Labyrinth II: Still Lost

Nor did the creature keep him waiting, but struck suddenly and started in; he grabbed and mauled a man on his bench, bit into his bone-lappings, bolted down his blood and gorged on him in lumps, leaving the body utterly lifeless, eaten up hand and foot.

As we have mentioned before, gentle readers, the troll light warbeasts in this project have been replaced with custom made minotaurs. These products of my esteemed colleague's skillful hand presented numerous opportunities to bring  several distinct looks to models that might have otherwise faded into a unified, and ultimately boring, color palette. However, creatures so adept at defying gravity and conventional physics should have similarly distinctive paint jobs.

When I looked at this gang of bruisers, I immediately wanted to give each one of them different colored fur. I drew a measure of inspiration from some of the available colorations for Tauren characters from World of Warcraft. These were varying shades of browns, blacks, and tans. I already had numerous shades of brown which would be no issue to wash differently to create entirely different visual effects. Ultimately I decided three minotaurs should have fur in ranges of brown, one in a tan reminiscent of a Texas Longhorn, and the Bouncer in black.

They're all on the Brute Squad

Fur tones were painted, washed, then drybrushed to achieve the looks of the final models. The Bouncer was a little more difficult to achieve the desired depth of color, as is the case with black models. However, the deep recesses of the minotaurs' faces also come with very pronounced ridges in the plastic, which took to drybrushing very nicely. Drybrushing on a dark gray on top of the black paint gave the exact feel I wanted without compromising the dark coloration I was trying for.

Pool's closed

Other details in these models were another privilege to paint. The exaggerated proportions of the weapons and armor made them set pieces in their own right. The blades of the axes I was able paint over in a bright metallic color to show wear from use. The spears were large enough to have the leather grips painted with detail as well.

The most fun I had painting these models, though, came in three places: the Bouncer's shield, his ball and chain, and the leather stitchwork across all five. The ball and chain immediately jumped out at me as needing a sort of patchwork paint scheme the showcased the different plates on the weapon. I painted different plates in GW metallics: Leadbelcher, Ironbreaker, Hashut Copper, and Brass Scorpion all washed in Agrax Earthshade to dull the colors.

Patchwork Ball-and-Chains, just like Gam-Gam used to knit 

Our Bouncer here also has another one of my partner's custom modeling jobs for his shield. I build up multiple layers of browns and metallics for the varying pieces of wood, leather, and metal in the shield's design. The punch tool used on the shield's border created an excellent visual of rivets, which I was able to pick out easily with my 000 sized brush.

[Insert riveting joke here]

Lastly, a word on stitching. This effect was surprisingly easy to accomplish, only requiring a measure of patience and a steady brushwork. This was the same three step process as most of my painting is: basecoat, wash, then highlight. However, for the stitching highlights I took wet paint to my 000 brush and picked the exposed part of each stitch with a different color than the garment it was holding together. This is showcased best on the spear quivers the Impalers use.

 

















 
The Brute Squad has been an anchor for this army since its inception, and painting them has been a great exercise in breathing variation into a color palette based largely in two color groups of metal and brown. Once again, gentle reader, stick around for more in the coming days and weeks as the Kriel grows ever stronger, ever larger, and ever more ravening.

Step 1: Basecoat

Step 3: Drybrush

Step 2: Wash