3 - Fleshing Out the Orc Slayers

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As the madness of convention season slowly passes, I can again spend some time working on these little dwarves.

I decided to change my initial thoughts on their flesh colors, due to the small size of these figures and the natural tendency for 15mm minis to appear darker when finished due to the small areas being painted.

For the base coat, I chose to use IronWind Metals Flesh. This is the same paint as the old Ral Partha paint, now thankfully back on the market under the IWM imprint.

The highlight layer will be done with Reaper Pro-Paints Caucasian, as it will add a nice contrast to the IWM base color.

While only one stand is being shown here in the interest of bandwidth and load times (for those of us who are access [dialup] challenged), the procedure will be the same for all figures.

The initial base coat was thinned almost to wash consistency and applied liberally, allowing it to flow slightly outside the "lines" to ensure coverage. I find it much easier to cut back to the flesh from surrounding areas than to try to fill the inevitable bare spots when attempting greater control at this stage. Not to mention that it is faster this way.

After this had dried, a second coat was put down, with more attention to its placement than the first coat.

For the highlight layer, the Reaper Caucasian was mixed with extender and water to a smooth flowing consistency. The addition of the extender will aid in smoothing the layer and the transitions when applied over the dried base coat. This highlight layer was selectively applied to the nose, cheekbones, raised muscle highlights on arms and back, and of course their little round pot bellies.

It should be visible in these pictures where the highlights lie and how the extender eased what would have been some extreme transitions, unable to be covered by the later application of the shadowing wash.

It is time now to sit back and admire my handiwork, and make plans for the next step in the process - clothing and boots - and to begin planning the detail work on the leader and standard bearer.