This year’s Armies on Parade contest has new categories: the Individual, Team, Display Board, and Youngbloods categories are joined by the Skaventide category. So if you’ve pre-ordered the launch box for the new edition of Warhammer Age of SIgmar, why not take a punt? The worst that can happen is that you end up painting your collection of miniatures, and if you’re lucky you might walk away with an award – it’s win-win! For a full list of prizes and awards, both online and in store, visit the Armies on Parade website.
Our very own Warhammer Painting Team have been busy creating lots of tutorials to help you tackle Skaventide at every level, and you can watch them all in the playlist below.
Emma and Adam have produced a bunch of helpful tips to speed up your painting. They’re a lot better at this than us, so we’ll let them take it away.
Adam and Emma’s Tips
Adam: Before you commit to a colour scheme, paint a test miniature so you understand your scheme, rather than getting too far before you realise you aren't happy with a colour scheme or want to change a specific aspect of it.
Em: Batch paint units – with the two sets of 20 of Clanrats, we batched them 20 at a time. Yes, it's a lot of models and repetitive, but it does get them done quickly. We can’t face doing multiple blocks of five or 10, as it can be overwhelming, even for us! What’s more, you don’t go detail-blind as much if you work in smaller batches.
Adam: Keep things simple, and don’t feel like you have to highlight absolutely everything. The cliched ‘faces and bases’ advice is evergreen for a reason, just focus your highlights on areas that matter. For the other details, just being neat and tidy with the paintwork will make the models look awesome.
Em: Drybrushing Skaven models with a light bone or cream colour works really well for a lot of the natural cloth and unnatural warpstone details. Screaming Skull works wonders and it is one of our army painters’ favourite little hacks.
Adam: In a similar vein, undercoating the Skaven with Grey Seer allowed me to use Contrast for a lot of the main colours – really speedy. For the Stormcast Eternals I undercoated them with Chaos Black and then did a zenithal (angled from above) Leadbelcher spray. This gave me shadows for free! Also, I kept the inner cloaks black instead of white to save time as well.Adam: Shading those Stormcast Eternals metallics with Drakenhof Nightshade followed by an all-over drybrush highlight of Runefang Steel was my simple two-step trick to get the armour completed. I then painted the rest of the details, taking the time I saved with that shade-and-drybrush method to focus on the leather, cloth, cloaks, and other elements.
Adam: It’s worth trying to get all the same type of details painted at once, especially if you are using Contrast paints for the Skaven – focusing on simple details such as cloth, ropes, and even wood painted one at a time can help make your ratmen come to life super quickly.
Em: If you want a speedy tip for painting the flames for all the Stormcast Eternals, including the wings for the Prosecutors – stick to the same colour across all of them. It helps tie them together in the same army, and also saves time compared to using traditional flames for the sword and torches, and ethereal flames for the wings… Frostheart Contrast paint is really helpful here!
Em: For some really fun themed bases for Skaven, start with Astrogranite, then apply Karandras Green slightly thinned over the texture. Once dried, use a drybrush of Krieg Khaki to finish, or try the more vivid Moot Green if you want some particularly warpstone-tainted ground.
Thanks for all the advice! You can easily take these tips and apply them to your own Skaventide miniatures, or any big batch paint project in fact – your imagination and dedication are the limits. We’ve provided some Stormcast Eternals inspiration from around the community, and later today we’ll be showing the Skaven. Remember to share your progress on social media using #ArmiesonParade2024. There’s also a special episode of Hang Out & Paint on the 19th of July, where the Painting Team will be live on stream to help you start tackling your copy of Skaventide.
