How to paint your Ghouls and Crypt Horrors

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I have begun a series of how to paint guides much like the showcase of showing off your masterpieces this is to show off how you paint your undead. Do not be bashful feel free to share so we can catalog a good variety and mix of wonderful undead tutorials. Please leave the holy water and stakes at home

Carpe Noctem's How to paint thread index
 
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So I’ll show you how we do ghoul skin.
Start with a base coat of reaper maiden skin/ or GW elf flesh.

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Give it a drybrush of etherium blue or space wolves grey.

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Lastly a heavy wash of flesh shade
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Close up of the skin
 
Ghouls I also do my Strigoi vampires this way
Basecoated black
Then paint elf flesh
Drybrush space wolves grey
Wash with ogryn flesh
Loin cloths should be mechritre red
Detail weapon (be it rock bone or club) with appropriate color’s
Bone weapons are done base coated black
dry brush Bleached bone
washed with sepia.
Stone weapons are chaos black
Drybrushed codex grey
Washed lightly with badab black
Wooden weapons calthan brown
Streaked with commando khaki
Washed with mud.
Randomly add blood splatter to ghouls in the unit
Teeth and Fingernails bleached bone
Eyes linen white and walnut brown
Wraps should be done mechrite or blood red.

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Strigoi

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Ghouls

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Here is the one on the far right he got a washed of Devlan mud

Here is another random one. This one was done as I suggested above. He is one of the earlier ones so isnt as good.
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I also from time to time add random blood splattering. Thanks for enjoying my ghouls and strigoi vampires.
 
Hey all,
Thought I'd take a few and share my painting style for ghouls/Crypt Horrors.
It's super simple and yields great results IMO, also comes together quite fast.
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I was looking for some stark contrast to my dirty skeletons, so after finding a can of Space wolves Gray in my garage I was inspired.

Begin by basecoating with SWG, or the Fang, as it is now called.
Then wash generously with Gulliman Blue, the glaze from citadel, these glazes are great! I've used waywatcher green for my hexwraiths, Spirit Hosts, etc... but that's for another thread.
I added another layer of glaze after the first had dried.
I then Drybrush with Etherium Blue, one of the new dry paints from Citadel.
These are also great as you no longer have to brush and brush and brush away the excess paint, you still have to a bit, but it's much more forgiving(i.e. no chalky look or streaks- we've all done it)
I then picked out the boney spikes and bones with Bleached Bone. (It's important to dillute your paints if you plan to wash them after as too thick of paint will lead to unnatural collections of shading from the wash.)
If I'm doing batch painting I'll dillute the whole pot a bit with some water, be careful, you can always add more but can't remove it.
Or you can just use a pallete.
I did the claws and metal bits in adeptus battlegrey, and then used dilluted scab red around all the open wounds and bits where bone was protruding.
When doing detail stuff like this think "Just the tip" you don't want too much paint on that brush and you can always reapply.
For the back portions I painted with dilluted Xereus Purple. Sometimes when feeling lazy to dillute paints for covering large areas I'll just dip the brush in the pot then jab it in my brush water to dillute it. Not too exact, but hey...
Then drybushed with Etherium Blue again.
I picked out some lumps and bumps on foreheads and arms with enchanted blue, then washed the bone parts with Seraphim Sepia-I also used this on my skellys and I think they turned out pretty good.
The backs were then washed with Magenta Ink, dilluted a bit of course.
When washing specific areas its VERY important to not have too much on the brush, as soon as it hits the model it has a tendency to "bleed" to the lower areas, this is obviously bad. I like to start mine in a central area and move outwards to control it.
Picked teeth and Eyes out with rotting flesh and a dot of red.
Voila!!
I'm far from an excellent painter, but by employing simple methods and starting with a basecoat, glaze, and drybrush paint that were close in color I feel they turned out pretty good. And they look really great mixed in with all that bone and batwing!
 
These painting articles are wonderful. I'm loving this color scheme on ghouls...also thumbs up for glaze....i used guilliman blue on my ethereal units and really liked the way it came out.
 
Hey Santawraith can you re-upload the pictures from your second post please? I'd love to see them as I'm thinking of copying your ghoul skin colour scheme. Thanks in advance xD
 
Not to Ressurrect an old thread, but suddenly my ghouls may be going to a purple power bath. That flesh scheme is magnificent. Awesome, Santawraith!
Mine... However.. :(
 

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And this with some base colored details... Still not as good.
 

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