Painting Yellow Sign

This is the eighth faction I painted for Cthulhu Wars: The second to last of the first nine. It was mostly done in tandem with the last, which was Sleeper.

All of the faction’s models on top of their box, before painting began.

All of the faction’s models on top of their box, for comparison with the unpainted version.

The faction colour is VGC yellow ink, applied over three types of preshaded substrates: One for all the bases, another one for the Acolytes and Hastur, and a third for the Undead and the King. In the case of the bases, the yellow ink went over Vallejo Flesh Wash over the same neutral grey and zenithal white foundation that I used for most of the other factions.

One of my overall goals was that the Undead should visually form a unit with the King and the Acolytes with Hastur. That’s the way the faction is usually played, for emergent technical reasons. It’s also fluffy somehow; the artist faction spontaneously forms into two cliques, each of which is six humans and one Great Old One. Painting them, I made one a cold yellow and the other a warm yellow.

Acolytes

The complete set of individual models of this type.

This is a detail of my paint job on one particular figure, photographed to its advantage, not for ease of comparison to other figures.

The cultists’ cloaks, like Hastur’s skin, are yellow ink over a pink acrylic base and a white-ink zenithal highlight over the pink. Don’t trust my photos to show it, but it’s a rich, warm tone.

The krises are silver and the masks are dark purple, like the trim on the tabards.

Undead

Where the King is the rock star, this guy’s the metalhead. — “Rock on!”

The Undead’s bandages started as yellow ink over grey primer and white zenithal preshade, but the bandages were dirtied down like the skeletons and cloth on the King’s base, to separate them from the Acolytes.

Byakhee

I intended the Byakhee to stand out from the rest of the faction, not clearly belonging to either of its two cliques. The colour scheme, particularly the gem-like shading of the soft lower bodies, is inspired by Paul Nojima’s paint job, which was in turn inspired by Fenris Games’s more glowworm-like design. I did not highlight it; that’s just selectively glossy varnish.

King in Yellow

The King’s mantle is ink straight over neutral grey. I shaded it slightly warmer with Army Painter Light Tone, but it’s still a colder look against the blue tentacles than Hastur or the Acolytes. The tentacles of the Undead are a paler blue than those of the King.

Hastur

The whites of all the eyes are glossy, but the purples are matt.

The eyes are only glossy where they’re white, and gem-shaded pink and purple for the irregular pupils.

This is one of my favourite models in the game.

Retrospective

I am satisfied with this faction.