“The Dead Are Following, Said Legolas."

"Yes, the Dead ride behind. They have been summoned, said Elladan."

These four "cartoon scale white metal" figures of Lord Rascal's Skeleton Warriors are produced by “Lucid Eye Publications” and can be bought from the company's "Toon Realms" range. Sculpted by Steve Saleh, these Undead spearmen will form part of a much larger (second) Light Foot unit I have planned for my Necromancer's ever-expanding “Dragon Rampant” army.

Originally primed with two coats of "Vallejo" Dark Sand, the quartet were heavily washed in "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade and enthusiastically dry-brushed using (more) "Vallejo" Dark Sand. I then dry-brushed them somewhat more lightly with Dead White in order to try and replicate the colour scheme I’d established for the figures’ bleached bones some ten months ago.

"Lucid Eye Publications" WIPs - These four Skeleton Swordsmen need their metallic areas shaded

This step actually took a couple of attempts to get reasonably right, as I soon found my sole pot of “Vallejo” Dead White to have completely run dry and my imaginatively named alternative, “Vallejo” White, to be a significantly brighter tone. In addition, due to my heavy-handiness whilst dry-brushing the models, I had to provide a couple of figures with a second shading of “The Army Painter” Strong Tone Quickshade so as to correct their overly-light appearance.

With the bulk of work completed on my Skeletons, I 'picked out' their spear-tips and shield emblems using a combination of "Citadel" Ironbreaker and Nuln Oil, and subsequently 'highlighted' their details with a delicate dry-brush of "Citadel" Ironbreaker. I also painted each of their shields in either "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna, Heavy Blue, Heavy Violet or Black, and later dirtied these all up with a splash of "Citadel" Nuln Oil.

"Warcry" WIPs - These two Iron Golem warriors are gradually having all their chainmail 'picked out'

Finally I used "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna to pigment both the Undead warriors’ leather boots and their spear-shafts, and applied a little Heavy Brown to their spear-straps. All of these areas were then shaded in "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade, and left to dry whilst I began work on four of the "Toon Realms" ranges Skeleton Swordsmen.

Moving across to the much more detailed models of "Games Workshop", I have slowly made some more progress on my Iron Golem warband for "Warcry". These extraordinarily dynamic figures have proved disconcertingly time-consuming as painting subjects, but I hope to have the warriors' Drillmaster completed soon, and then it'll be on to the group's Dominar...