Painting Nighthaunt using Vallejo game colors

For my previous projects I've always been buying paints specific to the model that I'm currently painting. There's nothing wrong with this of course. In fact, this is probably the most common way to build up your paint selection. But having to research what paints you need every time you pick up a new model can be tiring and when you finally made your purchase you're kind of stuck with the colors that you bought. If you don't want to head down to the store and spend some extra cash that is. So this time, in stead of picking out colors one buy one, I decided to pull the trigger on a paint set.

Up until now I've been using citadel paints, and although I'm generally not disappointed with their paints they don't really have a paint set that would cover my needs. So a brand change was needed. After scouting around for a while, I went with this basic color set from Vallejo containing 72 paints (although that includes a couple of varnishes, a thinner and a wash).

Now since I bought this set I wanted to really give it a proper test drive. So I tucked away all my old citadel paints away and challenged my self to only use colors from the paint set for my Nighthounts. The only citadel branded paints I used on these models was the primer, washes (since the set only had one) and some technical colors.

Over all I must say that I'm very pleased with the set so far. All the colors really did allow me to be more creative. Now, even though there are 72 paints in the set, some mixing is required to get certain colors. For example the paints are very saturated, so sometimes I needed to mix in some grey to desaturate them and I often had to make a mix to achieve a highlight-color. But this was something I knew when buying the set and I didn't feel limited by it at all, quite the opposite actually.

But enough talk about the paints and on to the models. These 7 Nighthount models are one of the two war bands that you get with the Warhammer underworlds starting set.

I've seen all kinds of cool paint schemes for these guys. And although I was tempted to throw more colors in there I settled with a two color transition on the ghostly robes for simplicity. You can find a list with all the colors that I used below.

Ghostly robes

• Ghost Grey - Base coat
• 2:1 Turquoise & Cold Grey (which is actually quite warm, so this will bring out the green in the Turquoise) - Layer/Blend to create smooth transitions from the "Ghost Grey".
• Dead White - This is for edge highlights, but I also glazed some on more exposed areas like top of the arms etc.

Wood
For the wood I wanted it to look really old and raw. So instead of a brown base coat I used cold grey instead and then let the shade provide with the brown tones.

• Cold Grey - Base coat
• Agrax Earthshade (Citadel) - Full shade
• 2:1 Bone White & Cold grey - Drybrush

Dirt and Stones
I bundle these together because I was painting them at the same time. It's kind of a sloppy approach, but these bases have so much other detail to them like vines, roped, metal chains etc. So I decided to be time efficient here and let those other part get the main attention.

• Sombre Grey - Base coat (Stones)
• Terracota - Base coat (Dirt)
• Stonewall Grey - Fairly heavy dry brush over both the stones and the dirt.
• Agrax Earthshade (Citadel) - Full shade over the dirt
• Nuln Oil (Citadel) - Full shade over the stones
• Stonewall Grey - Light drybrush, this time only apply it to the stones. 

Black leather

• Black - Base coat
• 1:1 Black & Sombre Grey - Using this mix to layer up the bigger highlights. We want a soft look while still keeping 100% black in the deeper recesses.
• Cold Grey - Increasing the previous highlight by layering on the top most raised areas like the head and the shoulders. Also used this to create a thicker edge highlight
• Stonewall Grey - Edge highlight, used very sparsely on only the finest edges.

Brown Leather

• Charred Brown - Base coat
• 1:1 Nuln Oil & Lahmian medium (Citadel) - Full shade
• 1:1 Charred Brown & Cold Grey - Layer this in the same way that we did with the Black leather to creat those soft highlight and a sens of light direction.
• Stonewall Grey - Fine highlights

Corset

• Terracota -Base coat
• Agrax Earthshade (Citadel) - As I was shading the metal i just went all over the place with the agrax
• Terracota, Scarlet Red - I layered up the highlight with roughly 1:1 Terracota and Scarlet red.
• Terracota, Scarlet Red & Wolf grey - As a final highlight I added a small amount of Wolf grey.

Steal

• Gunmetal - Base coat
• Agrax Earthshade - Full shade
• Typhus Corrosion - I went a bit overboard with this technical color... but since we want the metal to look really old I didn't worry too much about it. But I basically gave it an overall coat of this stuff. sometimes it looked good, but in some cases I found that it covered a bit too much.
• Parasite Brown - Light drybrush to simulate rust.
• Nihilak Oxide - I tried to go a bit random with this while focusing on getting it in the recesses.
• Chainmal Silver - Egde Highlight

Brass

• Brassy Brass - Base ctoat
• Agrax Earthshade - Full shade
• Typhus Corrosion - Same as with the steal
• Nihilak Oxide - Same as with the steal
• Chainmal Silver - Egde Highlight

Vines

• Yellow Olive - Base Coat
• 1:1 Yellow Olive & Dead Flesh - This was a very rough mix Im not comletely sure that it was exactly 1:1... Anyways I used this to layer on some highlights on the vines.
• Dead Flesh - Highlight the thorns and leaves
• Athonian Camoshade - full shade over the vines and leaves

Roses

• Hexed Linchen & Ghost grey - I mixed these to be a very bright/pale purple only having a small drop of the Hexed Linchen
• Druchii Violet - Full shade

Skulls

• Khaki - Base coat
• 1:2 Khaki & Stonewall Grey - Layer up highlkights, leaving the recesses
• Reikland Fleshshade - Full shade
• 1:2 Khaki & Stonewall Grey - Again, layering back some of the highlights

Ropes

• 1:2 Khaki & Stonewall Grey - Base Coat
• Agrax Earthshade - Full shade

Corset

• Terracota -Base coat
• Agrax Earthshade - As I was shading the metal i just went all over the place with the agrax
• Nuln Oil - I realized that the Agrax wasnt really doing what I wanted it to, so I threw on a extra layer of nuln oil.
• Worlf Grey, Terracota & Scarlet Red - I used these to mix together a brighter red that I used for highligts. Hard to tell the exact ratio i was using but essentially I kept mixing in more and more wolf grey for a brighter value. Although not much was needed even for my brightest mix.

Candle

• Ghost grey - Base coat
• Dead White & Moon Yellow - Highlights. Again, it's hard to give an exact ratio, but a very small amount of yellow was used.

Flame

• Dead White - Base Coat
• Livery Green, Escorpena Green & Dark Green - Used these colors to create a fade. Leaving some dead white on the base of the flame and gradually making it darker and darker towards the tip.