Old dog ... New tricks

Progress on the Scourge has been steady with lots and lots of layering to get the wings looking right. I wasn't 100% happy with the inside surfaces of the wings but once the hands and fingers were properly shaded and highlighted it all came together so the bulk of the work has been spent on getting the outside painted.

When Games workshop announced their new paint range I knew I was in for trouble of a sort. At the speed I paint I could easily foresee a time when, despite stocking up in advance, the colours I'd started using on this project would no longer be available. The time has come to start exploring new possibilities.

There is certainly some inconvenience involved but in the long run I think the change is a good one for me. It's very easy to get stuck in your ways and keep falling back on the familiar. Knowing just how a particular colour will behave under different circumstances is particularly useful and makes it possible to really work that colour but it can also make you reluctant to try new things out. On the whole I think a fresh pallet of colours will encourage creativity and experimentation. As I've said before 'nothing ventured - nothing gained'.

My immediate concern has been finding alternatives for some of the colours used on my Scourges. I've used a lot of Dheneb Stone in the flesh tones and needed to find a good match so I could complete the wings. Thankfully in this case GW have provided and the new Rakarth Flesh is perfect. It's a slightly deeper shade than the Dheneb Stone but that is no bad thing and most importantly it gives the same results as Dheneb Stone did when mixed with the other colours I've used in the flesh tones.

The next challenge is to find a good replacement for scorched brown as I've use it in the armour and I need to make the next Scourge (I've already started prepping the mini) match the two done so far. The best new GW equivalent seems to be Rhinox Hide but the similarity is superficial. This is a very different colour to Scorched brown and seems to include bit of black in the mix. This becomes even more apparent when you start mixing it with other colours. Scorched brown contained a fair amount of red in it's makeup and could give some unexpectedly pinkish or purplish tones depending on what you mixed it with. Rhinox hide gives muddy greyish tones under the same circumstances - not well.

All is not lost, as I believe I've found a solution. Valejo Model Color Panzer Series 70985 Hull Red seems to provide what’s needed. The colour is not an exact match but my initial tests are very promising. This brings me to another of benefit brought the enforced change. I've expanded my use of paints beyond the GW range to include those from other companies - and about time too! I'm no GW basher and I'm a big fan of their paints but I can't help noticing how they charge more money for less paint.

I'm also transferring my GW paints into dropper bottles. It’s a little fiddly to do but I find dropper bottles so much better for ease of use and practicality than the GW pots.