Here's a quick tutorial on how I painted the boss Redeye Wyrd, for Aftermath. You can find tutorials for the other bosses as well as the heroes & minions here.
Recipe
Formula P3 - Ironhull Grey
Formula P3 - Morrow White
Formula P3 - Underbelly Blue
Formula P3 - Frostbite
Formula P3 - Bloodstone
Formula P3 - Jack Bone
Formula P3 - Carnal Pink
Formula P3 - Menoth White Highlight
Formula P3 - Khador Red Highlight
Formula P3 - Heartfire
Formula P3 - Bloodtracker Brown
Formula P3 - Bogrin Brown
Formula P3 - Sanguine Highlight
Citadel Contrast - Gore Grunta Fur
Citadel Contrast - Gryph-Charger Grey
Citadel Contrast - Basilicanum Grey
Citadel Contrast -Blood Angels Red
Citadel Contrast- Black Templar
Citadel Contrast Medium
Forgeworld - Aged Rust & Light Rust
Method
Redeye is a large miniature that is mostly a single colour, grey. This means to make him look good you need to spend a bit more time building up highlights or he will look fairly flat on the table. For me, I cheated a little, using a lot of drybrushing rather than blending. This gives a rougher result but it is faster.
I began with an undercoat of Ironhull Grey and then while the paint was still wet I began brushing on lighter coats, by adding Morrow White to the mix. Each pass I want to make the top edges of the model lighter and leave the darkness in the shadows. I work fast with a large brush to apply colour to a big area as quickly as possible.
Now, the colour is currently too light so I need to bring it all down without loosing the highlights we've built up. To do this I use a mix of Ironhull Grey & Contrast Medium and I wash all of the cloak, softening the shadows and highlights and bringing them closer to each other. I also add in the face using Underbelly Blue and the belt with Gore Grunta Fur while I wait for this coat to dry. I'll be adding some more highlights and shadows to the cloak later.
Next I washed the fur with Gryph-Charger Grey and returned to the cloak while that dried.
I want to create some areas of deep shadow on the cloak, concentrated beneath the overhand of his cloak and under the arms. I do this with a wash of Basilicanum Grey in specific places.
Then I begin to define the top of the folds using Ironhull Grey, I'm looking to create a distinction between the flats and the shadows before the next step.
This time I'm using my medium drybrush and with as little paint on the brush as possible I use a mix of Ironhull Grey & White to hit the tops of folds in the fabric. I want to create a nice contrast between the deep colour in the folds and the light colour on top without losing the mid tone grey. I particularly focused my brush on areas like the top of the hood, the protruding knee and the base of the sleeves.
You can also fix any mistakes at this point by applying washes as needed. Next I started work on the face. I began with Blood Angels Red on the eye and in the mouth. The Fur was then added in using thin strokes, following the contours of the face in Frostbite before adding highlights in Morrow White. Then to soften the whole thing I washed all the fur with Morrow White & Contrast Medium.
For the details I added in the nose using Bloodstone and the teeth using Jack Bone. I then added a dash of Carnal Pink for a highlight on the nose before pickng out the teeth in Menoth White Highlight. The eyes were then highlighted in Khador Red Highlight with a dot of Heartfire as a reflection.
For the belt I picked out the flats with Bloodtracker Brown and added Bogrin Brown for an edge highlight.
The feet were painted with Sanguine Highlight and the claws with Jack Bone. I then applied horizontal highlights to the toes to imply that segmented rodent look using a mix of Sanguine Highlight & Morrow White and thin tapering lines to the claws in Menoth White Highlight.
For the tail I did some wet blending. This means applying the darkest colour, in this case Sanguine Highlight and then blending on the model using your lighter colour in this case Morrow White, to create a gradient look. The trick is to keep the paint wet. You can mix your colors on a pallet but I tend to find it easier to blend them directly on the plastic.
Lastly we come to this models defining characteristic, the claws. For these I began with a mix of Ironhull Grey & Morrow White and I'm applying it to around a third of the total surface area, looking for where the light would strike each claw. You can do this by rotating the model back and forth and looing where the light strikes.
Then with white I add reflections and some edge highlights to add definition.
To finish I add some Black Templar Contrast to the holes and then using a small brush I add some areas of rust using Aged Rust and Light Rust weathering powders. I'm just looking to add a little age and character to the metal and not obliterate the paint work so I add the rust sparingly.
The base was then painted with Battlefield Brown and once dry given a coat of Mojave Mudcrack.
You can find more tutorials on how I painted my Aftermath minis here. Until next time, have fun painting...
The Duke