New - death - what paints?

[spoon_fed05]

Hi there!

I'm about to buy the 'Start collecting: skeleton horde' set.  I noticed that on the GW site there are 25 paints recommended for this set with a price of about 75 quid in total.  As a total noob to model painting this seems a bit pricey.

Can anyone shed any light on what the minimum paints needed to paint a set like this?  Are there certain paints that you would always use / can a small range of colours be mixed or are there different textures of paint for different purposes?  I realise there's a lot I don't know here!

[Kisufisu]

black and white paints are always good to own, add some primary colors and you can mix the shades you want. Ofc for skeletons you should pick up a bone color, and I would probably suggest a brown ink(though I'm too cheap to buy inks myself, I just add water to colored paints). For weapons, you might want to just go with the basic metal paints, I gave up on non-metallic-metals and switched back to metal paints myself. the nmm was too much work   and lastly, what kind of bases do you want?

I started out with a start collecting flesh eater courts and I had 7 paints in total + a black primer.

[TheWilddog]

2 hours ago, spoon_fed05 said:

Hi there!

I'm about to buy the 'Start collecting: skeleton horde' set.  I noticed that on the GW site there are 25 paints recommended for this set with a price of about 75 quid in total.  As a total noob to model painting this seems a bit pricey.

Can anyone shed any light on what the minimum paints needed to paint a set like this?  Are there certain paints that you would always use / can a small range of colours be mixed or are there different textures of paint for different purposes?  I realise there's a lot I don't know here!

There is a lot of bone in that set.  Here is quick and easy bone recipe:

1. Corax White Primer

2. Wash with Agrax Earthshade  

3. Hit the raised edges with Ushabti Bone

4. Highlight with Screaming Skull

Here is a vid with Duncan showing you how: 

 

 

 

Metal is quick and easy:

1. Leadbelcher base

2. Heavy shade of Nun Oil

3. Edge highlight of Runefang Steel

That will get a lot of it done.  Probably the next step is picking a color scheme for the cloth bits through the army.  Pick a color scheme you like, red/black is the old stand by for skellies.  Then just pick up a base and layer pot for each color.

 

That should get you most of the way through a tabletop quality paint job.

[flemingmma]

You'll also need a colour for the rags and cloaks, and nhilac oxide is rather useful for making stuff rusty 

[Curry_Supreme]

I think as a bare minimum you would want:

abbadon black

ceramite white

ushabti bone

mephiston red

leadbelcher

agrax earth shade 

Nuln  oil

White spray primer

 

the mortarch colour scheme you choose will probably expand the list by a couple of paints.

[Guest]

As others have said, when painting skeletal units you can get away with a very limited colour palette and still potentially have a great looking army. I'm going to offer my ultra-minimal skeleton recipe:

 

1. Prime with white spray (I recommend Halfords Bodyshop Primer as it gives really crisp detail - I haven't used the Games Workshop equivalent)
2. Basecoat cloth and wood areas with a light brown such as Steel Legion Drab
3. Basecoat metal areas with Leadbelcher
4. Apply 1 or 2 thin washes of Agrax Earthshade to the entire model
5. Done!

 

If you're completely new to the hobby I wouldn't even bother with highlighting. So all you need is 3 paints and a can of spray! As long as your painting is neat this will give you a nice tabletop-quality result, albeit very drab-looking - but that works very nicely for the undead in my opinion. And the beauty of it is that you can always go back and highlight everything later when you feel like it / when you're more confident / when you can afford the paints.

[Swooper]

7 hours ago, Curry_Supreme said:

ceramite white

I would recommend White Scar instead, I've had nothing but trouble trying to use Ceramite White. It's always too thick and hard to work with.