I picked up Shadespire in February of this year (2018). I’ve been having a blast playing it, and since then I have slowly, ever so slowly, been working on painting up my Khorne Bloodreavers warband, Garrek’s Reavers.
Granted, it’s only 5 models, but I wasn’t in a rush, and I really wanted to take my time on the models and enjoy the process. I also wanted to continue pushing my ability to paint skin, something I’m historically bad at.
Another thing that took some time was quality. I wasn’t aiming at creating showpieces, but I also wanted something more than standard tabletop quality too. Once I worked that out, the process went quick, relatively speaking.
For the final model in the group that I painted, Garrek himself, I went a bit above the rest in the warband in terms of quality. I have been wanting to experiment with the loaded brush blending technique, so I took it as a chance to do just that.
I loved the results I got, and it made me wish I had done this on all the models, but Que Sera, Sera. Garrek was the last model, I wanted to spend some extra time on him, so I can’t afford to look back.
Anyway, enough blabbering, here’s some pictures of Garrek’s Reavers!
As always, click to make them larger.
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Garrek’s Reavers
Targor
Arnulf
Karsus
Saek
Garrek
Painting Thoughts
Other than what I said above, I’m happy with how Garrek’s Reavers came out. I played around with skin tones a lot on these guys, each having a unique skin tone. I also really love working on darker skin tones. I find their easier to work with and more forgiving of mistakes.
Anyway, I think the skin overall came out well. It’s light years ahead of what I used to do at least.
I also wanted to play around with the Blood for the Blood God technical paint. I picked it up a long time ago and have used it on maybe one model so far. So, I did some experimenting with it on the Bloodreavers weapons. I wouldn’t normally do every model with a bloody weapon, but it seems fitting for these guys.
Oh, the eyes, yeah, they’re just white. I tried doing pupils, kept getting frustrated, so I gave up on the idea and left them white. I did try doing red eyes on one model and didn’t like it. The white stands out more and pure white eyes are eery anyway.
All-in-all I’m happy with how my Garrek’s Reavers warband came out.
Garrek’s Reavers Skin Painting Recipe
I’ve been asked a few times about some of skin recipes, so here they are.
Anything noted with (V) is Vallejo, otherwise it’s a Citadel paint.
Targor
- Base coat Pale Flesh (V)
- Wash with Reikland Fleshshade
- Blend back up with Pale Flesh
- Selective shading with Reikland Fleshshade
Arnulf
- Base coat Pallid Wych Flesh
- Wash with Reikland Fleshshade
- Blend back up with Pallid Wych Flesh
- Selective shading with Reikland Fleshshade
Karsus
- Base coat Gorthor Brown
- Wash with Druchii Violet
- Blend back up to Gorthor Brown
- Selective shading with Agrax Earthshade
- Blend up with XV-88
Saek
- Base coat Rhinox Hide
- Wash with Druchii Violet
- Blend back up to Rhinox Hide
- Selective shading with Agrax Earthshade
- Blend up with Mournfang Brown
- Light glaze with Rhinox Hide
Garrek
- Base coat Elf Skintone (V)
- Glaze with Tan (V)
- Blend back up with Elf Skintone
- Selective shading with Tan (V)
- Blend up to Pale Flesh (V)
For the skulls on the bases I used one of my standard skull techniques. I’ve got a tutorial on painting skulls, and the one I used is #1 in the list.
Storage
Since these are now fully painted, I went and got myself a Feldherr Shadespire tray for the Bloodreavers. It’s a cool laser cut tray with slots for all your goodies.
The tray is actually pretty affordable and I highly recommend Feldherr.
Update
I now also have an A-Case+ magnetic case I’m using and I really like it. If you want to go the magnetic route then check out my full review on my other blog.
My A-Case+ packed with a Blood Bowl team and 3 Warhammer Underworlds warbands.Conclusion
So, really happy with how the Garrek’s Reavers came out. I’ve been having a great time painting up stuff for Shadespire.
I’ve got some helpful advice on using Garrek’s Reavers as well.
Thor’s Warhammer Underworlds Warbands
I love painting miniatures and teaching people how to paint. I also really love blogging, so I've combined those two passions here.
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The skin is smooth as silk -despite I should not say this in front of them-. The shadows around Targor’s eyes are great! Amazing job. I always hate to do pupils: there are some tricks to to them, but I think the best is to have a top quality brush with a nice belly to not dry the color and a sharp tip. However I’ve not noticed the lack of it, white eyes are cool!
Thanks, and yeah, I don’t think bloodthirsty killers like being told they have silky smooth skin ;)
Since I started painting those guys I got a better brush. I could probably have done it after, but some were already painted and sealed, so I didn’t want to chance screwing it all up again. Maybe next time.
That came put really well, bravo. The extra time and effort really shows.
The blood effect paint is great, but I find it is very easy to over use. Thankfully you used it more in moderation.
Thanks. These guys were a lot of fun to paint.
I hear you on the blood. It’s why I’ve shied away from it. It’s also why I didn’t do blood splattering. I wanted it to accent the model, not overwhelm it.
Good idea. The blood splatter effect can work really well at times, I just don’t have the knack of it.
Best implementation I’ve seen of it is basically really load up a brush and then flick it against a finger or something next to the model. The excess files off in little splatters. Looks awesome, but the problem with real random is…it’s random. Not ideal for “precision” blood splattering.
Very true, more for a “and then the Knight stood on him” sort of thing.
They’re my least favourite of the Warbands to play so far, but they do paint up really nicely. I always like seeing more varied skin tones. The eyes do look nicely creepy. Something else to try perhaps on future Models is to do them white and then a very light red wash over them. BftBG is definitely easy to over-use. Nice restraint with it here.
I had tried a red wash over the white and I didn’t like it. The eyes went from a kind of creepy focal point to blending into the skin tones. I really wanted that to work too. Probably would have on the darker toned guys, but not the pale dudes.
I’ve done really well with these guys in games. I’d say I’m around a 75% win ratio with them. The only times I find myself getting destroyed are 3-way games. They do not hold up well there at all.
Ah, I can see that. Unfortunate.
They’re not objectively bad or anything, I just don’t like how they play. I like the tougher brawlers, or the ones with all kinds of sneaky shenanigans. Orruks and Skaven are my two mains right now, and I expect the Bood Warriors to join them.
Yeah, I get it. Bloodreavers suit me because it has some fodder in there, and I do love disposable models that serve the greater glory. It’s like playing chess, trading pawns for knights.
I did pick up Orruks last week and working on painting those up now. Haven’t played a game with them yet. I’ve also preordered the Blood Warriors. I do also love heavily armored dudes, and there’s a Flesh Hound, so it was love at first sight.
The Flesh Hound was definitely a selling point. I’m always a fan of animal companions :D
Looking good.
I never bother painting eyes anymore, because you can’t see them at arm’s distance anyways.
I keep looking ay the Dwarf war band just to paint a bunch of skin as well. I don’t play, but they look like fun to paint. Skin is very satisfying to paint, which is why I’m including so many bare heads in my Raven Guard lately.
Yeah, it’s really only when you take shots like this that the eyes become apparent. Just doing white is completely passable, and so would be not doing them at all. It’s just kind of funny to put so much work in a few models and pass on the eyes, but that’s life.
I do enjoy painting organic stuff. I’m coming around on skin slowly. I find skin to be tough only because we all know what skin looks like, so we all have expectations of what it should look like, and I feel I have to create something realistic.
I let go a bit more on these guys, just did what I thought was cool, and am happy for it.
I forget, did you go the pasty white route on the Raven Guard?
I went with pale, Caucasian skin. I tried the alabaster skin thing, but it looked like garbage.
Ah. I do love the look of alabaster skin. It’s what I was going for on Arnulf above but it is tricky. I find the lighter the skin tone the harder it is to pull off realistically.
My Raven Guard are similar to that guy. The background mentions that RG have almost pure white skin, and the attempts I made at that ended I up looking undead or just plain wrong.