Back in ye olde days, about 5 years ago, I was on a shopping spree with Otherworld Miniatures. I picked up their Shriekers and Violet Fungi set #DM11. I found a lovely set of blog posts about painting them written by said “Duke of Blood Keep” – aka Chris Bowler. They had a funny title to them – “How Not To Paint…”
I found the painting instructions for the shrieker/fungi to be a little intense. A lot of washes and highlights that didn’t seem to make any sense, as well as using Citadel/Games Workshop paints and (I believe) other brands of the more expensive paints. Me, I’m cheap, so I was going to make do with the few GW washes I had at the time and my craft paints.
Well, life happened and I never got past an initial wash of sepia on the Shriekers and purple on the Violet Fungi, and the minis sat unpainted for over 4 years till this June. I had my trusty (new or revived) $1.50 craft paints from Hobby Lobby and Walmart, I had some surviving GW washes, I had a rough idea of what I needed to do and I had my 1/4/2 PVA wash. (That recipe comes from this blog post by The Ecletic Gamer – I swear by this wash mix.)
Let’s do this thing.
Shriekers – with Craft Paints
First, go here and read Chris’s recipe for his Shriekers. It’s OK, I’ll wait. (I hate waiting.)
Now that you have seen his recipe, this will make a lot more sense.
1. Undercoat/Prime with white.
2. Wash with Sepia. (I used Games Workshop Sepia, no idea if this is still made.)
3. Undercoat the top of the cap with African Violet (Decoarts Crafters Acrylics).
4. Highlight the raised surfaces (dots and circles) with Khaki (Americana).
5. Highlight the stalk with Khaki, then French Vanilla (Folk Arts). I used the side/flat of my brush to make this work well.
6. Highlight the circles on the cap and the stalk with 1:1 French Vanilla and Titanium White (Americana).
7. Highlight the dots on the cap, the fringe on edge of cap and the raised dots where the gills of the cap and the stalk meet with dark tan flesh (1:1 Base Flesh (Americana) and Mississippi Mud (Americana)).
8. Wash the fringe with Uniform Blue (Americana) I just made it very watery.
9. Wash the stalk with Uniform Blue. (I used the 1/4/2 PVA wash).
10. Wash the cap (not the raised circles) and fringe with Leviathan Purple wash (Games Workshop)
11. Highlight the stalk (in patches) with 1:1 French Vanilla and Titanium White.
12. Under the cap (the gills), wash with Chocolate Brown (Americana) (1/4/2 PVA), then with Khaki (1/4/2 PVA).
13. Highlight the gills with 1:1 French Vanilla and Titanium White.
14. Wash the gills with Purple Leviathan wash.
15. The shelf mushrooms – Paint a base coat of Chocolate Brown, then the outer edge with Cinnamon Brown (Americana).
16. The shelf mushrooms – Highlight edge (leave a little bit of Cinn Brown showing) with 1:1 French Vanilla/Khaki.
17. The shelf mushrooms – Wash with Chocolate Brown (1/4/2 PVA)
18. The shelf mushrooms – Highlight edge (again) with 1:1 French Vanilla/Khaki. Then highlight the very edge middle with a small bit of Cinnamon Brown.
Here’s what it looks like.
Not bad, huh? I’m still not sure I quite understand all the washes and highlights. I think I’ve hit a part of color theory and painting that I’m just not knowledgeable about, but Chris’s recipe rocked and I was able to replicate it with the craft paints, for the most part.
Now… for the Violet Fungi.
This is going to look a lot similar, but more purple. (Go figure).
First, go here and read Chris’s recipe for his Violet Fungi. (You know the drill… waiting…)
OK, here we go!
1. Undercoat/prime with flat black.
2. Wash the entire mini with Purple Leviathan (Games Workshop).
3. Base coat of African Violet (Decoart Crafters Acrylics) on the cap (not the raised circles).
4. Paint dots on cap and fringe Bright Blue (Apple Barn)
5. Wash stalk in Uniform Blue (Americana) (1/4/2 PVA)
6. Wash cap (not raised circles) with Purple Leviathan.
7. Highlight stalk and raised circles on cap with 1:1 Khaki (Americana)/French Vanilla (Folk Arts).
8. Highlight stalk and raised circles on cap with French Vanilla.
9. Wash the entire model with a 1:1 African Violet/Chocolate Brown (Americana) wash. (2/8/4 PVA, with the paint 1:1 AV/CB)
10. Highlight stalk and raised circles on cap with 1:1 French Vanilla and Titanium White (Americana).
11. The stalks – I used real twigs prepared beforehand. If you are following the types of paints I’m using, you can easily replicate what Chris did with his stalks. If I ever get replacement OWM stalk sprue, I’ll update this recipe with painting the stalks.
12. Under cap (gills) – Base coat with African Violet, wash with Purple Leviathan, then highlight with 1:1 French Vanilla/Khaki.
13. Shelf Mushrooms – follow steps 15-18 of the Shrieker.
Here’s what the Violet Fungi looks like.
The bases for both were made out of Sculpey for the slotta tab and painted Chocolate Brown. The “debris” that is supposed to look like rotting vegetation is black tea leaves from a tea-bag. I use Mod-Podge to glue them to the base and cover them so they don’t flake
So there you go. To borrow Chris’s phrase “How Not to Paint these minis… but with Craft Paints!”