Here's a quick tutorial on how I painted the Gecko Hunters for Plaid Hat Games' Aftermath. See here for more tutorials for Aftermath.
Recipe
Citadel Contrast Akhelian Green
Citadel Contrast Wyldwood
Citadel Contrast Aggaros Dunes
Citadel Contrast Gryph-Hound Orange
Citadel Contrast Militarum Green
Citadel Contrast Talassar Blue
Citadel Contrast Black Templar
Citadel Contrast Skeleton Horde
Citadel Contrast Dark Angels Green
Formula P3 Frostbite
Formula P3 Meredius Blue
Formula P3 Morrow White
Formula P3 Hammerfall Khaki
Formula P3 Menoth White Highlight
Formula P3 Inferno Orange
Formula P3 Heartfire
Formula P3 Bloodtracker Brown,
Formula P3 Bogrin Brown
Formula P3 Sulfuric Yellow
Formula P3 Bog Moss
Formula P3 Ironhull Grey
Formula P3 Arcane Blue
Formula P3 Underbelly Blue
Formula P3 Battlefield Brown
Green Stuff World Mojave Mudcrack
Method
To begin with I gave the geckos a light undercoat of Frostbite before washing with contrast paints to achieve my basecoat colours. The skin was washed with Akhelian Green, the cloak with Wyldwood, the wrappings Aggaros Dunes, and the daggers with Gryph-Hound Orange
Next I built up the skin colours, first I did a neat coat of Meredius Blue, before adding Morrow White to the mix and doing two more highlight coats. Each successive coat leaves a little more of the darker colour towards the recesses. The last highlight stage picks out some edges, like the eyebrows, lips, nostrils, toes and the edges of some of the muscle blocks.
Next I added in the wrappings using Hammerfall Khaki and then a simple edge highlight with a fine detail brush using Menoth White Highlight
Next were the eyes. I began with a base coat of Inferno Orange, creating the shape of the eye before adding a highlight of Heartfire which covered around 70% of the total surface. Then taking a fine detail brush I added a black vertical slit and a small amount of white for a reflection.
The cloak was done using Blood Tracker Brown. I begin by picking out all the flat surfaces, this leaves quite a divide between the shadows and the flats so I then add a layer of drybrushing using Bloodtracker Brown, this softens the shadows and helps tie the cape together more. I add in final edge highlights using Bogrin Brown.
For the daggers I begin by lining all the texture on the blades and handles with Heartfire. After that I mixed up a wash of Heartfire and Contrast Medium and wash the blades with it, using Gryph-Hound Orange for the handles. Once that is dry I pick out the texture again this time using Sulfuric Yellow before adding a final highlight of Menoth White Highlight on the blades and his claws.
The last stage is to add his spots. I did this using Akhelian Green, using a contrast paint means that the markings will be nice and flat, you are essentially just tinting the base colour. I wanted to create irregular shapes of different sizes. I used my fine detail brush and applied a small dot of paint to the skin, then pulled it out with the brush to form the shapes I wanted.
For the green version of the mini I followed very similar techniques as above with any differences noted below. I began with a base coat of Bog Moss and washed it with Militarum Green to pick out the detail and add shadows.
For the gun I washed the central section with Talassar Blue, the stock and the wrappings with Aggaros Dunes, and the muzzle with Black Templar. Then I blocked out the sight with a basecoat of Ironhull Grey. I then picked out the wrappings with Hammerfall Khaki followed by a highlight of Menoth White Highlight. The pattern on the gun was painted with Arcane Blue. For this I used a fine detail brush. For the pattern I basically painted the letter S to create a swirl-like effect
For the gun sight I highlighted it using Underbelly Blue, applied in straight lines along the edges of the sight and in a line across the top third as a reflection. I then added a line of Frostbite, followed by a line of Morrow White at the upper most edge of the reflection.
The skin was simply highlighted with Bog Moss
Before adding in the markings using Dark Angels Green as I did with the Blue version above.
For the camo versions of the cloaks I began by painting rough, random splotches in Hammerfall Khaki, followed by Bogrin Brown, then Bog Moss, leaving some of the basecoat showing through. Then I washed the whole cloak with Militarum Green and left it to dry.
Once dry I edge highlighted the folds with Hammerfall Khaki, then drybrushed with Hammerfall Khaki to blend the whole thing a bit more and then washed with Skeleton Horde to add back in some shade and bring down the highlights.
And that's how I painted the Geckos. I finished off by painting the bases with Battlefield Brown followed by Mojave Mudcrack.
For more painting tutorials for Aftermath check out this link. If you like these articles and want to see more please let me know down in the comments. Until next time, have fun painting.
The Duke