Painting Skeletons

By Anthony Karl Erdelji

The first step is of course assembling all of the miniatures. Assembly was fairly easy, though I did find that the legs and torso fit better by filing down the backbone on the legs a little, otherwise the backbones will have a gap in the middle. You can even sand them down at a bit of an angle to add a bit of variety to the unit. I also made sure that they were all looking forward. This adds cohesiveness to the unit. All of the plastic parts were assembled with Tenax™. Metal to plastic was glued together with cyanoacrylate glue.

After assembly, I brushed them liberally with Tenax™ to melt the seam lines. Most are too difficult to remove with a file. Extra care was taken to remove the  seam lines on the skulls since they would be the most obvious. Be very careful at this step and be sure not to touch the mini while its covered with the plastic glue. I let them dry for a few hours before priming them white with Citadel Primer. I then attached them to strips of balsa wood with Blue-tac in an assembly line fashion.

I airbrushed the basecoat using Liquitex Unbleached Titanium, which is similar to a khaki color. An airbrush is not necessary, but it makes things allot easier. When that was dry, I mixed up a combination of 70% white and 30% unbleached titanium. I misted this at a downward angle onto the tops of the skeletons, hitting mainly the tops of the skulls and the shoulders.

The next step was to base in all of the details. The weapons were painted with a Polly S black and oxidized Aluminum mix. Wood was painted flat earth, ( close to a dirt color). Trim on the armor was painted with Polly S Bright Gold. When done, I sprayed them with Dullcoat and set them aside to cure. Let them cure for at least 12 hours before moving onto the next step.

I then mixed up one of my favorite oil washes. I used a mixture of 40% black, 40% brunt umber, 20% raw sienna thinned down with odorless paint thinner. Using a large, old brush, I liberally applied the mixture to the miniatures. I worked in groups of five, so the wash wouldn't dry before I could wipe it off.

Normally, I'd use an old pillow case to wipe the excess wash off, but these guys are very delicate and a pillow case would easily snag on a weapon and snap it off. Instead, I used cotton swaps to remove excess wash from the tops of the skulls, front of the legs, and tops of the shoulders. How much wash you remove is up to you, just keep wiping till your happy, then stop. Don't forget to wash the shields, too! When your done with all of them, set them aside to dry for a few hours. When they're dry, gently brush off any lint left from the cotton swabs will a soft brush.

I then glue the shields in place with cyanoacrylate glue. You may notice I have the shields glued on backwards. It was done on purpose and I think it looks better than using the plain side. The weapons did not come out "worn" enough for me, so I haphazardly brushed them with a orange wash for rust. For the bases, I mixed some brown ink into a bottle of Renaissance Ink Medium flocking gel™. This was spread over the bases with an old hobby knife. When dry, it was drybrushed with flat earth, then golden brown. The sides of the bases were painted a medium green and they were all spray with dullcoat. The last item was to glue down some static grass and drybrush it with yellow ochre. All done!

It took only three days to paint up 20 skeletons, and most of that time was spent waiting for paint or sealant to cure. I think they came out very well and they took minimal effort to paint. One unit down, several more to go!