writes:
What a lucky fellow I am. Such a fun couple of models. Hasslefree's Ray and Zombie Ray. I get to paint a cool figure, and then paint his dead counterpart.
I didn't have to think too hard about the colour scheme for the Ray model. He's dressed in his work smarts - a white shirt and black trousers (or pants, if you like).
For the shirt, I used a basecoat of Shadow Grey (all the paints I used for this model are Games Workshop's Citadel acrylics) followed by a mix of Shadow/Space Wolf Grey on the whole shirt except the very deep recesses. I then gradually highlighted by adding more Space Wolf Grey and eventually white in tiny watered-down amounts on the very raised edges. The overall effect is a nice off-white, shown off by a darker shade in the recesses.
The trousers are painted Chaos Black, with highlights of Chaos Black mixed with increasing amounts of Codex Grey. The highlights are deliberately placed to accentuate the folds of the trousers, with more light colour applied to the front and rear than the sides.
Ray's skin starts off with a basecoat of Scorched Brown. Tanned Flesh is then applied, leaving only the deep recesses. The highlights are Tanned Flesh with increasing amounts of Dwarf Flesh mixed in; the lightest colour is Dwarf Flesh by itself.
With skin, I feel it's important to stop the highlighting stages when you feel the tone looks right for that particular model. Sometimes I'll only do a three- or four-stage highlight; others I'll do upwards of 10 stages, going all the way to Bleached Bone or white. Generally, I stop when the skin looks most natural. Unless I'm going for a deliberately weird look.
The hair is black mixed with Codex Grey, then with Fortress Grey mixed in and applied around the temples... easy.
The shotgun is Chaos Black with a simple two-stage highlight - first of Codex Grey with a bit of black, then with lots of Space Wolf Grey added. A good and simple way of doing gunmetal. Keep the highlights tiny, though, or it ruins it.
Ray's cricket bat is a basecoat of Bestial Brown, highlighted with increasing amounts of Bubonic Brown. As I painted on the layers for the bat, I tried to keep the grain of the wood by only highlighting on one direction.
It was hard work deciding what colour tie Ray was going to be wearing to work on this particular day. In the end I went for Liche Purple, highlighting it by adding white.
Zombie Ray was painted in precisely the same way as the living version, with three notable changes.
Firstly, his skin was highlighted in the same way, but with a small amount of Rotting Flesh added at every stage.
The second is the blood. I used a mix of Red Gore, red ink, chestnut ink and gloss varnish. This I applied in splats around Zombie Ray's injuries, and in tiny dots around the splats.
Lastly, I painted the exposed bone areas with Bestial Brown, highlighted by adding Bleached Bone.
Job done!
If you want to see more of my work, then check out pro-painted-miniatures.com. Painting a pair of models like Ray and Zombie Ray would cost £28.00 GBP in English munny. Can't say I understand foreign currency…