Scythe Miniatures Painting Journal Craig Moore

Introduction I am really excited about the upcoming delivery of Scythe. It looks to be another great game with the amazing components that Stonemaier Games is known for. When Jamey Stegmaier gave me the opportunity to show what the miniatures look like painted, I was happy to do it. Now that I’ve completed the painting, I wanted to provide a Painting Journal to describe what I did and why. This is not meant to be a step by step guide on how to paint your miniatures, but more of a source of inspiration for your own creations. I hope you will find it useful, and I look forward to seeing what you can do with your own set of miniatures and paints. One of the challenges was to find the right artwork to use as a guide for color selection. Jamey has graciously given permission to include Jakub Rozalski’s amazing art in this document for easy access while painting. Thanks, Jamey! Before I go any further, let me state that I am not a professional painter. I am mostly self taught, while picking up a few pointers from magazines and videos over the years. I simply did the best I could with what I had available to me, and I will try to describe some of those choices and techniques here for you. I don’t use any magnification when I paint. Instead, I paint by the motto, “if I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist”.

Tools For paints, I used older Games Workshop Citadel supplies I had lying around. I used some spray cans for the basecoat, and standard or foundation paints for most areas. The color names have changed, so I’ll refer to them descriptively. I also made heavy use of washes, also called inks, to give the miniatures a shaded or blended look. These are essential, in my opinion. I mainly used 4 different brushes for this project:

­ Basecoat Brush ­ This was my main brush for most areas. It is in good enough shape to get some detail, but big enough to cover larger areas quickly. I even used it for applying washes in smaller areas.

­ Fine Detail Brush ­ Used for anything I couldn’t control with the basecoat brush. ­ Wash Brush ­ For larger wash area applications. ­ Medium Drybrush ­ For dry­brushing on some of that textured look.

Preparation The first step was to prime all of the miniatures with a basecoat. I did about half of them in white and the other half in black, but looking back now I wish I had done all in black except for Zehra & Kar of the Crimean faction, Olga & Changa of the Rusviet faction, and the Polania Mech. I feel that a black basecoat is more forgiving if you miss a spot. I did not worry about the bases at this point as I planned to paint over them with a color similar to their original plastic when I finished.

The Characters The characters represent a person and their animal companion, making an interesting combination to paint together. The main thing to remember about the characters is that these characters are in the middle of a warzone. They should look dirty, so don’t be afraid to throw some mud on their clean clothes. One challenge of painting the animals is that they aren’t as textured as their real life counterparts. This mean you have to spend a little extra time trying to make them look furry (or feathery) using dry­brushing and a few extra layers of wash.

Gunter & Nacht This was the first character I painted, and it is still my favorite. The best part about Gunter is that between his hat and his squinting, you can’t really see his eyes. This let me focus on some other details such as the lining of his coat. First, I painted the coat, pants, and shirt with a dark gray. Then I took care of some larger details such as the gun holster, the shoes, the belt, and the inside lining of the coat (in a maroon/burgundy color). Afterwards, I applied a

layer or two of black wash for shadows, then a layer of brown wash to the lower parts to try to give him that well­traveled look. The helmet is painted with a real dark metallic color, giving it a mostly black look with a little shine to it. The beard is done in a leather color with a heavy brown wash to give it some depth. I also applied a light wash to his hands and face.

Finally, the part that really makes him pop ­ the fine details. For this, I used a metallic silver or steel colored paint (mine was called mithril silver). I added a tiny dot for each button, a very thin line for the coat lining, a belt buckle, and a line across the front of the helmet. I also tried adding a small spot on the front of the helmet to represent the insignia found there in the art, though I’m not sure it’s even visible at this scale.

Nacht was much easier, mainly because he’s almost all black. I made sure the basecoat was solid and touched up any spots I missed with the spray can. Then I took the drybrush and added just a hint of a medium gray all over. The black still shows through, but it looks a little more natural than a solid color. If this looked too light afterwards, then I may have used a coat of black wash to tone it down. For the eyes, I simply added two eerie looking dots of off­white. The color I used was bleached bone, which seems to be a good description.

Zehra & Kar I found the miniature of Zehra to be full of interesting details. From the flowing dress with random bits of color throughout to the obscene amount of gold jewelry, there was plenty to keep me busy. I started with the dress, and for good reason. I chose to use one of my favorite techniques here, which is to color an area entirely with washes instead of paints. Starting with a white base, I added layer after layer of red wash until the dress had the proper shade. I’m guessing I added 8­10 layers to get to where it is now, but

results may vary. This has the effect of giving the dress a maximum amount of depth and shadow without actually having to paint lighter and darker colors in the peaks and valleys. The hat was done with the same technique. I finished the dress with a few tiny specks spread throughout, using whatever yellow or green colors I saw in the artwork. In contrast, the hat appeared to have gold specs, which I added in the same way. Zehra’s hair was done with a dark brown followed by several layers of black wash until the brown was barely visible. Her face is well sculpted with a well defined location for eyes. I decided to attempt both whites and pupils. The result was a tiny bit of white and a decent set of pupils that are looking mostly in the same direction. She doesn’t suffer from too much of the “wide­eyed” look that I struggle with. My technique for eyes is a little odd, but it works for me. Basically, I

take a tiny bit of paint on my smallest brush and try to tap it in the target area. If I miss, I just paint over with the flesh color and try again. Then if I am doing additional colors (such as black over white) I try again with the next color and again, cover it up if I miss. Once the eyes are in the right place, I take more of the flesh color and, coming up from the bottom, I slowly cover up the area under the eye until I have removed some of the roundness from the shape. If there is room, I do the same thing from the top. Zehra’s gun was not too difficult. The barrel was not separated from the stock, so I had to freehand paint a straight line down the length of it to make it look like two separate pieces. I used the gunmetal color for this. The wood was simply medium brown with a brown or black wash to add some wood grain shadows. I then finished with a few rings of a steel color around the barrel to break it up. Note that the guns for Bjorn, Olga, and Anna were done in almost the same fashion. The rest of her equipment was an interesting challenge. The bow was sculpted for durability, so the area between the shaft and the string is filled in. I tried to hide this by using a black wash to create a shadow effect. It doesn’t draw the eye too much as long as the bow itself is much darker than this area, though the light gray color ended up looking a bit out of place. The quiver was done with a simple brown followed by two shades of gold for the decorations. The arrows have brown shafts

with red feathers, with a lot of black wash to get between the arrows to show texture. The bow holder was rather interesting. I found that a slightly raised pattern was sculpted into it. Since the art didn’t have any reference for this item, I tried to use colors that tied her clothing in with the colors on her faction’s power dial. To that end, I used yellow and gold, with a lighter

gold in the center. Finding the actual pattern was a little tricky, since it wasn’t raised very much, but for that same reason, it is not noticeable if I happened to miss the lines a little. This area was covered with an orange/sepia wash to blend it together. Zehra’s jewelry is the focal point of the miniature, by which I mean it is the first thing my eyes are drawn to. For all of the gold areas, including her sleeves and belt buckle, I used a darker gold for the base, and then painted a few “coins” on top with a lighter shade of gold. I then followed this with a light orange/sepia wash to add shadows without taking away too much shine. The dagger was a great opportunity for detail. I used a solid burgundy on the hilt and handle to make it stand out from the dress. A few fine strokes of gold gave it a nice accent to match the original art. Kar was an interesting challenge. The model was sculpted with a fair amount of texture for the feathers, but I wasn’t able to get that much to show up by using a wash. After several layers without much depth showing up, I decided to try dry­brushing. I found a tan color that would work well with the brown foundation, and brushed around the wing feathers, as well as a little on the body and tail. I am pretty happy with the result, though it doesn’t do justice to the original artwork.

Bjorn & Mox Bjorn was quite simple to paint compared to the other characters. His eyes are squinted, so I didn’t bother painting them. His accessories are pretty simple. Overall, he didn’t require much detail. His coat was a solid blue with a black wash over top. I gave him a black belt with leather colored pouches. His hair is a light brown shade with orange and brown washes added on top. For his face, I started with a flesh color that is a bit rosier than the others, and then carefully added a little brown wash to the eyes and mouth

to make them stand out. If you look carefully at the miniature and art, he has a pair of goggles. I painted these black and the followed up with a silver metallic paint for the lenses. I used the same color to pick out 4 buttons on his coat with the fine detail brush. Mox, in contrast to Bjorn, was anything but simple. Jakub’s art shows a dynamically colored, furry beast. The miniature was well sculpted, but it doesn’t have the texture to match the fur. This left the challenge of trying to blend in a few of Mox’s fur colors in a natural looking pattern. I started by painting all of the fur a dark brown followed by a layers black wash and a layer of brown wash. I then found a lighter brown and applied a lightly dry­brushed layer all over the fur. I had to be careful because there is not a lot of texture to pick up the dry­brushing. Often with dry­brushing, you can drag the brush in any direction and get the same effect as it catches on a raised area. When the surface is flat, the lines will reflect the brush movement. Next, I wanted to capture the

contrasting white hair depicted in the artwork. Using an off­white with a bit of tan in it, I applied very faint layer of dry­brushing across the top of the head and back. It didn’t take much, since the color was so contrasting. The horns and feet were done using the same color as the white hair. I added a highlight to the front tops of the horns in a slightly lighter shade. I also used this color around the mouth, but followed it with a brown wash to subdue it. Mox’s eyes were done with a few layers of black wash followed by two tiny dots of off­white. I finished the hooves with a careful layer of brown wash starting where the ankle ends and the hoof starts. Across his horns is draped a pendant of sorts. The string for this is actually sculpted to run across and then behind the horns. I used a few layers of gold and silver for the pendant, though it ended up looking more gold than I intended. I’d probably just use silver and a few layers of wash to match the art better if I were to do it again. Mox’s saddle and straps are laden with additional features. Most of the bags I colored in a light leathery

brown with a brown wash. The straps were mostly done in black to contrast from the fur, but I used brown for the actual saddle strap. I went back with a medium gray metallic paint to add some details to the straps such as buckles and loops. The biggest challenge of the accessories was the blanket running beneath the saddle. In the art, it appears to be red and blue. To represent this, I painted it all red and then went back with the blue paint used on Bjorn’s coat and lightly applied little specks of it randomly over it. I made each spot small enough that it doesn’t appear to be a feature on its own, but instead seems to add texture to the blanket as a whole.

Olga & Changa Olga and Changa were probably the most challenging of the characters. Looking at the wonderful art of Changa, I was troubled by the different colors. There was white, orange, and black, and I couldn’t tell exactly where anything started or stopped. This was nothing like Tony the Tiger with perfectly defined

stripes. Olga herself was fairly straightforward, though she was full of fine details that would require a steady hand. I started Olga by painting her coat in medium gray, her boots in a tan leather color, and her hat, turtleneck, and pants in black. I saw a cloak on her shoulders and looked at the artwork for what color to paint it and quickly realized this was added to the sculpt. This was an opportunity to incorporate any color I wanted, while still holding true to the original art. My creative juices were flowing as I pondered the color wheel before finally deciding on...medium gray. Olga’s hair was a challenge for me. I struggle with blonde hair, because anything I add to it makes it look less real. I decided to just do a simple layer of the off­white color, bleached bone, which turns out to look like bleached blonde. I had to touch up the cloak a few places where the hair color went past her hair. I then added red for her skirt where it sticks out, and black for her belt. Now she was ready for washes ­ brown on the boots and black everywhere else. The jacket needed enough layers of wash to make it look actually black, with gray showing through. I decided to treat the cloak as if it were a woolen material, giving it only a thin layer of black wash. I also added a little brown wash towards the bottom to represent dirt from her travels. Her face and hands received a flesh

color with a light brown wash for shadows. The gun was done much in the same manner as Zehra’s. Olga’s hat is supposed to be made of fur and it was looking way too flat, so I took some medium gray and lightly dry­brushed over it to give it a little more texture. Her coat has several patches of red, which I added without any additional wash on top to make them more obvious. Her hat has a small red star buried in the fur, which I tried to recreate. The result was much more obvious than in the art. I added a few black dots for her coat buttons, and a thin line of metallic silver to the edge of her coat to make it stand out. I also used that same silver for a thin outline of her belt buckle. Now on to Changa. First, I painted her packs and straps in appropriate shades of brown or leather. I used brown and

black washes to darken and weather the packs, and added a few accents, like the red stars. Then I made sure the fur was solid white, by touching up anywhere the spray coat missed. This also gave me a chance to touch up anywhere I went over on the leather straps. Next comes what I consider my best technique and worst implementation of the entire project. I added a layer of orange wash, starting from the top and working down in all of the areas that had orange fur. This involved a lot of freehand, and a lot of referring to the picture. Once I was satisfied with the result, I took a medium sized brush filled with black wash and attempted to replicate the stripes. I made lots of quick, random lines of varying widths. A single layer of black wash was enough to make a dark enough stripe. This is the part I wish I had spent more time studying the pattern of the stripes before I went in swinging my brush around, though. The results look good, but not great, and there are several areas where the stripes don’t look quite realistic in my finished product. Overall, though, I am satisfied with the result.

Anna & Wojtek Anna and Wojtek were the last of the characters that I painted. I think I used a little less finesse on these than the others and Anna looks less realistic as a result. Her clothes were pretty simple;

brown boots, green jacket, tan shirt, and a blue hat and cloak. The only tricky part here was the color for her pants. I didn’t have anything like it in my supply, so it was time to mix paints. I really dislike doing this for several reasons. First, I waste paints trying to get enough on the palette to give me some flexibility while mixing, and still end up with enough that doesn’t dry right away. Second, if I need to go back and touch up or paint over a mistake, I have to start the mixing process over. For this color, which I also used on Wojtek’s packs, I mixed green with a little tan and possibly a dab of yellow. I gave her some orange leather color for her hair and a pale flesh color for her face.

After the basecoat, I moved on to washes. The cloak got a blue wash to darken the shadows, while the rest of the clothes got the typical brown wash treatment to dirty them up. I added a little orange wash to her hair to give it some texture. Her face got a thin line of red wash around the lips. Her eyes were done with a white dot followed by a smaller black dot. This didn’t turn out as well as I hoped. From the side, it looks normal, but from straight on, her face is a little distorted. I had trouble finding the features of the left side of her face based on the molding, so it took a few tries to figure out where to put her left eye. Her hair covers a good part of her face, so I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be partially hidden. Apart from her face, there were only a few fine details to paint. Her hat has a small silver emblem on it, so I made a small dot using a silver metallic paint. The best

detail for giving her some character is the arm band. I used a dark red along with a tannish white in two small bands around the arm. I did the lighter color first and didn’t worry about the bottom edge as much. Then I covered up as much as I needed with the darker color. These were also covered with a thin layer of brown wash, because it would be no cleaner than the rest of her outfit. I did the same thing later on Wojtek for his matching armband. I started Wojtek with the straps, using the same mixed color as I used on Anna’s pants. I applied it liberally around the strap areas, and all over the packs. I did so quickly because I was planning on carefully covering the areas up to the straps later, and I wanted to use the custom color before it dried. Once complete, I painted all of the fur in a medium brown and then added some details such as the armband and the red cross on the medical supply pack. Then I applied a brown wash all over. I made it extra thick in areas around the flaps of the packs, and anywhere else that had extra shadow. I finished the fur with a medium brown drybrush. Wojtek has a little more texture in his fur than Mox, so the dry­brushing worked better. I then applied a heavy dry­brushing of his muzzle with the same off white that I used for the armband. This covered most of the brown fur in this area. I switched to my fine detail brush and added some black eyes and nose, and then added a thin line of wash for the mouth that flowed into the indentation there. I added some metallic lines in various places on the straps for clips and buckles. Then I got really ambitious and tried to write Wojtek’s name on both of his larger packs. Luckily, I started with the side mostly hidden by Anna where I ran out of room. After my “practice” side, I did much better.

The Mechs In contrast to the characters, there was very little detail on the mechs that I chose to paint in different colors. Don’t misunderstand, the miniatures are quite detailed. From a painting perspective, however, they are just pieces of metal attached to different pieces of metal. The biggest question when painting the mechs was whether to paint them using traditional paints and try to make them look metallic with layers and shading, or metallic paints, which have a metallic shine built in. In the end, I chose some of each to try out different techniques, partly just to make them look as different from each other as possible. I also tried to incorporate a little bit of their faction’s color to make them match their base a little better.

Saxon Empire I chose a non­metallic style with the Saxon Mech. I started by painting it all over with a dark gray, just like Gunter’s coat. I followed this with a heavy wash of black to give it as much shadow as possible. I wanted it to end up looking darker than the other mechs to match the its black base. After the wash, it looked a little dull, so I added a layer of medium gray dry­brushing to it, focusing on its edges, its

legs, and the mechanical details on its sides. In one of the pieces of art, I noticed a small yellow and black crest on the front of the mech. I tried adding this to the mech using the fine detail brush. I started with a roughly shield shaped yellow patch, and then added a few spots of black in the center. If you squint hard enough, it kind of looks like the crest in the artwork.

I finished up as I did the other miniatures by painting the base in a solid color to cover up any errant brushstrokes, even though the basecoat was already black.

Crimean Khanate The artwork for the Crimean Mech left a lot to my interpretation. I decided that it was probably both rusty and metallic. I went for more rust here than the other mechs to incorporate the original yellow color of the base. I started with a coat of dark gray metallic, called Boltgun Metal. This resulted in a shiny looking, “fresh off the production line” mech. Then I added several layers of black wash to bring out

the features and make it look a lot less new. I was intentionally sloppy so that it had inconsistent light and dark regions throughout. I went especially thick on the wheels so that it would make the spokes more noticeable. Next came a few layers of a sepia colored wash to rust it up. Once it had a good orange cast to it, I came back with a thin line of a medium gray metal along the edges of some of its major features. This highlight gives it a little more definition and contrast with the darker areas.

Nordic Kingdoms I could not find much art to use for reference on the Nordic Mech. What I did find made me think of a viking ship emerging from the fog. The only color I got from this was light and dark gray. I wanted to incorporate some blue in the design without making it look forced. The resulting design was a foundation of blue­gray, mostly covered up with

light and dark gray layers. Like the Saxon mech, I did not use any metallic paints. For the foundation, I used a color called Shadow Grey, which is what I would imagine a bluish fog would look like. I painted the entire mech in this color, and then I decided it was not metal enough. I took some medium gray and painted most areas while trying to leave a few spots of the foundation. The look I was going for, or perhaps just ended up with,

was “sloppy”. This lack of perfection or consistency looks ok to me because I want to keep the feel of imperfect visibility of a ship sailing out of the fog. I then applied a lot of black wash all over, as heavy as I could. There were plenty of crevices on this sculpt for it to collect in, giving it a lot of shadows. The final touch was to try to recapture the edges by highlighting them with a lighter gray. I used my drybrush for this, dragging it across the sides of the legs and along the sides of the ship to accent anything sticking up enough to catch some paint.

Rusviet Union The Rusviet Mech had the most art to use for reference, though the colors all tended to have the same dirty, rusty metal look. I used metallic paints for this piece, just like the Crimean Mech, but I decided not to make it look rusty so it would look different on the table. There wasn’t much in the way of red that I could add to the metal color, so I decided to just add a red accent

to connect it to its base color. I started by painting the entire mech in a dark gray metallic color. For the scythe arms, I wanted to do something different to make them look like long continuous pieces of imperfect metal. I added a few thin, watered down layers of the metallic paint, letting it pool toward the points. I then applied several thick layers of black wash all over, trying to make it look as weathered as I could. Next I went back with a lighter metallic gray and highlighted any areas that got lost in the wash, especially the edges of the scythe arms.

The final touch was to add the red star to the center, just like in the artwork. There wasn’t a feature in the sculpt to paint, so I was left to free­hand it. Let it be known that I am not good at freehanding. I have sloppy handwriting. I paint miniatures because it often comes down to “coloring between the lines”. To make this star, I didn’t try to make an outline and fill it in. Instead, I tried to make 5 dots for the points, allowing the brush to lie down toward the center of the star in case any paint came off the side. Then I simply tried to connect the dots to the center. The result is not a perfect start, but it looks close enough for my diminishing eyesight.

Republic of Polania The artwork for the Polania Mech shows a great dark behemoth. This was contrary to what I was trying accomplish in incorporating the base color into the color scheme. In my opinion, this is the coolest and most modern looking sculpt. I think of this mech as the “white knight”, so I decided to make it a little less dark and dirty, and a little more shiny. I started by painting it all over with a medium gray

metallic paint. Then I went over it with a black wash, but I used much less than on the other mechs. The exception was the cockpit. I wasn’t going to try to paint each individual window, so instead, I put several layers of wash on it, letting it run off the borders and down into the window areas. I repeated this until the windows were

dark enough. I also added extra wash to a few random features for variety, including some panels on top, the gun barrels, and the exhaust pipes. In the end, this one was probably the simplest of the paint jobs.

Art by Jakub Rozalski, used with Permission, and can be found on https://www.artstation.com/artist/jakubrozalski as well as Jakub’s Facebook page. Miniatures and pictures thereof used with Permission, and can be found at http://stonemaiergames.com/.