Main Colours
Natural Wood
After flesh, the next thing I paint is the backs of shields, if the figures have them. This is because it is tricky to get behind the shields without mucking up the paintwork on the body and arm if you do it later.
A simple and quick way of doing this is to apply a wash of Coat d'Arms 176 Super Wash Mid Brown over the white. It gives a lovely natural wood colour with a bit of a weathered patina.
To save time I have painted the spears at the same time. With spears and pikes, I often first paint them with a light sand colour mixed with a bit of grey, then do the wash. This makes them look a little more weathered.
Clothing Colours
As these are back rankers I am using fairly subdued colours with lots of undyed cloth. I always thin the colour with a bit of water so that it settles into the folds and brings out the highlights. You can see the effect particularly well on the blue cloak. I usually paint tunics first, then trousers and finally cloaks. To get the right shades I mix my colours on a palette
By far my favourite paints for base colours are Wacofin or Kreul Mattfarbe. They are available in almost every craft shop in Germany but hard to find elsewhere except online.
I much prefer craft acrylics to miniatures paints as they have a nice matt finish and translucent properties. Crafters Acrylics, Folkart, and Ceramcoat also work well.
Fixing-up and Final Touches
I touch up, with white, any areas that have been painted over when painting the clothing. I only do this where I intend to paint over with a lighter colour. In this case the belt over the red tunic and hair that will be a light blond.
Finally I paint the belts, shoes and hair. For leather I use Coat d'Arms 217 Leather Brown. For fair hair I like to start with yellow ochre mixed with white, adding a bit of sand or light brown to achieve a variety of shades. Don't worry at this stage if it looks a bit lifeless. A final raw umber wash with fix that.
Earlier on I painted over the metal areas with Coat d'Arms black wash in preparation for the metallic colours which come at the very end.