chevalier des baronnies

Painting time: about 30 hours, plus the base.

Here is another one of the fabled Ilyad minis, that I managed to grab before they all disappeared! I bought this one in a little store in Paris that kyle and I found on our Europe trip last year. It's a JAG sculpt - so nice to paint, yet again! And easy to paint...the shapes are very nice, makes my job very easy, it almost painted itself.

There are some minor changes to the model: the head is a plastic GW one instead of the usual plumed helmet...just because I like to have a bare face to paint. Plus I've had this head lying around for ages, and it seemed to fit the figure well. And I also filed off all the sculpted detail on the shield - there was a raised bull's head, and chevron heraldry stripes etc. - but I prefer a flat surface, a lot more fun to paint, and less restrictive. The symbol on the shield now is a 'dolphin': not the kind we know now, but the type from the middle ages, which is a sort of sea monster, variations of which appear in heraldry sometimes.

I tried to keep up my personal challenge of trying to be more colourful with the painting, and I think I'm finally starting to appreciate the ways in which brighter colour can be used. The aqua colour is based around P3 arcane blue, which was the base colour. I added P3 exile blue (like GW regal blue) and a point of P3 sanguine base (like a red wine colour) for shading, then added more for darker shading. Then the darkest shadows were painted with a mix of P3 khador red base (primary red like GW blood red) and black. The P3 red looks primary, but it's almost slightly cold...when you water it down it goes bright bright magenta, so adding it to black gives an almost purple looking colour. Highlights were added with P3 menoth white highlight (like GW bleached bone + white) and a touch of P3 menoth white base (like GW desert yellow). Then more P3 menoth white highlight for the final lights.

The cream cloak colours: base colour was a mixture of P3 menoth white highlight, P3 rucksack tan, and a touch of GW fortress grey. More GW fortress grey and rucksack tan were added for shading, then some VMC hull red, then more hull red for darker shading. Some dark blue and VMC hull red for the very darkest shadows. The surface was cleaned up with the base colour, and some glazes of P3 rucksack tan + GW fortress grey without the menoth white. Then More menoth white highlight to the base colour for highlights, then pure menoth white, then menoth white + pure white, and a few touches of almost pure white for the lightest parts.

On the cap, I tried a little experiement with a woolen sort of texture. I created the effect by stippling with a variety of colours, using a brush cut to a square end. I used many different colours - dark green, purple, oxford blue, beige browns, light greys, bone colour, flesh colours...you name it. I concentrated with the lighter colours mainly on the top areas, and the darker colours on the lower parts, just as with normal shading/highlights.

The stonework on the base was made from fimo. Let me mention the reasons I chose to use such strong colours on the base: first, I wanted it to be very obvious that the base belonged with the mini, and was a real part of it...I was trying to create a very strong play between blue and red on everything, and I wanted to continue this on the base to emphasise the atmosphere even more.

Guild Artisan,
Sebastian.