Shaded Basecoat: Beast Mode

Painting the Chaos Spawn by way of Shaded Basecoat

The shaded basecoat has been a neat little technique for me that has kept on giving, especially for weirder and more organic models such as beasts and monsters. This technique came out very well for my Ycarne model, so I figured it would work well for other chaos creatures. Since I've had a chaos army for some time I realized I lacked a decent array of summonable creatures. While my Bloodletters and Demon Prince have some of the basics covered, I've been missing some spawn, and during last Cancon I had the opportunity to pick up a box in a discount bin at one of the big stalls.
I aimed for a very simple and quick paint job, as while I want the models to look presentable on the table, I'm not keen to win any awards with them, and I've got far more interesting projects in the pipe that I want to get to sooner rather than later. Still, I haven't done many monsters or gribblies before and this sort of thing is good practice for when I get on to other projects in future, especially if I ever get my hands on some unpainted Kingdom Death, either way on with the project.

1. Assembly

The models themselves went together very well, and the level of customization that was available to me was pretty remarkable considering it is a plastic kit, probably not a digital sculpt. I wanted to avoid the parts that make the model look like it has fantasy parts and go hard on the weird tentacles and spikes angle.

If you've done any model kit assembly before there isn't much I can tell you about how to do it. Once the kit was together I did my usual processes of fixing to the base and putting down my usual basing mix of cork chunk rocks and sand.

One quibble that I have with assembling the kit is that you can't rush it, as I found I have to put in a few spikes or tentacles, wait until it the glue was mostly set, then balance the model and set it aside for half an hour to wait for it to dry. Finally, repeat as needed until the model is fully assembled.

2. Undercoat

No need for pictures here, normally I use a combination of black all over and white zenithal to get a gradation of highlighting. Since I'm going to start from bright colours from the get go I'm going with an all over undercoat of Croax White all over for the undercoat. This is essential for ensuring that we can start with bright colours without having to build our way up at we would with a black undercoat.

3. Skin Basecoat

This is always one of the most time consuming stages of the project. The colours I am using are both Vallejo Game Colour using Squid Pink for one and Bonewhite for the other. This was applied by brush for at least five to six layers with significant drying time between each layer. The idea of this stage is to achieve a mostly flat initial base colour for all of the skin on the model, I didn't worry about being messy with the colour as I painted over any over spill in subsequent steps. This is where our white undercoat pays off, building up this colour from white was an order of magnitude easier than starting from a black undercoat.

4. First Wash Passes

This pass involves putting down many layers of washes. Each wash uses Vallejo Game Colour as a base colour. In the case of the Squid Pink model the colour is Warlord Purple, for the Bonewhite model the colour is Leather Brown. To create my wash I use Vallejo glaze medium and water to create a very thin wash.
To start with I applied an overall wash and let it dry. Next I applied successive layers of washes, each time starting at a spot further down the model until I had achieved a colour transition from something close to the original base colour at the top to a colour that is mostly the shade colour at the bottom.

5. Second Wash Passes

Next up I wanted to emphasize a few spots on the model with a darker colour. In the case of the Squid Pink model I used Hexed Lichen and Charred Brown for the Bonewhite model. I performed similar steps to the previous stage on the tentacles, gradually getting a colour transition on my chosen spots.

6. Basecoat, Wash & Highlight Claws

This stage was very simple, just a simple basecoat. For the pink model I used Khaki and Shadow Grey for the Bonewhite one. Once this basecoat is dry I applied successive layers wash to start darkening down the base colour. Once I liked the look of the claws I then glazed back up using a very thin glaze with a generous amount of glaze medium to ensure a very thin colour. Once a decent gradient was achieved, I did a few small highlights with with the original base colour as a high highlight. In the case of the brown spawn I highlighted the fur up another layer to give it a slightly different texture from the claws and bone.

7. Eyes

The eyes were relatively simple, I started with Sun Yellow until I had a decent layer to work with. Then I painted a small red pupil that I built up a gradient starting at a medium red and working my way up to orange in the middle. Once I finished up the base shape I gave it a glaze with Bloodletter, let it dry, then re-established the yellow and the red. I also painted some bloodshot eyes lines for the larger eye.

8. Gloss Varnish

The very final stage was a layer of gloss varnish on the eyes and for the creature with the mouth I painted the maw and lips with gloss to give the impression of spittle.

9. Paint & Dress The Base

Final stage is to paint up the base, I used my usual technique which I've documented that many times over the years that I don't feel the need to repeat it. Again, I also dressed the base with the usual array of grasses and tufts.

We're Done!

The final form result turned it pretty well for a tabletop standard, and the shaded basecoat approach is fairly easy to do and doesn't require a lot of fine brushwork in the initial stages. The kit itself was refreshingly simple compared the the usual over adornment of detail that is par for the course for most contemporary Games Workshop models. In retrospect I would've like to try more aggressive colour transitions such as a different belly colour or a speckled pattern, I had some ideas using a toothbrush flicking technique, which I'll probably try on a future monster model. Anyway, I hope that helps, see you on the next guide.