A foundational painting guide for every undead general. This article details a fast and effective method for painting skeletons, focusing on creating realistic, aged bone. We cover all the essential steps, including choosing the right basecoat...
It is a rare Vampire Counts army indeed that goes to war without skeletons bolstering its ranks. Be it wight, skeleton or the odd jutting splint of bone on a zombie, every vampire counts general needs to know how to paint what makes the fundamentals of the army itself.= Step 1 =
| Water down Zandri Dust until you get a free flowing, but not too thin, consistency that is easy to work with. Apply this to all the bone areas on the model, and while still wet, work the paint around till you get a smooth, even coat. Due to all the crevasses on the skeleton model the paint tends to pool up in places (especially the ribs and lower arms/legs), so it is important to remove any excess paint lest it obscures the details. This can easily be done by sucking up the paint with a dry brush and move it to your palette before you repeat. | 
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= Step 2 =
| Use Agrax Earthshade straight from the pot to shade the Zandri Dust areas. Be generous with the paint to get as good a result as possible, but just like in the above step distribute the paint evenly around the model to avoid having it pool up in unwanted places. The purpose of this and the next step is to get definition on the model, so it is not the end of the world if you make a mistake, as this can be fixed later. |
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= Step 3 =
| Lightly drybrush the bone with Ushabti Bone. I know of many people that tend to load their brushes with paint and just wipe it off once or twice before proceeding to the painting itself. Now this is the last thing you want to do in this case, because even though the crevices might be quite deep, they tend to be filled up with paint rather quickly. One way to minimize this outcome is to have an as dry brush as possible, and do several thin coats instead of a single thick one. Take care to stroke across the bones and not with them, thus avoiding getting the bristles in between the ribs. |
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= Step 4 =
| After having drybrushed the bone in the last step, paint all the pronounced bone areas with slightly watered down Ushabti Bone. Examples of such places are the hips, arms/legs and of course the skull, but you have to judge for yourself what parts needs to be painted (in the case of this model I had to do pretty much all of it). The consistency of the paint you should aim for is that of milk, as it is fluid while still containing enough colour. |
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= Step 5 =
| The model should be ready to put on the table by now, but it tends to look somewhat flat and boring. In order to fix this, give the bone a very light drybrush of Praxeti White. It is important to get this as light as possible, because the Praxeti White drastically changes the model if not applied with care. This is a perfect example that proves the expression “less is more”. While at this stage you can take the time to pick out the teeth with White Scar, even though this won’t make that much of difference. |
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= Step 6 =
| If you have made any mistakes you can fix them at this step by giving the areas a thin wash of Agrax Earthshade. Rather than just putting on some paint and hope it turns out good you should paint the wash into the crevasses. This is because you want the already dark areas to be affected by the wash and not the nicely painted raised areas. The spine, ribs and knee caps are places often in need of this kind of treatment, but this may vary from model to model. | 
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= Finishing off the skeleton =
People have their own way of painting clothes, leather and metal, so I won’t go too much into detail about painting these areas as they don’t play such a significant role on the skeleton model. Clothes: On a model like this, where the clothes are of little importance, I prefer to work in only two layers. I find the various greys Games Workshop produces to be a little too light to work as a base coat for the clothes, so I mix Mechanicus Standard Grey with Abaddon Black in a 1:1 ratio. As a highlight I use pure Mechanicus Standard Grey painted over the basecoat with a relatively wet drybrush. Leather: The leather was done with a simple coat of Rhinox Hide. This was highlighted with two thin coats of Mournfang Brown. Metal: When painting corroded metal I don’t like applying a thin coat and being neat. Instead I’ll often let the paint dry a bit on my palette or even mix in some dust or other tiny particles before I start painting. Uneven and lumpy paint will, if done correctly, add a realistic texture that makes it look rusty and old. The basecoat colour I use is Leadbelcher, a paint that has a tendency to dry pretty quickly and is perfect for this. After I’m sure the basecoat has dried I apply a thick wash of Agrax Earthshade to the metal, making sure it pools up in patches. Sometimes I even use my finger to smudge the drying wash to add to that corroded feel. Finally I add scratches to various spots on the metal with Runefang Steel. Shield: The shield was painted in the same way as the clothes simply because it is the uniform colour of my army. The skeleton has limited cloth available to paint multi coloured uniforms, so the shield is a good place to show it off and use for tying the unit together with all your other models. | 
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Alternative ways of painting bone
Just like human skin, bone can be painted in several different ways. Some might prefer decayed, yellowed bone while others like it when the skeleton has been washed clean by the ocean for centuries. It is impossible to cover all the ways of painting bone, but I have tried to make a few alternatives that I feel fit three different themes.
= From the Burning Desert =
| Over a Chaos Black coat of spray I base coated the model with Mournfang Brown. This was followed by a relatively wet drybrush of Balor Brown, which in turn was followed up by a mix of Balor Brown and Ushabti Bone. The mix was progressively worked up to pure Ushabti Bone in two more steps. The closer I got to pure Ushabti Bone the lighter I brushed. | 
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= From the Dark Swamplands =
| Using a white primer (such as Corax White or White Scar spray), this model was washed with Agrax Earthshade. It is important to make sure the bone areas are completely white and not grey before applying the wash, so a coat of White Scar paint might be needed. Then the washed areas were carefully highlighted with slightly watered down Rakarth Flesh. |
= From the Cold Wastes =
| UTo achieve the dark and sinister look of this model I base coated it with Stormvermin Fur. Working in four more layers the colour was worked up to Ushabti Bone. The first layers were done by drybrushing, but the final highlight of pure Ushabti Bone was carefully applied with a wet brush to avoid getting the rugged, uneven look of a drybrushed model. Finally a watered down wash of Nuln Oil was evenly distributed over the model. | 
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This tutorial was originally featured in Carpe Noctem's Invocation Magazine.
The names of the paints used have been replaced with newer citadel paint equivalents
- Khemri Brown to Zandri Dust
- Devlan Mud to Agrax Earthshade
- Bleached Bone to Ushabti Bone.
- Skull white to white scar
- Adeptus Battlegrey to Mechanicus Standard Grey
- Chaos Black to Abaddon Black
- Scorched Brown to Rhinox Hide
- Bestial Brown to Mournfang Brown
- Boltgun Metal to Leadbelcher.
- Mithril Silver to Runefang Steel
- Snakebite Leather to Balor Brown
- Dheneb Stone to Rakarth Flesh
- Charadon Granite to Stormvermin Fur
- Badab Black to Nuln Oil
