28mm Dwarf Berserker and Ironbreaker

I've been painting up a couple more dwarves to go with the crossbowman I painted here. These could be part of a Fistful of Lead fantasy retinue, or perhaps just a collection of older models, cos I like dwarves.

First is a 1985 C06 dwarf, number 16 delightfully named 'utter loony'.  At some point he lost his original axe, so I've replaced it with an impressive greatax from my box of plastic bits from old GW dwarf sprues (this box also provided the shields for the gables of the Stone Cabin here). 

C06/16 primed in Vallejo German Green Brown

The painting was pretty straight forward. Looking at him I thought he looked like quite an old dwarf, so I gave him greying hair. I used a similar technique to the blond hair on the earlier dwarf crossbow. A base of Vallejo Extra Opaque Charcoal with highlights of Vallejo Game Color Cold Grey. Then a wash of thinned black and another highlight of the Cold Grey followed by finer highlights of a VGC Stonewall Grey and Cold Grey mix and finishing with just the Stonewall Grey.

I did want to try a tartan, but the folds in his tunic are so deep I decided I'm not up to that yet. 

Base colours

Next is a 5081 Ironbreaker from the early 2000s.  Since he's much better armoured than the rest of the band, he will probably be the leader.

I got him mostly painted some time ago, but never got round to adding a shield. 

Ironbreaker sporting his paint job from a few years ago

I've done a bit more to the painting. I thought that the grey beard was lost slightly against the armour, and I'd already got a grey bearded dwarf with the berserker, so I've redone it as a red/orange beard.  I looked at a few YouTube tutorials, but  none of them quite did what I wanted.  In the end I gave the beard a basecoat of Vallejo Model Color Mahogany Brown, then a highlight with VGC Fiery Orange and finally a wash of sepia.  It is a bit garish, but I think it works on a dwarf (and is nowhere near as vivid as the GW Trollslayers of later editions)

I also repainted what I decided was an ornate belt visible on the rear of the mini.  I went for a nice rich purple with golden plates.  Finally I gave the gold detailing a sepia wash and an extra highlight with VGC Glorious Gold.

The shield is simply one of the more recent plastic infantry shields.  The helmeted dwarven head is gold on a blue field.  The various runes around the rim are also gold.

Oops, a bit of gold paint on the axe blade, I'll have to go over that with silver

Both minis were based using Geek Gaming Base Ready mix with some grass tufts added.

Both models were fun to do.  The older berserker was, perhaps, not as good a sculpt.  The fingers in particular, were very crude.  However, the ironbreaker was a bit dull by comparison.  Even adding the purple belt and changing the colour of the beard he looks very 'grey'.

So that's three dwarves for my retinue, just a couple more to go.  I'll see what I can dig up in the lead piles tomorrow.  I'm sure they'll look good defending the various mine buildings from the SITC, or trying to retake them from greenskins or ratmen.

The dwarf retinue so far.  I've already got a couple more dwarves ready to paint.

PS I used the Lost Minis Wiki to identify the minis, it's great, especially for the older stuff.