How To Paint Everything - Eldfall Chronicles: The Coalition of Thenion

This article is part of a sponsored series of articles exploring Freecompany’s Eldfall Chronicles tabletop miniatures game. Many thanks to Freecompany for providing a review copy of the game.

"Said to be the most mysterious of all the regions of the world, Thenion is one of the two lands occupied by the Rin peoples. As a contrast to the fairer Helrin, a long exposure to a lightless life has rendered their skin ashen and their characters mischievous and individualistic with a thirst for fulfilment." - Eldfall Chronicles

In this article I'll be sharing the methods I used to paint the Coalition of Thenion miniatures seen above, I do a lot of mixing when I paint, but I will endeavour to include references of pre-mixed paints that are close to my mixes as well.

Credit: Keewa

Night-Temple Priestess' Wings

After priming everything black and then doing some zenithal highlights with white, I airbrushed the wings with Scalecolor Artist (Hereafter referred to as SA) Magenta, this is an incredibly punchy powerful pink.
Next, I airbrushed the bottom parts of the wings with SA Turquoise, going about halfway up each wing.
I airbrushed the transition in the middle with SA Violet.
Finally, I gave it a coat of matt varnish to protect it from the next steps.

Credit: Keewa

Night-Temple Priestess Skin, Clothes, and Hair

Ok, so when I painted the Night-Temple Priestess I only used four colours (Turquoise, Orange, Magenta, and Purple) along with black and white, so essentially everything you see here was mixed from those, keep that in mind going forward!

For the hair, I mixed Turquoise and Black in a ratio of approximately 1:1.
For the skin, I mixed Orange, Magenta, Black, and White in a ratio of approximately (2:1:1:1) and painted it all over the skin parts, I want the skin to be somewhat dark, desaturated, and with a strong pink tone, to accentuate the inhuman-ness of it.
For the train of the dress I painted everything with magenta, before painting the frill elements with a light grey, I painted the same light grey on the bodice of the dress and the veil.
The various gems were basecoated with either pure Turquoise, or a mix of Turquoise and orange that gives a nice warm green.

Highlights and Shading

Credit: keewa

I highlighted and shaded the various parts mostly by adding black or white to each colour, I wish I could be more specific but unfortunately I didn't take very detailed notes!

Regular Thenrin Characters

Credit: keewa

Everything gets an all-over airbrush coat of Xereus Purple, during my painting it was at this point that I realised the Nightshade's leg was not at all in the right place. Whoops!

Credit: keewa

After a nice chiropractic adjustment to get the Nightshade's leg into the socket properly, all the skin gets a coat or two of Rakarth Flesh, easy.

Credit: keewa

Thin down Druchii Violet rather aggressively with water, and shade the skin.

Credit: keewa

Highlight the skin with Rakarth Flesh mixed with progressively more Pallid Wych Flesh, until you have a pure PWF highlight. Once that's done, add a little white to the PWF for even stronger highlights of this very pale, desaturated skin.

Credit: keewa

Basecoat the dark blue cloth with Dark Reaper, and the pink cloth with Screamer Pink.

Credit: keewa

Basecoat the brass metallics with Runelord Brass and the silver metallics with Vallejo Model Air Steel. Eagle-eyed readers will notice that I also cleaned up the purple cloth between these steps!

Credit: keewa

Shade the purple and the pink with Druchii Violet, shade the Dark Reaper with Nuln Oil, and for the heck of it, give the hair a light wash with Coelia Greenshade.

Credit: keewa

Now onto the Swashbuckler's pink coat, paint Screamer Pink back on all but the most recessed areas, keeping the purple shadows in the darker parts.

Credit: keewa

Highlight by adding progressively more and more Pink Horror into your Screamer Pink basecoat. Once you've reached pure Pink Horror, mix in a tiny bit of VMC Ice Yellow for a final highlight.

Oh god, that pot is not closed properly! Credit: keewa

After that, begin highlighting the purple cloth, first by applying Xereus Purple all over the non-recessed bits, and then by mixing Pink Horror into the Xereus Purple basecoat, progressively lightening it in the same way as the previous step.

Credit: keewa

Highlight the cloth previously painted with Dark Reaper by mixing in some White Scar, lightening by stages until you have a bright shiny highlight. This can create some really nice shiny cloth, almost like silk. With the Nightshade, paint Corvus Black on the undersides of her breasts, then, rather than highlight the topmost parts, highlight the paint downwards towards the "Equator" (man, this is getting a little anatomical, huh?) so that the lightest part is directly next to the dark underside part. This method is not too dissimilar from Earth-Sky non-metallic metal. Here's a little diagram that explains it a little more clearly, although it must be said that breasts are not perfect spheres (oh god, what am I doing?)

Credit: keewa

Credit: keewa

Paint the hair with Deepkin Flesh, leaving the strands outlined with the Coelia Greenshade.

Credit: keewa

Finish the weaponry by mixing Vallejo Model Air Steel with Scalecolor Inktense Lime.

Credit: keewa

Finish off by glazing the shadows with some Naggaroth Night and base your guys in whatever environment you like, I went with Rhinox Hide drybrushed with Ogryn Camo/Underhive Ash.

The Coalition of Thenion. Credit: keewa

And there you have it! The Coalition of Thenion, painted the same way I painted mine. Happy hunting, you sneaky skulker!

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. You can find more information about Eldfall Chronicles onthe game's website.