Continuing along with my four work-in-progress dwarves. I’m happy with my progress so far and think I’ll have no problem meeting the April 3rd deadline for my March Might and Magic Painting Challenge. If you’d like to join there is still time. A single miniature is welcome, in addition to squads, mobs, and so on.
I’m fairly pleased with how the cloaks turned out. As is sometimes the case, I think they look a bit better in person than what I could squeeze out of my cell phone camera. I used Warhammer TV’s video, How to Paint: Space Marine Cloaks as my inspiration, though I varied slightly from what they did, so I’ll list the steps here for anyone who is interested and my own edification a year from now when I can’t remember what I did and want to do it again.
Dwarf Red Cloaks
(Except for step 2, all of the steps using contrast paints including watering them down with medium.)
- Primed with white, base coat with Mephiston Red.
- Cover with Blood Angels Red Contrast paint.
- Flesh Tearers Contrast paint in the folds. Do several layers of this, smaller each time to add depth. This is a subtle effect.
- Basilicanum Grey Contrast in the deepest recesses.*
- Mephiston Red and then Wild Rider Red on raised parts of cloak. Light highlight with Troll Slayer Orange.
I noticed a pingback for the first finished miniature (at least that I know of) for the painting challenge. Hearteater** from Games Workshop’s Untamed Beasts by the inconceivable Wudugast of Convert or Die. So in celebration, let us wrap things up with a look at Wudugast’s worthy in all his feral might!
I really liked Wudugast’s choice for the flesh here. I asked him about it and he said that he used Rhinox Hide, then Dryad Bark, and finally Baneblade Brown. I might have to give this a try myself at some point. I wonder if some sort of brown glaze as a final step would tie it all together? He did a great job and painted a worthy addition for his growing warband.
* I find that I like this Basilicanum Grey Contrast muck for edging borders and such.
** I like how Wudugast made a proper name of “Hearteater,” which seems a suitable sobriquet, versus Games Workshop’s using it as more of a title alongside colleagues such as First Fang and Preytakers.
Ann's Immaterium 
18 responses to “WIP Dwarves Update: Red Cloaks”
That’s a bit more work than I want to do on a cloak, but the result is really smooth and outstanding. Such a rich color. The idea of using a base color and then painting over with Contrast paints is pretty intriguing. I guess I’ve been doing a little bit of that in small tests, as a glaze. But using it as shade, hadn’t really occurred to me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I hadn’t really thought of using it as a shade either until I saw that Warhammer TV video, but it seems to work pretty well and is easy to do. I don’t know too much about Contrast paints yet, though I’m learning, and it is useful watching videos of other people sharing what they know about them. I have only glanced at them, but Mcmattilaminis points toward some Contrast paint videos that look interesting in this post, that I also put a link to in the March painting challenge round-up post.
https://mcmattilaminis.wordpress.com/2020/03/28/poxwalkers-experimenting-with-contrast/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, I’ll check that out…Oh, nice! Tentacles! That will definitely get a read soon!
LikeLiked by 1 person
[…] March 17: The dwarves’ red cloaks. […]
LikeLike
Inconceivable?! I think that means… exactly what you think it means 🙂 Cheers for the shout out – glad you liked my angry man there. Those dwarves are looking good (neat cloaks can be a real challenge for me so I do admire someone who pulls them off with aplomb).
LikeLiked by 2 people
Always glad to use the word correctly! 🙂 Certainly, and thank you for including your angry guy in the challenge. Thanks, I find cloaks a bit challenging as well; I haven’t done a lot of them though now that I’m playing tabletop RPG’s more, I’m finding that more and more of the miniatures I want to paint have those pesky cloaks. Almost makes me want to go back to painting space orks again!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good work on the cloaks, Ann.
I keep seeing people use contrast paints in different ways. Here, it sounds like you’ve thinned them and used them almost as a glaze for the shadows, I must have a go at that myself, see how it comes out – thanks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you. Although the tutorial based in gray and applied the contrast paint to an otherwise unpainted miniature, something I’ve found is that the contrast paint doesn’t really do a very good job covering up mistakes. So I found it useful to get most of the stuff around the cloak done first, to minimize the possibility of mistakes, then cleaning up the edges with my red base color (Mephiston Red) from where I painted metallic paint onto a cloak, when I was doing the chainmail, for example, then beginning the process of putting on the contrast paints.
I also noticed that using the contrast paints to do edging and highlight grooves, such as the decorative work on one of the dwarf axes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Looking good Ann. Haven’t forgotten your challenge. Figure purchased and setting time aside to get it done.
Will be up by the end of the month promise! 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
Resplendent! 🙂 Looking forward to seeing it. Remember the deadline isn’t the end of March, it is midnight on April 3rd, since I announced the challenge a couple of days into March.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice work on the cloaks, Ann, and a very nice mini from Wudugast! For some reason, I’m still having trouble “liking” stuff on WordPress, so will just have to say I liked your post here!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, John. I’m happy with how they came out. I haven’t done much with cloaks in the past so I was a little nervous going into the whole thing. I felt that the honor of the Iron Hills rested upon my narrow shoulders, so I’m glad I didn’t mess it up too badly … at least not so far.
Yes, I really like that miniature from Wudugast. He certainly has a unique style that I like quite a lot.
Thinking I might put a little Etsy rust monster into the queue while I’m finishing up my first two dwarves. Hope you are doing well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re making good progress! All fine here at the moment and hope things are OK with you. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m picking away. Turns out I have a bit more free time, like a lot of people these days. Plan on finishing one of the dwarves tonight and the second one on Friday.
Glad to read that things are OK with you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice Ann
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice work. That is a very smooth look on the cloaks, and a rather neat job all round.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thank you. I haven’t had much experience with doing cloaks or contrast paints for that matter. It was a fun experiment and I feel a lot more confident about doing cloaks now.
LikeLike