Reaper Bones Slapchop Experiment

As part of the Grand Clear Out I found a bag of Reaper Bones villagers from the previous Kickstarter. These are lovely NPCs; understated, but with character. They are also far closer to medieval dress than the previous lot of villagers. They are made from the newer 'Bones Black' plastic (actually grey), which is harder and seems to hold better detail.

As these are lowly villeins and cottars I felt they'd look good with fairly washed out colours, which got me thinking about Speedpaint and Xpress Colour. While my Karpath army uses Speedpaints and I kind of went for a Slapchop method with the zenithal highlight, I never really got it as good as I felt was possible. Good enough for massed units, a bit lacking for individuals.

I've seen some great results with this method*, and I was sure I could improve.

Preparation

Firstly, a little mould line cleaning and a good wash in hot soapy water. Then I gave the mini a wash with a 50:50 mix of Army Painter Dark Tone and paint thinner. Once dry I gave the mini a heavy white dry brush. This provides additional shade and highlights, which the Speedpaints will (hopefully) accentuate.

The Painting 

My Speedpaints are from the first release, and they do reactivate. It's not really a problem as I know it can happen but it does mean that I can't layer different paints, it's got to be single coats only. 

I chose fairly simple colours as I wanted him to look like he was wearing clothes using natural dyes. The skin is Crusader Skin, hose is Palid Bone (which has turned out darker than I expected). The tunic is Malignant Green, the sleeves are Sand Golem and the hood is Slaughter Red with a little Palid Bone. The boots are a mix of Hardened Leather and Palid Bone, with pure Hardened Leather for the belt (less difference between these than I expected). The staff is Grim Black and the beard and eyebrows are simply the washed and drybrushed plastic from the preparation stage.

Finishing 

The mini was given a spray varnish (gloss then matt) then the base carefully removed, pins inserted into the legs, and a clear base attached. If you think it would be easier to remove the base before painting, then you are right. But the base allows both the shading wash and the Speedpaints to pool slightly, giving a nice dark line along the bottom of the feet. I'll not do this in the future though. Bones black plastic is much harder to cut through, and it took longer to remove the base than the actual painting.

There's quite a bit of waiting for stuff to dry, especially in the preparation stage, but the actual painting took around ten minutes and I'm very pleased with the results. If you compare this with my first Speedpainted mini, I hope you'll see an improvement.

I like the desaturated look, to me it's just right for the type of fabric I imagine such villagers would use. I recently visited Castle Bolton in the Yorkshire Dales where they have a Dyers Garden. This gives some indication of what colours would have been readily available in the Middle Ages, in brief, bright colours were very expensive, and certain colours very difficult to manufacture.

I like the grey beard and eyebrows; I had planned to use a light grey Speedpaint, but I thought the white drybrush looked good enough. 

The only bit I wasn't keen on was the flesh, so after varnishing I touched up some highlights with Vallejo Game Color Dwarf Flesh.

This chap is ideal for RPGs, he'd make a great quest giver, or even the McGuffin. He's certainly going to get some use in Rangers of Shadow Deep as several of the scenarios involve rescuing survivors.

There are a load more villagers in the set, and I think they'll all get a similar treatment. There are also some nice zombies that are obviously reanimated peasants in the same Kickstarter. I'm sure they'd look good using similar techniques, and be equally useful for Rangers of Shadow Deep

* There are lots of great YouTube tutorials on Slapchop, just do a search.