Barbarian Horde (of one)

Taking a leaf out of Carmen's Fun Painty Time's book, I have decided to paint some characters designed to represent classic D&D classes. For openers I took advantage of Heresy Miniatures recent sale to grab one of Andy's brilliant Dynamic Big Boris models to be my quintessential Barbarian:

I wanted to use this model to practice stubble and body hair techniques listed in 'Eavy Metal's "Face Painting Redux" article. I used my standard method of painting skin for the 95% of the model that is naked. This is summerised as follows: Two thin coats of Tallarn Flesh as a basecoat; wash of Ogryn Flesh; deep shading wash of Devlan Mud; thinned Tallarn Flesh highlight; 3:1 mix of Tallarn Flesh and Bleached Bone highlight; thinned wash of Ogryn Flesh; repeat highlights; continue to add Bleached Bone to the mix for increased highlighting. I left the skin tone a bit darker than normal as suntanning is pretty much inevitable when all you wear is a skimpy loincloth.

To finish off the face I painted the lips and nipples Vallejo Tan and then added Bleached Bone to highlight. Body hair and stubble were achieved with very thinned washes of a 1:1:1:1 mix of Tallarn Flesh; Fortress Grey; Chaos Black and Scorched Brown. To indicate the chest hair I streaked the wash with a thin brush.

It is important to keep shaved hair and beard to appropriate areas of the head. This is relatively easy to achieve if you are a post-pubescent male as you can just look in the mirror. Otherwise, Google will supply endless appropriate images.

To join the Barbarian (haven't named him yet, any ideas in the comments section!) in the first adventuring party will be a human Bard and Cleric and a halfling Rogue. These guys are forming light relief in between longer projects and are a very satisfying project to work on! Next time should be the last of the Blood Angels, until then...

TTFN