How Not To Paint: Descent Razorwings

Woooooo! It’s been a long time since I did one of these. This post is part of my series on How Not To Paint Descent. Now, firstly I apologise for my absence, real life doesn’t like me too much at the moment. I’ve had so much work that I’ve gotten ill and that pretty much put the kybosh on me actually doing any proper hobby stuff.

Happily I’ve gotten all my commission work done and I’ve made a lot of progress with my sister blog “Unboxed” including co-founding a Media Network for all Uk based gaming blogs and podcasts (details here). And I’ve put in another order with Otherworld, which means that I should have some more lovely models to paint soon.

But now to the guide and stay tuned after the credits for a cautionary tale. I started simple with this guy. No primer, just a coat of Foundation paint in Calthan Brown, for the record you should always use a primer, I’m just lazy. When the base was dry I added Dark Grey to the wings, underbelly and lower legs and White to the eyes and teeth.Using Bloodtracker Brown and Moldy Ochre I highlighted the face, upper body and the tops of the legs. I added some more Moldy Ochre to the mix and did a second round of highlights. Finally I did some extreme highlights using just Moldy Ochre. Next, as you can barely see in this pic, I added some White to the Dark Grey and painted the tops of the wings. I also highlighted the ears, lower jaw, legs and underbelly.Adding some more White to the mix I added highlights to the lower jaw, underbelly and legs. Due to the pose it was hard to work in detail here, so I just settled for some definitive strokes in the light colour. I also added White to the Claws and Toes. To finish I added Blue Grey to the ridge down his back, painted the base black so that the cream colour wouldn’t show through the basing and retrimmed the edge with Pale Flesh. I also washed the insides of the wings with Badab Black just to add a little definition without expending too much effort. So there you have it, a simple paint job but pretty effective. Now for a cautionary tale…

I am ashamed, but being faced with so many models to do I tried to cut corners and do these guys with mostly washes. I was wrong…Yes, he took about half as long to do, but the end product just felt cheap, so glad I changed my approach and did the second one properly…Now I have to go back and do it again, will I learn from my short cutting ways, probably not, but maybe you guys will! Until next time, have fun gaming!