How to Paint Everything: Eldfall Chronicles Queen's Blade

A note up top: I do a lot of my painting with my airbrush, I like the speed and the result, but I acknowledge the fact that airbrushing has quite a steep learning curve and requires outlay for hardware which is out of the reach of beginners. Don't worry though, if you don't have an airbrush (or don't want to use one) and want to follow the tutorial anyway, pretty much everything I describe can be done with a brush, it just takes longer.

Burgundy Cloth

To get a start on the Therion Queen's Blade reinforcements, I go over the black primer with ProAcryl Dark Purple, this will provide a nice base for everything else to follow. When I airbrush with the ProAcryl paints (and anything else not pre-mixed for airbrushing), I like to thin them down with a few drops of water and some Golden High-Flow Medium - I mix them in one of those paper cups you get ketchup in at McDonalds (100 for £1.50, bargain!), they're very handy, the paint doesn't soak in and you can squeeze them into a spout shape for easy pouring.

To follow on from the Dark Purple, I spray the burgundy cloth all over with Army Painter Air (hereafter referred to as APA) Witchbane Plum. When I spray with the airbrush I like to rock the trigger a little so that in between spraying the paint; I also blow a little dry, clean air in order to dry each coat quickly. When airbrushing, it might be tempting to blast the model with paint, and indeed that's what I used to do - but it's better to take it steady so the paint doesn't flood the details.

When the Witchbane Plum has dried, I use some Warlock Purple, focussing on the parts of the cloth that face upwards and avoiding the shaded recesses. Once that's dried, I move on to targeting the highest parts with Talisman Purple (very weird name for a colour that is clearly, clearly pink). By painting inside the area covered with Warlock Purple we build a progression of highlights that enhance the sense of volume.

With the layered highlights built up, next I decide to do one of my new favourite techniques - spraying Speedpaints through the airbrush! I used Army Painter Speedpaint Moody Mauve to strengthen the colour and blend the burgundies together a bit better. Honestly, I'm loving using Speedpaints through the airbrush, it's easy to build up some nice saturated shadows with thin coats.

Later, I look at the official art and decide to change the colour of the coat of the Swashbuckler from pinky-purple to a deep red. To achieve this I use one of my favourite new speedpaints Bloodmoon Red from the new John Blanche sets - a lovely saturated bloody crimson that pops like crazy. I paint it over the swashbuckler's coat; it dampens the contrast a bit but that's not a problem. I continue and highlight the cloak using ProAcryl Red Oxide, Bold Pyrrole Red and Orange Red, focussing on the upward-facing areas for the former and the edges on the latter. I also do a very soft shade on the deepest recesses with APA Cloudburst Blue.

Purple Cloth

The purple cloth, already painted all over with ProAcryl Dark Purple receives a spray from a 45 degree angle with ProAcryl Royal Purple, a really nice warm purple that gives us a bit of colour contrast with the cold Dark Purple. Later I'll decide to paint the leader's coat slightly differently but bear with me for now. Once the Royal Purple has dried, I paint the hem of the Hired Blade's cloak and the very very highest parts of the others with ProAcryl Plum (a nice magenta colour), similar to the inside of the cloak and the coat of the leader. I shade the cloak with a bit of AP SP Hive Dweller Purple in the deepest recesses and where the mantle meets the cloak itself.

I highlight the quilted purple cloth on the lining of the leader's coat and her stockings in a few different ways - making two mixes of PA Plum with Bold Titanium White, and PA Dark Purple with Bold Titanium White. I then highlight each of the quilted parts with one of these, plum towards the hem and the colder dark purple mix towards the waist. To blend each of these and make something of a gradient, I make a mix of my previous mixes and use it in the space between. To separate each quilt a little I paint in between the lines with some thinned-down Hive Dweller Purple. To finish off the leader's coat, I shade the chest section with some more Cloudburst Blue and highlight it with the cold purple mix I made earlier, with a little bit of added PA White Blue.

Skin

The Rin of the Therion live underground, so they definitely have pale, almost albino skin - fortunately, the Army Painter has a very nice triad for pallid elf-y skin. I basecoat with APA Gnome Cheeks through the airbrush; in retrospect, this is probably not a great idea since it makes a bit of a mess on the purple cloth I already painted. For the legs of the Swashbuckler and the exposed tummies, I paint them with Gnome Cheeks before highlighting with a 1:1 mix of APA Gnome Cheeks and Hobgoblin Hue, and topping off with a highlight of pure Hobgoblin Hue. For the face, I line the eyes with Hive Dweller Purple before painting the whites with PA Bold Titanium White and the irises with PA Red Oxide. For the lips of the leader, I thin down some Army Painter Speedpaint Goddess Glow and paint it on the bottom lip. When painting lipstick on miniatures, it's best to paint only the lower lip to avoid looking like a clown or the Joker.

Grey Cloth

Very simple, this one; I basecoated the shorts and trousers with ProAcryl Dark Warm Grey, layered up some ProAcryl Warm Grey, shaded with Cloudburst Blue, and then highlighted with Warm Grey + Bright Warm Grey.

Brown Leather

For the various belts and other brown leather bits and pieces, I basecoated them with ProAcryl Light Umber, a nice, almost dark-beige-y colour, before shading them with AP SP Dark Wood and Cloudburst Blue. Once that's done, I add some fine highlights with Light Umber mixed with ProAcryl Bright Ivory (I used the same colour for the blonde hair, incidentally).

Blue Black Leather

The leader and the Hired Blade are wearing dark leather boots and gloves with a blueish tint. To start off, I basecoat them with ProAcryl Blue Black, then do a broad, specular highlight with PA Dark Blue Grey, focusing on the places where leather would be more reflective. Then I intensify the highlight by mixing a little PA Blue Grey into the Dark Blue Grey, creating a nice midtone and wet blending it carefully into the DBG. Finally I apply some edge highlights with Blue Grey with PA White Blue on the sharpest corners. To add a little colour to the leather I glaze it with some Cloudburst Blue.

Blued Steel Blade

I decide to give the swords something a bit special and Dark-Elfy, so I go with a dark blued steel. I begin by painting each of the blades with silver, then using a quasi-nmm principle, I glaze them, using Cloudburst Blue for the shadow end of each side and Pastel Indigo for the highlights, followed by a final edge highlight of Vallejo Model Air Silver. For the dagger of the Hired Blade and the swords of the Swashbuckler, I glaze with Speedpaint Charming Chartreuse instead.

White Hair

The hair is very white, and so I take the alternative approach to layering. I basecoat the hair with ProAcryl Bold Titanium White; it takes a few coats to get complete opaque coverage. Once that's nice and smooth, I go all over the hair with AP Speedpaint Blinding Light. It's a nice colour for painting white; it's a bit like Citadel Apothecary White. You have to be careful though; if you're not, it can look a bit dirty over pure white. When dry, I'll shade the downward-facing parts of the leader's hair (those cool pompom things) with some thinned-down Speedpaint Cloudburst Blue. The reason I'm using this paint in particular so much in the shading of these guys is to really drive home those cold atmospheric shadows. To finish the hair I'll paint highlights with Bold Titanium White.

I like these cool dark-elf esque sculpts; I think one day I'll go back to the Therion models I painted some years ago and re-do them with everything I've learned since.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.

Tags: How to Paint Everything | Eldfall Chronicles