Beastmen Stage-by-Stage; Beastmen

Today we've added the first of this week's new Beastmen articles to the Astronomican. Beastmen: Beastmen Stage-by-Stage Assembly and Painting is a detailed guide to assembling Gors, Ungors and Bestigors, and has painting tips that can be applied to any Beastmen miniature.

A number of people around the building have taken up the call to battle and have begun painting and modelling Beastmen armies. I was particularly shocked to hear that long-time Empire general Dom Murray had forsaken his oath to protect the lands of men, so popped by his desk to have a look at his newly painted Beastmen.

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  Dom Murray painted this Beastlord to lead his Beastmen army. He painted the skin in Tanned Flesh and applied two coats of Devlan Mud to darken it down before highlighting it with a 50/50 mix of Tallarn Flesh and Dheneb Stone. Dom painted the Beastlord's cloth to look like one of the Empire banners from Dom's own Empire army. He told me that he likes to collect a good army and then a bad army and enjoys modelling and painting them to look like they're bitter foes. Click on the image for a closer look at the tattered banner and axehead.

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  To help give his army a unified feel, Dom painted his Ungor in lighter shades of the same colours as his Beastlord. Their skin was basecoated Tallarn Flesh and washed with Ogryn Flesh before being highlighted with Tallarn Flesh. Dom painted their fur in Bestial Brown and then drybrushed it with Vomit Brown and Bleached Bone. Their cloth was painted red to match the Beastlords and also because most of Dom's Empire units have areas of red on them.

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  Dom's Warhounds were painted to fit in with the rest of his force. The dark brown hounds were painted in the same manner as the Beastlord's fur - basecoated Scorched Brown, washed with Devlan Mud and drybrushed Bestial Brown; and the light brown hounds were painted to match the Ungor's fur. For the black hounds Dom used the same method as he did to paint the hooves of his Beastmen - basecoating them Chaos Black before highlighting with Codex Grey and then Fortress Grey, and finally applying a Badab Black wash.

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  These are Pete Foley's 'test' Gor and Ungor models that I spotted while at Dom's desk. Pete always paints a couple of models in a colour scheme to see if he likes it enough to paint his army that way. As his army is going to be led by Morghur, Pete wanted his Beastmen to have diseased flesh. He basecoated the skin with Graveyard Earth and the fur with Scorched Brown, and highlighted both areas by adding progressively more Bleached Bone to the base colour. Click on the image for a closer look at the gore on the weapons, which Pete painted by mixing Baal Red and Devlan Mud. He finished the effect by painting on a coat of Gloss Varnish.