Good news everyone! I did what I was supposed to and painted my project!! Masters made fitting everything in difficult, and my bases aren’t quite where I want them but they’re fine to bring to an event currently. So without further ado, here’s the proper start to Firebrands Marshy Snakemen Pirates!
1st Goal- Paint up the 2 individuals, Mage Priest and Firebrand
This is probably one of my favorite gw models of all time after painting this guy
So to kick this off, my most recently finished model. I had to burn some midnight oil, painting him the night after I landed back from masters, but I’m super happy with how he came out. The feather cloak took me a good hour just deciding what colors to use, since I hadn’t used much outside of yellow/blue/brown by then. The orange was actually me covering up the middle layer turning into a red row but I like that kind of happy accident. This guy’s also getting entered into a local GW painting contest that happened to be running at the right time, so wish me luck on him.
And here is Firebrand, using Mantic’s own Artakl to proxy in but I think she looks appropriate on the 25mm base honestly. I’m going to be honest here, this model is probably the best sculpted lizardman style model I’ve painted. The head has a great expression, and the look reminds of that Aztec vibe gw wanted but done far better.
2nd Goal. Rebase the Old Tyrant Horde
2nd on my to-do list was rebasing my tyrant horde. If you remember from the first article, I had incorporated some slate rocks to introduce some height to their original base. I figured I might as well keep that idea here, letting the more fancy unit leader have some slight height to draw the eyes up. I’m not quite finished with the basing here, going to add some reeds over the weekend but they’re at a tabletop quality. Still playing around with the water effects, so I might include another picture of these guys next month to show what I decided to go with.
3rd Goal- Paint up a Troop of Corsairs
So similar to the tyrants I’m still playing with the water and have to add some reeds. That said, the models came out pretty well. These aren’t the strongest models I’ve ever used in an army, but they work pretty well for me.
I guess I should go over my yellow mix since it’s kind of the main quirk of the army
1st- undercoat with a light brown, I used light umber from Monument Paints, but any will work
2nd- basecoat with a khaki coat, I used Golden Brown from Monument. Vallejo makes like 6 different khakis, and those would all work well.
3rd- Layer with your yellow, I had Golden Yellow from Monument. I’ve tried a few yellows before, and this one just coats the best of what I’ve used while not feeling too chunky doing that. The GW one for Iron Fist/Those highlighter yellow orcs is pretty close in tone, so that would likely be the best substitute paint.
4th- Wash with Athonian Camoshade. This is the important part, its a Yellow-Green wash that won’t tint your yellow into orange/red like a sepia wash can.
5th- Highlight with a yellow/white mix. I’d suggest using the same main yellow, just to keep the highlight on the same tone, and the ratio depends on personal taste. I did 50/50 for the mage priest for example.
The Tyrants yellow wasn’t done with this since I painted those over a year ago, that yellow was achieved with 10ish layers over green. Which was miserable and I wouldn’t suggest that to be honest. But that’s why it looks different.
3 New Goals
- 1st- Paint 2 Regiments of Ancients
- 22 more Snakemen to knock out the main body of the project
- 2nd- Paint my Battle Captain
- This will be using a GW Dark Elf Cold One and a Skink from the Terrordactyl kit
- 3rd- Paint my Clan Lord on Mount
- Like the Battle Captain, this is gonna be a cold one and a Skink from the Terrordactyls
If I get this done I’ll have all of the Inspiration of Ancients formation finished!
Total Progress-
4 Units done
535 pts painted and based!
