How Not To Paint: Descent Manticores

I’m back, hopefully real life will leave me alone for a bit and I’ll manage to get the Descent series done by Christmas… Well we’ll see how that goes.

So, without further ado, lets get into it. I started out with a black undercoat, I used Bloodtracker Brown for the head and Adeptus Battlegrey for the rest of the body. For the stone I used Fenris Grey just for some variety. The tail was done with Battlefield Brown. Next I set to work on the face. I added a dash of white for eyes and used Tanned Flesh for the head. Moldy Ochre was then used to paint the mane.Taking some Bloodtracker Brown I dragged a thin layer of paint across the mane. I also added two highlights to the flesh with successively lighter shades of Tanned Flesh. Next it was time to add the Moldy Ochre back in, this time I left some shading in the recesses. Taking some more Bloodtracker Brown I worked it into the recesses between the mane and the face. I then added White to the tips of the Mane. Finally I added a layer of Yellow Ink (Vajello) to all of the mane but the tips and I also added a drop of Ogryn Flesh to the recesses. As the focal point of this model the mane is really worthy of a lot of attention. The next step was to add a layer of Dark Grey and Blue Grey mix to the body. This was followed by the same mix but with some additional white. The body itself if fairly flat and featureless so highlighting the muscles and individual toes helps give it definition. I added more white to the mix and did one final highlight. While this was still wet I set to work on the tail. Although the original artwork shows a green tail I didn’t like that so I went with a more traditional brownish red. Using Bloodtracker Brown and the top highlight colour I blended the rear portion until I felt the tail looked like it belonged. I then did the same further down the tail using Burgundy mixed with the brown to turn the tail red. Finally I blended the very tip of the tail with Bright Red and added White to the claws.

The final job was the wings. These were very simple, I added some white to some Dark Grey and painted bold straight lines. Mixing up some Moldy Ochre with some Bloodtracker Brown I highlighted the spines of the wings. Adding some more Moldy Ochre to do a final highlight. To finish the wings I added a washed of Gryphonne Sepia to the spiny bits and Badab Black to the wingy bits. The rock was highlighted with Blue Grey and then White on the extreme edges. To base I added the various rocks and grasses that I’ve used on all the previous models in the series and did the rim of the base with Pale Flesh.