I started with the skin colour, building the base colour up from GW Snakebite Leather (my favourite base colour for flesh). The trousers were basecoated with GW Midnight Blue, and highlighted with a mix of GW Midnight Blue and Regal Blue (the final highlight was a Regal Blue and white mix).
![Start of painting Start of painting](workbench/pics/fan/2009/742983a.jpg)
I had thought about painting white stripes on the trousers, as seen in many Viking illustrations, but in the end kept to blue only.
I realise that the order I paint miniatures has no obvious logic. I just paint.
In this case, the order was skin, tidy up, trousers, leggings, glove and horn. The final area was the blonde hair.
![Painting in progress Painting in progress](workbench/pics/fan/2009/742983b.jpg)
For those painters who have a very structured and methodical painting routine, my haphazard technique must seem strange and chaotic. It's the way I paint, sort of part-Kevin Dallimore with a strong Early GW Heavy Metal style and, just recently, lots of washes! I don't think I will ever win any Golden Demons with this style, but I do manage to get quite a number of figures finished, photographed and displayed in very short order.
![More painting More painting](workbench/pics/fan/2009/742983c.jpg)
As above, but now with a wash of GW Flesh Wash (the old version with the blue-topped bottles) mixed with GW Gryphonne Sepia (wash) over the flesh and hair areas.
![Haphazard? Haphazard?](workbench/pics/fan/2009/742983d.jpg)
Yet another example of my painting style and the order in which I approach painting. This photo shows the groundwork painted, prior to any detail painting on the main figure. In fact, I painted the groundwork, including grey stone slabs, before painting the miniature's shoes, and then washed the base, groundwork, stones and shoes with GW Badab Black wash.