Guided by the expert tutelage of the shop manager Franz, I set to work on getting the first of the two river sections painted. The overall plan was to have the two flat sections of the gameboard painted up to look like a large river. On this board there was to be a single ford crossing. The other board will have two (a future On the Painting Table will cover the painting of this). Below is the painting process that Franz guided me through for reference.
First up, using a pen, I sketched out the rough outline of the river and fords on both of the flat boards.
The painting process was as follows:
Painting the ground
- Base coat with Chaos Black spray
- Using the large brush and the Brown found in the Citadel Scenery Painting Pack, paint all but river areas on the board
- Lighten the ground near river using Karak Stone (see photo below)
- Darken the ground away from river using Mournfang Brown (see photo below)
- Drybrush the ground lightly in the Ochre from the Citadel Scenery Painting Pack so as to blend across the three ground colours
- Drybrush same area again, very lightly, using Ushabti Bone (see next picture) so as to again blend across the three ground colours.
Painting the water
- Paint water by mixing drops of Abaddon Black, caliban Green, and a small amount of Rhinox Hide directly on the board. Paint the water all at the same time. The three colours will mix as you paint across that area of the board. Add drops of the three colours as needed in order to cover painting the river. Then add strikes of Soter Green to make lighter areas around the shore and elsewhere (see next picture).
- Now blend in colours using a stippling action with the large brush.
- With the smaller brush, paint the ford using Pallid Wych Flesh in a stippling fashion (see picture)
- Still using a smaller brush, using Soter Green and Caliban Green, stipple along the shoreline to blend in the colours at the shore. Use Pallid Wych Flesh to stipple on top of this in order to give a white water effect (next two pictures).
- Do a final very light dry brush with Pallid Wych Flesh to highlight white water again (see next photo) as the white water will dull a little and blend in with the next step.
- Finally paint the water with 'Ardcoat to give a glossy shine. DO NOT paint to the edge of the river at this time as the edge is still to be tidied up along the shoreline. Let it dry. Do a second coat to make it really glossy as it will tend to pulled together (see photos below).
All that's left to do is to tidy along the river edge using Karak Stone and then gloss the remaining part of the river along the shoreline using 'Ardcoat.
Once this is dry, using the PVA glue and static grass found in the Citadel Scenery Painting Pack, glue grass in place and allow to dry.
Looking good. One board almost down, five more to go.
