Soldiers 54mm Prince of Novograd and Warlord Games Druid figure

I started work on my 54mm Soldiers figure, Prince of Novograd this week.  The first part of the figure to do was the chainmail as the dry brushing on it can easily over spray onto the rest of the figure.  After a black undercoat I dry brushed very lightly up through:

VMA Black Metal
AP Gun Metal
AP Plate Mail Metal
AP Shining Silver
VMA Aluminium

I also did a gradual highlighting with the dry brushing so as you go up the figure there is more of the lighter metallics.  So on the legs I only went from Black Metal to Plate Mail.  Under the arms up to Shining Silver and only on the tops of the arms did I get all the way up to Aluminium.

After all that I did a glaze in VMC Earth to bring things back a bit.  I find I can’t do much work at night under lights with the metallics as the high reflection factor make it very hard to judge colours.  My next step is to start working the sky/earth glazes and some more general shadow glazes over all the chainmail.

While I was dry brushing I was trying to work out what colours to do the other main parts of the figure, the cloak and surcoat.  The box art has the figure all white but I didn’t want to do that.  I considered a Crusader looks, or even something totally made up.  Not being sure of my white skill I broke out the box of misc. 28mm figures and found one to trial things on.


The figure is a Warlord Games figure from their Ancient Celts: Druids 4 pack.  I wanted to try two main things, the first was a cool white scheme, the second a dirty linen look.

On his tunic I did a very cool white with grey/blue shadows.  In the picture it comes out a lot more yellow than it is.  I need to try taking the photo again in the light cube I have.  The colours where light blue, blue grey, dull white and gloss white.

On his cloak I went of off yellow linen effect.  The colours used were

VCG Earth
VMC Tan Yellow
VMC Iraqi Sand
VGC Dead White
VMA White

I was pretty happy with the cloak, the tunic less so.  Still need some more practice on painting white.  I finished up the staff and flesh as further training and grabbed a piece of foam to base him on.  This came from a comment from the wife who mentioned that he looked better tilted back a little like he was on the side of a rock.  I agreed and liked the paint work enough that I wanted to finish him off with a fancy base.  Also, more basing practice.  Now to let the glue dry and then I’ll coat the foam in PVA glue and some texture material.  I will perhaps try using the oils again to paint up the base as I like playing with the properties of oil paints.