the Vault was glued on, I definitely wanted to paint the whole base first. You can see the ruts of the wheels where I pressed them into greenstuff. There are also gatorman footprints in the back section for the two albinos pushing it, but those are harder to make out. Unfortunately, despite all my planning, all the separate pieces didn’t want to go where they were supposed to. The albinos both ended up with feet hovering in the air, and I had to build up footholds for them out of sand and super glue. One of the Albinos has a loose hand that should be glued to the Vault before you glue it to him. The hand fits perfectly over a set of vines, and when I glued it to the gatorman first, he ended up at a weird angle. Hopefully this will make sense if you actually have a Sacral Vault of your own and are looking at the pieces.
Anyway, here are some more angles now that we’re at the end of the journey.
It took just under two weeks, during which I worked regular hours at my day job, to get the project from start to finish. I might have finished it in a lot less time, but I was also working on Jaga Jaga, and the plastic Gatorman unit while I painted the Vault. Not a bad use of two weeks. Here they are again.
~And that’s it for the Sacral Vault. Hope you enjoyed the articles.
