With Battletome: Seraphon and a legion of new miniatures on their way to pre-orders this weekend, we’ve been in a very reptilian mood,* and judging by the wonderfully painted Seraphon Army Boxes we’ve seen so far, so have you. To celebrate the upcoming launch, community contributor (and Warhammer Twitch stream chat wrangler) Vincent Knotley has been giving his Saurus Warriors the colourful treatment.
Many of these colour schemes use very few paints to achieve a fantastic overall effect, with the heavy lifting done by Contrast paints and careful highlights to show off the incredible details on these miniatures. To give you a few ideas for your own Seraphon, we’re going into detail on five of the Saurus Warriors painted by Vincent.
The Coalesced typically sport grounded, terrestrial colours on their skin and scales, with greens being particularly popular. Taking this angle and running with it, Knotley used a base of Grey Seer and two coats of Gutrippa Flesh, shaded with Biel-Tan Green and highlighted with layers of Ogryn Camo and Krieg Khaki to give this Saurus Warrior a cool-but-colourful green skin.
The scales are a simple mix of Skeleton Horde and Wyldwood, thinned down with Contrast Medium, and then highlighted with Rakarth Flesh and Pallid Wych Flesh. To give the shield a faded, antique look, Vincent used Runelord Brass shaded with thinned Wyldwood, and a simple highlight mixed from equal parts Canoptek Alloy and Runelord Brass.
A vibrant colour scheme is perfect for the mystical Starborne Seraphon, and red stands out brilliantly. This Saurus Warrior started with a base of Wraithbone – the skin was then painted with Flesh Tearers Red and highlighted with Evil Sunz Scarlet, Wild Rider Red, and Fire Dragon Bright, while a thinned Abaddon Black wash and Tuskgor Fur highlight darkened the scales.
If a muted palette is more to your taste, brown is a great look for lizards who hail from more arid climates like the Ash Barrens of Aqshy. Their skin is simply Snakebite Leather highlighted with Balor Brown and Zamesi Desert, while the scales use a thinned mix of Wyldwood and Cygor Brown to get a sufficiently dark tone, before being highlighted with XV-88 and Tallarn Sand.
Nothing shows off the predatory nature of a Saurus Warrior like a darker crimson tone mixing in some black scales. Black Legion gives the scales a deep, warm black base, which can then be highlighted with Mechanicus Standard Grey, Dawnstone, and Administratum Grey to bring out the detail.
The skin uses an equal parts mixture of Fyreslayer Flesh and Magos Purple, thinned with a little Contrast Medium, before highlighting with Cadian Fleshtone and Kislev Flesh. This gives it a natural, ruddy appearance while remaining noticeably red.
Finally, a light colour scheme helps to reinforce the celestial origins of the Seraphon, especially when tinted with some pinks. Both the skin and scales are painted the same way – starting with Wraithbone, then using Berserker Bloodshade with a Pallid Wych Flesh drybrushed highlight to form the base, before thinning more Berserker Bloodshade to use as a shade and highlighting further with a mix of Rakarth Flesh and Pallid Wych Flesh.
There are innumerable ways you can paint your own Seraphon, so experiment with the Citadel Colour range and find your own favourite colour scheme. For more inspiration, check out the thoughts of the ‘Eavy Metal team – and take a look at even more of Vincent’s work below!
Battletome: Seraphon and a whole range of new miniatures will be available to pre-order on the Games Workshop webstore this Saturday.
* Needing to warm up in the sun before doing anything in the morning is a vibe we gel with.