Hey there, this is Behind Closed Doors and today we're painting one of the most iconic fantasy
creatures of all time, the humble skeleton. Starting off with a dry brush of XV-88 on the
whole model over a black undercoat and there's a couple of different browns you could use for
this, like for example Balor Brown, you just want a nice mid-range brown to act as a base for the
upcoming bone dry brush. I use XV-88 because I like its tone; I use it for everything I would
have used the old Snakebite Leather for. It's got a bit of a yellowy tinge to it as well which works
well with the bone. Now we're going to go over everything again with Ushabti Bone drybrush,
not quite as heavy here you know you want to be filling in any detail less is
more with drybrushing you can always always add more on but a little bit tricky to take it off
and um you know you don't have to worry about getting paint on the non-bone parts we're going
to be repainting all that later, and one of the keys to painting skeletons is definitely speed, these
guys rarely hang out in small groups I tell ya. So this model is actually from Warhammer Underworlds
and he may be the most dynamic skeleton I've ever seen. Look at that pose, I never realized skeletons
could move that way before I saw this model and you know what, I'm glad with my newfound knowledge.
and he's done. This skeleton he's ready to join his gang.
Just kidding but skeletons have such nice details they already look good with just a drybrush.
So we're going to paint some details now with Caliban Green,
and you can use whatever army colors you like for things like the loincloth, the simplest thing
would be to go for a you know like a black or a gray, perfectly acceptable colors for a skeleton.
I'm using a darkish green here because it works nicely with bone as a colour contrast.
So we went a bit crazy before when drybrushing but now when you're doing the details you want
to bring it in a bit, be a bit neater so you don't have to do too many touch-ups on the the drybrushed
bone later because it's a bit of a pain. Pop a bit of green on the shield there as well, I actually
made a mistake and painted some of his belt that's trailing off green during this stage but um I'll
fix that later when I'm painting the leather. That's why it's good to always try and paint with
a kind of an inside out method so you can just fix up your mistakes as you go along, it's no biggie.
Next up we're panning all the straps, wood and other details with Rhinox Hide.
When you're painting large groups, particularly for an army project, it's good to keep a more
limited color palette. I like a four color system so two nice contrasting colors and then a neutral
like a dark brown or a black to break them up, and then a metallic for the other details.
I'm also going to fix up that belt I painted green at this stage.
Now then the metal bits, we're going for a dull kind of rusted feel here with all the
metal as would be befitting for a decaying skeleton warrior and Citadel has a range of
cool technical paints for adding effects like rust and corrosion but I'm going to show you a simple
method to achieve an old effect just using a 50/50 mix of Iron Warriors and Rhinox Hide
and you want this mix to look brown but still have some of that metallic glimmer to it so adjust your
preference for how grungy you want it when you're mixing it up. Any dark silver can can be used for
this really, I like Iron Warriors because it's really dark, it's got really good coverage I
think it's just a great color and it's a great base for any kind of metal that you're using.
You can use this um as well as a base to try some of those technical paints too,
you know if you want to do some experimentation down that road.
I like to keep my bases fairly simple and this model actually came with a pre-sculpted base as
you can see, so I'm going to take this opportunity to give it a heavy drybrush of Skavenblight Dinge
and this is a great color for terrain and a whole host of other things because it's
it's a dark grey but it's got a little bit of brown to it so
do a few coats if you need to and make this a solid heavy base.
Next up Nuln Oil over the whole model, dip this bad boy... well, well not that far but maybe you want to
do two coats of this as Nuln Oil can be a little thin or you can maybe mix a bit of something like
Abaddon Black with it just give it a bit of a stronger black depending on what you want overall.
and this is one of my main tools as a painter hitting the whole model with a unifying wash
and I think Nuln Oil is the most flexible for this purpose. The wash is going to tie in all
the colors of your model together and it's also going to provide the first level of shading for
all the colors, and additionally for something like this it's also going to blend in all the
drybrushing some more because drybrushing can look a little messy sometimes; all around
just bloody great stuff Nuln Oil, I reckon it's just it's the best. Make sure it's not pooling anywhere
um with your brush though and don't forget to hit the whole model including the base.
Now the wash is dry we're going to go back to the Ushabti Bone painting on some highlights
and you know really make sure your wash is all dry here otherwise you're going to get some
ugly smears. This bone is also going to further neaten up the dry brushing
and it's going to bring that bone color back a bit more. You know the Nuln Oil
is great for shading but it kind of brings down the saturation and all the colors so it's going to
bring it back a little bit um but we're going to leave it in all the shadows and let it do its work.
This stage can be time consuming and um it's easy to get lost in it so adjust this depending
on how many skeletons you need to paint. The main areas you want to pay attention
to are focal points like the head and the hands um the rib cage, top of the shoulders.
You can also decide how dirty and grungy you want your skeletons to look with the amount of bone
you paint on this stage so you know you might want some grim dark Vampire Count style skeletons,
or maybe you're doing some bright and bleached Tomb King style dudes it's going to be up to you.
So once you're happy with that we're going to just do some final highlights with pure white,
and you can use any brand white for this it doesn't matter we just want a pure white.
I actually quite like the the Vallejo one, um Game Color just because I think it's
got a better consistency, some of the Games Workshop ones can be a bit chunky sometimes,
um but either way grab your white and just keep these to the the key points like the facial detail,
you know the shoulders and the hands, little fingers, the more highlighting you do here the
brighter your skeleton will be overall so a lot of this now is just personal choice. If you find
a pure white to be a little bright you know mix a little bone with it to make it a bit more subtle.
Back to the base for a bit of a break just a light drybrush of Dawnstone here
to pick out some more of the sculpted detail, if you accidentally hit the feet
a bit you know it doesn't matter it will just look like dirt it's fine.
You know I like to keep the overall base quite dark on models like this just to create a nice
contrast and also not to draw the eye away from the mini. I'm going to give a little highlight
to the leather and wood bits now with a mix of Rhinox Hide and Ushabti Bone and
for secondary colors on the model like this brown, one highlights probably enough especially for you know
battle ready kind of models. If your mix looks too bright just dial it back with some more brown and
bones a good color to mix with brown for this, it just gives a bit of a faded look
which is very appropriate for the undead. If you want to go further with these highlights
you can mix more bone in there, again this is optional you know particularly if you're
just going for a tabletop standard but I'm just doing some real stark ones here.
So one of the last things we have to do is finish his raggedy skellington loincloth
and starting with Caliban Green again and remembering to leave the Nuln Oil
washed green shadows just like we did with the other colors to create a nice shade.
I'm just mixing some highlights straight up here with a bit of white and you could alternatively
use something like Warpstone Glow for this purpose but i still like to do mixes from time to
time. Mixing paints to find the color you want is just a really good skill to always keep practicing.
and white can sometimes make stuff look a little bit faded
if you go too crazy with the highlight mixers just because well you know it's white but I
think that works well for things like skeletons or you know any other kind of undead for that matter.
The final highlight here it's nice and stark you
know just really sell that faded old look of the cloth
and this kind of stark highlight also works really well with things like the shield when you're
adding scratches and whatnot. So this is a great time to talk about glazes. After a little break and
staring at the model, which is something you should always do. Always take a little breather, sit back
you know, think about the direction the model is heading in. I reckon the final green highlights
are slightly too bright so I'm going to tone them down a little bit and glazing is another
important tool in your painters kit. It works in a similar way to washes in that it can both bring
down the brightness of your highlights while also blending them together and this two-fold effect
is what lessens the harshness. Now the glaze here is Caliban Green mixed with a little Lahmian Medium
and you can use any medium you want it doesn't have to be medium from the lands of the dead
just to take the edge off you want this super thin too, so thin um that you barely notice a difference
and then you can apply multiple glaze coats until you're happy.
You really don't want to be messing up your highlights here with any kind of thick paint,
that's not what you want this lately uh in the painting journey. And the Citadel Contrast range
is also a great resource for glazes and they already come pre-mixed so it's handy,
but even with contrast paints you still want to thin further on your palette to get that true
glaze consistency. They just make the whole process a bit easier which is always good.
If you want, hit just the very sharpest edges with a little Ironbreaker this will also contrast with
the brown metal on the other areas and just, you know, further strengthen that old look.
As a finishing touch a super light drybrush to pick out any of the uh
most raised bits of detail on the base.
and a bit of black around the edge as is
tradition.
The skeleton is complete. Sometimes the simplest models can be the most compelling and I think
that's definitely the case with skeletons. I hope you enjoyed the video today, I've actually got a
new filming setup and I'm going to be making a lot more videos, and I'm really excited that I'm
going to be able to share that with you so if you enjoyed this please like and subscribe and
keep an eye out for all the upcoming stuff and we'll see you next time on Behind Closed Doors!