How I Paint – Ral Partha Goblin Warriors

What I’m painting: Ral Partha Goblin with Flail [51-031] (part of Goblin Great Weapon Regiment Set [98-275])

Another set of troops for my Chaos Wars armies and tabletop RPG games. These were done with the Dallimore/Foundry 2-color method. These are fairly simple figures and a color scheme that is traditional – green with simple colors as the goblins are not very sophisticated technologically. They are woodland creatures, so the bases are done in a specific way, which is the real reason for this “How I Paint.”

Color scheme (Base/Highlight):
Skin: Americana Hauser Medium Green / Delta Ceramcoat Wedgewood Green
Eyes: DecoArts Daffodil Yellow
Teeth: Americana Khaki Tan / Folk Ark French Vanilla
Hair: Americana Neutral Gray / Delta Ceramcoat Light Grey
Shield: Delta Ceramcoat Raw Sienna / Americana Cocoa
Shield Design (fist): Americana Holly Green / DecoArt Holiday Green + DecoArt Citrus Green
Flail: Games Workshop Boltgun / Games Workshop Chainmail
Anklet decoration: Americana Deep Burgundy / Americana Country Red

Steps:
Starting off with the basics, primed in black. I do the eyes and teeth straight off, because if I screw them up, I just cover it up with black and try again! After having done dozens of eyes now with all the troops I’m painting, eyes are becoming a breeze.
 

Next, I block out the face carefully around the eyes and teeth, to not screw them up. I dry brush the weapons with the Boltgun, reblack the areas that have a bit of spatter from the dry brushing, then apply the base coats. These goblins were naked, aside from some fancy anklet decorations, so pretty simple. I left the handles black. These are troops, so I don’t have to go hog-wild on the details for tabletop distance and play.
 

Once done with basecoats, I apply the second color highlights. Again, pretty easy simple figures, with lots of muscle definition. I paint most of the skin in the lighter color, so that the darker basecoat stands out as the definition.

The shields, I did in 3 layers of highlight – the basecoat around the edges, basecoat+highlight as second layer about 2/3ds of way down, then the highlight at the center of the shield and blended out a bit.
  

Final pictures showing completed goblins, including the shield design of the “Green Iron Fist.”

(Added) I was reminded by lige’s comment below that I did use a wash on this model.. Once the shields were done, including design, I put a combination of a black/brown wash lightly over the leather to “dirty” it up. I do that for my goblins and orcs with leather and metal armor/weapons. I left the flails alone on these, since the metal looked rough enough with the dry brushing.
   

Now this is all pretty standard, easy stuff. The fun part for me with the goblins comes with basing them. Goblins in my world are primarily woodland creatures, so I put a little bit extra into the bases to show more woodland type terrain.

On most of my 25mm goblin bases, I use dried basil leaves (el cheapo at discount groceries) that’s ground into nice small bits as “leaves” on top of the static grass. On some of the larger bases, or commander/character bases, I’ll also put twig bits to represent logs and fallen limbs. I like the way it looks on the tabletop!