Things Get Painted - Dropzone Commander Shaltari Braves


So let's jump in the deep end here! I haven't done something this in depth before. A few posts ago I did an unboxing on the Shaltari Tribes force I had. This time, I'm painting them, and everyone gets to go along for the ride!

As we go, I'm going to show you what paints I used, and discuss how I painted them from the start to end. You'll also get to see me get close to finishing, and then change my mind. This happens when I don't plan out everything exactly as I want it, but it's a learning curve. I was going to work around it, but figured I'd include it as well. So here we go!


These are the Shaltari Braves. They come on giant chunky sprues and also have some thin resin bases to plug into. The bases need to have a tab trimmed and filed from the bottom so that they sit flat. The models themselves are quite easy to clean while on the frames. I left them on while I did that, as they are easier to handle, and then brushed them with a wire brush to polish them up a bit before attaching them to the bases.


Here they are, all attached to the bases and ready for the next step. Attaching these guys brought back memories of Epic... Hmm... Epic...



This is the stand I'm going to keep photographing for this walkthrough. Before I went any further, I stippled the base with Liquid Green stuff to give it a base level of texture. I then superglued down some patches of beach sand so that there was a different level of texture as well.



The models were primed white with GW undercoat before going further. I had decided with these minis to do the main orange areas with my airbrush to speed things up, and at the same time reduce the drying time, and keep as much of the detail showing through a thin a layer of paint as possible.


 

 

Now I'm going to start compressing space with multiple picture blocks.
Top Left: These are the main colours I'm using to airbrush on the orange armour. All GW paints from the new range: Wild Rider Red, Troll Slayer Orange, and Fire Dragon Bright.
Top Right: The Troll Slayer Orange airbrushed on to cover all the model.
Bottom Left: The Wild Rider Red shade airbrushed on. This was done by holding the models upside down, and spraying at them from the underside.
Bottom Right: The Fire Dragon Bright airbrushed on. This was done in the opposite manner to the shade: It was aimed down onto the model.


 

I then took some a new toy: Army Painter Quickshade Soft Tone. I picked this up literally because of what I saw it do on some Menoth White Base by a friend at a recent painting day. I then washed this undiluted over the entire model and let it dry. It's the right level of dark brown where it doesn't overpower the orange colour and make it dark, but sinks into the cracks and gives it a really nice dark line around the edges of the armour.






I then got some old GW Regal Blue and Chaos Black. I mixed them on my pallet about 4:1 black to blue and used this to pick out the visors. I mixed a bit extra, as I would be using it for the edge of the bases later on as well. I then picked out the bottom 2/3 of the visors with Regal Blue.


 


Trusty Skull White. You can guess how much I use by the fact its such an old jar. I used this to add a tiny dot at the top of the visors to give a reflective point on them.





Mithril Silver and Badab Black were now into the game. I picked out all the metallic details (Including some pipes on the backs) with silver, and then gave them a wash of Badab Black to bring out the details.



 


 

Now for the bases. Charadon Granite was used as a base for the entire base (Top Left), then drybrushed with Codex Grey (Top Right), and then Fortress Grey (Bottom Left). I then went and edged the base with the Regal Blue and Chaos Black mix from earlier (Bottom Right).



I then used some oil paints to wash some Burnt Umber onto the non-sand parts of the base. While this was drying, I spotted one some oil wash Terre Verde which dried to give the pale green discolourations.


 


I then used GW Ardcoat to give the visors a gloss coat, and drybrushed the sand Graveyard Earth to make it stand out a bit more.



The group at this point. But something still seemed off...


 


I got some P3 Heartfire, a nice bright yellow colour leaning slightly towards orange, and quickly picked out a few highlights on the orange armour, mainly the helmets and shoulders.


 


 



The three P3 colours above (Top Left) came out for the sand patches on the base. I basecoated in Cryx Bane Base (Top Right), then drybrushed Bastion Grey (Bottom Left), then Traitor Green (Bottom Right).


 


It still didn't stand out, so I drybrushed them again with Menoth White Highlight.



The group as they are now. Eventually I will get shots of them with proper lighting etc, but for now these will have to do. And I think for what amounted to an afternoon's work (Spread over two evenings), I think they are great!

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