To give a bit of implication of different skin tones and states of decay on the zombies you can basically raid your washes for whatever will even vaguely tint the primer a bit. (note that thinning denser contrasts works quite well for this too)

Here I just smooshed on Contrast: Guilliman Flesh on the skin & Contrast: Space Wolves Grey on the fur. If you’re using an airbrush, paint the windows first (following the steps we used to paint the car windows earlier), then gloss varnish them to save your work and mask them with silly putty. Then drybrush the gray parts with Celestra Gray. Avoid hitting the metal but it’s not the end of the world if you do. The goal is to add a lot of texture to this so be sure to hit the flat surfaces as well, pressing your brush down on them. I use a large drybrush for this. I have to admit that Contrast has changed my painting quite a bit, even though I never actually use it for painting whole miniatures as advertised. But to save time on organic textures and smaller details like all those pouches and belts that won’t catch your attention, they are fantastic. They’re also great for thinning into washes or glazes. I used Contrast glazes to shade my classic 2nd Edition Ultramarine, for example.Also if you’re feeling particularly nostalgic, Bob Ross used to paint a ton of seascapes and you can catch re-runs of the Joy of Painting on Twitch these days, usually streaming on Fridays. A lot of the same color principles and tactics Bob uses can be applied to how you paint water, plus the show is just very relaxing to watch. Wash the sign (both the lettering and the red) with diluted (1:1 parts water to paint) Basilicanum Grey. It’s then given an all-over wash of a 50/50 mix of Basilicanum Grey and Contrast Medium . Make sure this doesn’t dry in any weird pools. Few of us may want to paint entire armies to this standard as the time involved would be prohibitive but hopefully, this article outlines what is possible with these figures. I have also deliberately broken up the guide into the above three stages so each hobbyist can find which level is best suited to them. I think this is an excellent set of figures from Warlord and my favourite Epic Battles release so far. I’d also like to thank Andy of the Friends of General Haig wargaming club for his sage advice.

An overall plan thus came together. Now, fair warning – this is me trying to make these look pretty nice, and it takes a while. I cannot fault you if you want to go for easier, drybrushed or airbrushed scheme. If, like me, you view the extreme detail on these kits as a challenge to be faced with paintbrush in hand, read on. Plan – Walls Greetings, True Believers! Marvel Crisis Protocol (MCP) has entered a golden age, with well-balanced rules (that are available online for free) and over 120 characters available from the Marvel universe (and growing)! If you need a break from other games with too many models, MCP is a nice variation – with only a few characters required for a game and a relatively minimal amount of terrain. And what terrain there is! The bases were GW texture paint, that after the overspray from the original airbrushing, were washed with the same dull green I used on the metals, spotted washes of Vallejo dark green, some additional browns pushed around the edges of the greens and then all washed with GW. Nuln Oil “Gloss” to give the ground the damp-swamp feel.You can highlight the rims conventionally (basecoating with Dawnstone and highlighting with Administratum Grey) or simply drybrush the whole tire with Dawnstone and call it a day. Boom, done. This whole piece probably took an hour to paint once primed, and that was with breaks to paint other minis while I waited for the washes to dry (by far the longest part). I didn’t show any floors here, but when I do them I paint them Karak Stone and drybrush/edge them with Rakarth Flesh and that compliments this cold gray scheme nicely. The end result is a piece that has enough color to stand out but won’t distract from the models around it. The only thing it’s missing is a base. Speaking of which… Wash armor and weapons with a 3:1 mix of Army Painter Strong Tone and Vallejo Sepia Ink (any brown ink will do) Pike & Shotte Epic Battles: Push of Pike provides you with everything you need to refight the wars that raged across Europe in the seventeenth century on an epic scale, with period-specific additions that capture the tactics, conditions, and prominent personalities of both the Thirty Years’ War and English Civil Wars. Lastly I took pure White Scar and did a smaller highlight in the middle of the previous one. On larger glowing areas, like on the Canoptek Reanimator, I had to do more layers to get a smoother blend.

Lastly, there isn’t much yellow, but you’ll find a bit on the collar as well as the pompoms. I kept this nice and saturated, as it’s such a small detail that it should be called out. I went all over the yellow on the pompom with the wash, but didn’t really use it on the collar. You could use it to define the color barrier between red and yellow but it’ll be kind of hard to see. You could also use it for sergent or corporal stripes on the uniforms. The Dark Imperium box came with a force of marines that I intended to build onto to bulk out my army. They often need multiple coats to achieve a similar level of richness. Also, the pigment-based formula doesn’t really work with zenithal shading, as the opaque pigments will gather in the dark recesses and make them brighter, which is not exactly what you want. I loved painting each and everyone of these models and I’m super pumped for the separate box releases of the Skeletons and Zombies. Two thin coats Sotek Green, using a smaller brush to avoid filling in the screw recesses, and not worrying about going too deep at the edges now because the wash takes care of it.Highlight the eye lenses with Warpaints Lava Orange [or Troll Slayer Orange], then add a small dot of white to the corners of the lenses. There are a bunch of different ways you can do this; I try to mix in a lot of basing details to break up the monotony and help create the visual reminder that these were buildings with taller walls and ceilings. Plasticard sheets also work well here to create flatter base textures that suggest proper flooring and tiles. The first thing to understand is that the latter two paint ranges have a very different formula than Contrast or Speedpaint. They are not based on dye, but on thinned acrylic pigments. Think of Citadel Nihiliakh Oxide or regular acrylic paints thinned with a lot of Contrast Medium.

To finish them off, I added dots of Grey Seer to the corners of everything – if there’s a corner, put a dot on it. I dotted some of the longer, rounded edges as well if it made sense for light to be reflecting from there. I went lighter on the tubes and wires to make them feel a little bit softer. Optional] For the blue flesh on the Crimson Court Vampire, I glazed thinned Citadel Contrast Arkhelian Green

Endless Possibilities

In our How to Paint Everything series, we look at how to paint well, everything! We look at different models and techniques and have multiple approaches to specific models. In today’s article, we’re looking at how to paint some of the terrain in Marvel Crisis Protocol, starting with terrain found in the Core Box (CP01) set! Paint the wood and any straps with Citadel Contrast Wyldwood and any ropes/bandages/feathers with Citadel Wraithbone. To save time I basically did not bother with any highlights outside of wood, the main thing is just going to be really slopping the washes on over Vallejo grey primer. For this kinda thing you can really go overkill so the wash settles into crappy highlights on its own. Skeletons