Rattsu's Horde [merger of 4 threads], Now with painting guide...

Since I lack a digital camera, I took to scanning some of my rat hordes instead.

The results were varied, but most of the time fairly decent.

I need to find a better hosting site though.....


MUTATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are still functioning photos towards the end of this thread. I will upload them again once I get them back from my older computer.

Well, I have switched my pic-server as the old one will soon be closed down due to various reasons. That means that I have renamed all the pics so you still can see them. Also I've merged the three topics into a single one, to make viewing it easier *smiles*

Speedpainting your Skaven army!

Well, let it first be said that I am lazy. I play far too many games, and have more miniatures than I will ever be able to paint. I also tends to be drawn to the horde armies, which means I have to paint a shitload of guardsmen, tyranids or rats in order to have even a moderately sized army. At the same time I detest unpainted miniatures. Not many people play with that in my group (usually just when starting out with a new army) and it just looks so much better when you have nice looking terrain and painted miniatures. In my gaming group there's everything from a former golden demon winner to a guy who is colour blind and has to go by the names on the paintpots to get it right. So, I'm not the best painter out there. However, I am by far the fastest, and I think I'm doing a decent job on having a nice gaming army.

These tips and advice are not for painting exhibition miniatures. I rarely have the patience for that. These tips are for getting your army done, quickly and looking as good as possible at the same time. I tend to favour the inked, dirty and ratty look of miniatures. I detests blacklining, highlighting until pure skull white and painting on dirt in neat little patterns. Yes, this means that I spend hours bitching on the paintwork of many of GW's miniatures.

So... with that said, this is how I painted my army:

General note on undercoating: I never undercoats plastic, and I used to use the smelly primer on the metals (rest in peace little paintpot). That is simply because I always felt that the sprayprimer didn't get the job done. But then again, I never had the practice with it. So, you can assume that everything is either not undercoated, or is undercoated white.

General notes on washes: The thing that enabled me to start speedpainting proper, was when a guy named Torbjörn at Flamman's spel (swedish gamestore) showed me the wonders of the Burnt Umber wash many, many years ago at a gaming convention. What is this? It is simply a tube of acrylic artists paint, preferably by the Winstor Newton brand. They have a really good pigmentation and can easily be found in artists supply stores (also a good source of brushes).

Look here for pictures and a place to order from

I've tried other brands, but while they most likely looked as good when painting normally, their pigment did not work as well when made into a wash. They seemed to separate and not flow properly over the miniature. On its own, the Burnt Umber wash is a bit too light. I darken it by adding a dab of Ivory Black (I use beckers, but that's a swedish brand), or in an emergency, chaos black. This gives the wash more definition.

How dark should it be? That's hard to tell. Not much paint is needed to make a good wash, and a tube of paint lasts forever. When washing rats who are brown and rather dark, I usually use quite a lot of black in the ink. It should look a bit like coffee, where you can not see through it, but it is still watery. If you are unsure, make it a bit lighter than you think you should use, because you can always add another wash later if it is too light. Also, unlike inks, they do not stain the mini quickly, so if it looks too dark, you can always add a drop of water with a brush, actually lightening it on the mini itself. I often do that when I wash miniatures that are both light and dark. For example, on my rats I make a dark wash over the entire miniature, then cleaning the brush and adding a bit of water to the face of the rat, making the ink there a bit lighter. Saves a lot of time.

I guess that the Burnt Umber wash could be improvised by using a chaos black/bestial brown mix and adding water. However, I have not really tried it, and would use it as a last resort.

How about GW Inks then? I rarely use them, except to make nice effects. On my rats, this usually includes using chestnut and orange to make rust stains, and a mix of blue/green to get a shine on my warpstone.

So, now that the basics are explained, I'll get right down to details:

Quick Clanrats

I wanted my clanrats to be pale, varied and havind dirty fur. I thought that brown furs would blend too much with the leathers, and give them a too warm look. In the end picked codex grey, which when washed with brown gives them a natural dirty look (I copied one of the rats I owned at the time)

Paint the model codex grey. Yes, this does not have to be neat, just make sure that you get most of the fur. It looks exactly the same as the plastic, so sometimes it is hard to tell.

Paint the rest of the minature in block colours, using a mixture of different browns. I used beastial brown for some leathers, and snakebit leather for others to get a varied look. But any of the lighter browns could be used. The cowls and cloth was painted with rotting flesh, as i wanted it to look like aged wool and linen. I also painted the weapons and rivets a basic chainmail, and the shafts of the spears in scorched brown. I always use dark spear shafts. This makes them look thinner. Just look at the GW high elves, they look like their spears are inflatable with that little lining around the hand. Don't worry about being overly neat here. Skaven are not neat creatures, and a bit of brown on the fur, or a bit of grey at the armour will not show afterwards. The only thing you should be careful with is the metal.

Then paint the skin parts with elf flesh, with a hint of codex grey mixed in it. That removes the pink tint from the skin colour. I was quite sloppy with this, making sure that the edges between fur and skin was blurred and uneven, as I can't imagine the skaven having neatly shaved hairlines. This is especially true on the face, where the skin parts would be the ears, a short stream up the ridge of the nose, around the eyes and lips

Once I have a group of rats done (I usually paint 6 at a time), I let the metal dry throughly while I prepare the burnt umber was as above. Once the wash is done (it should be fairly dark) I simply paint this over my entire skaven model. Yes, skin, cloth, weapons and so on. It unifies the model and saves me tons of time. I can be real sloppy painting the fur and clothes since skaven are not neat, and the greys and the browns blend together so well with the wash. If the wash is too dark, I lighten it with a brush with clean water on the face and hands.

When the ink is dry, I do a quick highlight on the skin parts, once again with an elf flesh/codex grey mix. The tips of the ears sometimes gets a pure elf flesh trim, and the tail is drybrushed with elf flesh/codex grey.

For a normal clanrat, this is what I do. Nothing more. The leather looks nice after just the wash, and the fur is a nice dirty grey/brown. I then paint glue on the base and dips it in gravel stolen from the local sandbox. When that is dry I paint it black, brushes it with greys and browns until I like the look. A bit of static grass is added as well. Since the brush of the base is so similar to the colour of the skaven feet, I don't have to be too neat there either.

Stormvermin

They were undercoated, then the whole miniature was painted black. A black undercoat would solve that problem...

The armour and weapons were painted boltgun metal. Once this was done and the metal paint completely dry, they were given a very dark wash of pure Ivory Black.

When this had dried, the armour was given a light drybrush of chainmail, and then chestnut and orange ink was added in blotches to simulate rust. Do this mainly on the joints, and where you think rust should collect.

After this, the fur is painted black again, and the skin and leather parts were painted as the clanrats above. A burnt umber wash was done, excluding the armour this time. it doesn't matter if some get on it though.

Once this was done, the skin was highlighted as normal, and the edges of the armour and weapons were picked out with rough, uneven lines of mithril silver to simulate metal having been sharpened and chipped away by blows.

Skryre troops & Warpstone

Here the robes were painted in snakebite leathers to simulate leather protective robes. The warpstone was painted as follows:

I used scaly green as a base, highlighting with hawk turquoise up to pure skull white. On the globes I did this in swirly marble patterns, and on the warplightning cannon, I followed the jagged jewel like edges. Afterwards a thin glaze of blue/green ink was added to unify it. They will be cloated in clear gloss eventually...

Plaguemonks

They were painted exactly like the clanrats, except the robes:

They were painted in a mix of cammo green, rotting flesh and snakebite leather. These colours were simply painted on in blotches, not waiting for them to dry, so that the different colours mixed together where they were wet. I wanted a splashy and erratic look on them, as if they were covered with molds and other nastier things. After the ink, some of the folds got a light highlight if needed.

The boils were painted with a bit of purple in the skin colour.

Rat Ogres

Well, I didn't paint these, but me and my friend use very similar ways of painting stuff (he's the master of metal though). So here goes:

First the metal parts were painted, exactly like the stormvermin above. Boltgun, wash, then drybrush and rust.

The skin was then painted with a mix of snakebite leather/rotting flesh. The fur is a very dark grey/chaos black mix. At this time the leather loinclothes were painted snakebite leather, and any straps picked out in bestial brown or spearstaff brown for rope. The tongues were a basic dark red and the bandages skull white. Once this was dry, the whole miniature was given a skaven burnt umber was like above.

The fur was drybrushed lightly with codex grey. The skin was then highlighted in layers, in different layers of snakebite leather / rotting flesh and elf flesh / codex grey. This was painted on like a highlight, leaving the darker colours in the shadows, and trying to get a varied look on the skin. The picture really doesn't do them justice, it looks very natural and nice up close. The noses were almost pure elf flesh, with a hint of red added to get that raw and abusd look. Afterwards the thinnest glaze of burnt umber was applied where needed.

The tips of the armour were picked out with mithril like with the stormvermin, the tongue was highlighted with red gore and a thin red ink was applied over the tongue and mouth proper. Once that was dry, the teeth were picked out in bleached bone, and a small brown wash made them look weathered and dirty. The front teeth got thin lines of rotting flesh fron the tips upwards in lines to make them look sharper.

The bandages were touched up with thin skull white, leaving much of the dirty look. Once the white was dry, the blood was painted. This was done by wetting the white surface lightly, then applying blobs of red gore that spread through the water. A hint of red ink to neaten things and they were done. A pale burnt umber wash toned them down a bit.

The eyes were picked out with black, then a tiny dot of white which was then painted red.



Any other questions?

Just ask and I'll try to answer.


Rattsu
Rattsu's back
One Eye
One Eye's back
Kwikk
More Kwikk
Stormvermin
Stormvermin from another angle
Stormvermin from yet another angle
first Clanrat regiment
first Clanrat regiment from another angle
second Clanrat regiment
third Clanrat regiment
third Clanrat regiment from another angle
Slaves
Slaves from another angle
Skwee on screaming bell
more Skwee on screaming bell
Closeup of the Bell
Closeup of the Bell from behind - With green stuff rats!
My first skaven model
Stirrvin the master moulder
Giant Rats
Ratswarms
Ittchi back
Ittchi front
Shadowrunners
Tunnelers
more Tunnelers
Gutterrunners
Poison Wind Globardiers
Scanned Globardier
Jezzails
Molltov the warlock engineer
Ratlingguns
Warpfirethrowers
Warplightningcannon
More of the Warplightningcannon
Tessla
More Tessla
Book-Rat the plaguepriest
Book-Rat scanned
Plague Censer bearers
Plaguemonk banner - scanned
Plaguemonk musician- scanned
Plaguemonk unit
Yellowbelli (I need a better name)
More Yellowbelli
Even more of Yellowbelli and his scratch built rat
Silverfur the breeder
Silverfur again
more Silverfur


Ratogres painted by my friend Warbastard in exchange for some conversions:
Rat Ogres
more Rat Ogres
even more Rat Ogres

there should be a rule against people who are WAY better than me at virtually everything... Damn those're awesome... and the stormvermin pics gave me 404 errors (file not found)

Well, still uploading some of the pics. perhaps they weren't finished yet. Give it a few minutes...

*sees new pics and drools*
mwaaahhhh....
Damn. I need to... to... learn how to paint. or something. because this is too much quality for one army.

Those are amazingly good. I have never seen an army with such skill put into every model. You must enter into a Golden Daemon.

Also, what colour did you use for your skin? It looks very nice.

*laughs* NOOOO way.

I don't paint neat. I abhor neatless. Thus I never have the detail work needed for something like the golden demon.

But thanks anyway *grins*

The skin is elf flesh, with a hint of grey (or blue/grey) in it to take out the pinkish peachy colour and make it dirty. The same trick can be used for stubble on humans... The wash is a windsor newton burnt umber/ivory black wash.

In fact, I use that wash over the entire model, armour, cloth and all. I just paint in the block colours, then wash, then highlight. It's quick and easy.

WOW! Those are nice, and much better than anything I can do! Well done, your general looks absolutely awesome!

heehee youre slaves are like mine, they have pointy sticks...

I just love that *grins*

I mean, who would issue them with sharp shiny weapons? Besides, the sticks make them look so wonderfully pathetic.

I just wish I had the cash to get more slaves....

A very nice army Rattsu!

Wow. I'm sooooo impressed with them! It almost makes me want to finish off my army! Almost.......

Seriously, I made the mistake of buying loads of models before I began painting them. As such I was always playing catch up, because just as I painted one unit GW released lots more nice models which I just had to get! Plus I have a HUGE Tyranid army for 40K which gets most of my free painting time. And the Necrons of course. Plus my Grey Knights and Inquisitor's force............

Fancy painting up my remaining Skaven in your free time? I'm sure you have lots of it after all...... ~runs for cover~

I buy way more than I paint. Only around like 30% of my minis are FULLY painted, though 95% are started. For 8 years i didnt actually like painting, so accumulated a huge amount of warhammer, all unpainted, but this last year Ive done nothing but paint!

Rattsu, impressive. Love the blueishness of them.

I just had a great idea- we buy Nilax (when he gets back) a plane ticket. He flies over to battle you. It would make a wonderful battle report- two beautiful skaven armies matched up against each other.

Anyway the models are amazing Rattsu, you should be proud!

Thank you *grins*.

But hey, you could buy me the plane ticket instead, because then I might just drop in on my boyfriend while I'm over there... *grins some more*

But yeah. Nilax army rocks. His plague pries is something I can never, ever match. I'm just a speed painter at heart.