I am aware I did a post like this earlier, but I have a much better way of going about it that I will show pictures of eventually. I recently got a job coach to influence my employer selections' decision about interviewing me so that at least one of them offers me the job, So I'll be saving up for the equipment I need to run my show, The Sane Madman's Troll Science, and more relevant to this topic I shall be saving up for more Citadel miniatures.
I compared the two yellow metal colors from Citadel, Sycorax Bronze and Gehenna's Gold, and then watched the Easterling scenes again, and Sycorax Bronze was the better testament to films 2 and 3 with regards to Easterling armor coloring. This essentially means I have to repaint all I have now, paint up the new guys, and give a crevis-filler. Seraphim Sepia does this perfectly due to its thinner consistency, but I already have its same-color ancestor, Gryphonne Sepia, so that's all set.
The clothing I decided to paint Xereus Purple with Carroburg Crimson wash (yeah, isn't that weird? Crevis-filling, thinner acrylics in the GW hobby are called washes, of course now they're called shades and glazes, Carroburg Crimson being a shade). I will also do differentiation approaches like painting in the edge-hugging runes on their headscarves with Sycorax Bronze.
The leather will be painted Mechanicus Standard Grey, because I painted models with it and it came out dark grey and not the medium grey seen in the color Dawnstone. The wash here will be the Nuln Oil color (renamed from Badab Black).
Runefang Steel is the color I shall use for the blades and the arrowheads, because the Easterlings in the Return of the King film stormed into the Great Gates area of Minas Tirith (after the Trolls stormed in) relying on Strategy, Tactics, and Steel-headed weapons. I am using Nuln Oil on these things as well.
The Wooden parts that my humans hold their equipment by, however, will get Seraphim Sepia wash after a paint-on of Mournfang Brown.
The nonmetal pieces of the shield will be coated with Caliban Green, while the feathers on the backs of the arrows will receive a White Scar coating (yeah, "White Scar" is an actual Citadel acrylic color).
Now, we come to the slits in their helmets. I decided to base-coat these with Skrag Brown on every first 3 models, Zamesi Desert on every 4th and 5th model, and Kislev Flesh on every 6th model. Then, I'm going to paint in T-bars that encompass the entire vertical piece of the slit and the bottom edge of the horizontal part with Abaddon Black. Then I'm going to give them dark eyes like in the book, but like in real-life human biology, my Easterlings will also be mostly brown-eyed. This means that I'll have a brown eyed to not-brown eyed ratio of 3:1. It also means I will use White Scar for the outer parts of the eyes, added with Rhinox Hide, Mechanicus Standard Grey, Caliban Green, and Kantor Blue for the inner parts of the eyes.
Horses are where my coloring technique gets a lot simpler because I only have to research color patterns of horses, which doesn't require as much background. I shall give 75% of my ordinary cavalrymen a Bay Horse color pattern that puts Abaddon Black hair & hooves on a Rhinox Hide skinned horse. The rest of them will get Chestnut horses, who will have Skrag Brown skin with Ushbati Bone hair & hooves. Then, we talk about hero-horses. Dragon Knights will get Dun horses, which will be represented by painting the skin Zamesi Desert and the hair & hooves Abaddon Black. War Priests will get Grey Horses, who will be represented with Dawnstone skin and Mechanicus Standard Grey hair & hooves. Captains will get Buckskin horses, represented by coating the skin with Ratskin Flesh while coating the hooves and hair with Mechanicus Standard Grey. Generals like Khamul the Easterling (Ringwraith) and Amdur, Lord of Blades (Human) will get the rarest colored of all horses: Black Horse for Khamul (represented by coating the entire animal Abaddon Black), and White Horse for Amdur (represented by coating the entire animal White Scar)
Now how am I going to represent both the Chariots and the Wains? Simple. I am going to take four-horse Persian Chariots from Zvezda, stick Easterling archer & axeman models into them, stick them onto Screaming Bell Bases, and apply the Khandish Charioteer rules to these models. As for the "Chariots of Chieftains", I shall make Easterling King and Captain models that use the Khandish King and Chieftain rules, stick them into Warhammer High Elf Chariots, convert the Chariots to be short enough to fit onto 60mm round closed bases, and apply the Khandish Chariot mount rules to both these two-horse mega-beasts and the four-horse giga-beasts.
I mentioned Easterling Axemen which means I am obligated to explain how I hope to achieve them: I am going to take open-chested Easterling Swordsman models and up to 50% of the Easterling archer models, remove their weapons, repose their arms using a hacksaw and some Duco Cement modelling glue, attach 1-inch toothpick pieces to their hands, use clay to make halberd-heads, and apply the Khandish Warrior rules to them.
Then, we talk about the Easterling Horseback archers. These guys will be Easterling Kataphrakts mounted onto unarmored horses from the Empire Pistolers kit, reposed and assembled as archers rather than as shield-people, and they'll use the Khandish Horseman rules.
Finally, the Dragon Guard infantry and Dragon Pioneer cavalry, otherwise known as the Black Dragons. I will differentiate these guys from the rest of the army. The Dragon Guard will be Easterling Warrior upper halves glued to High Elf Phoenix Guard Lower halves, with plain black sashimonos (small rectangular back-banners) glued to their backs. Then the Dragon Pioneers will be Easterling Kataphrakt upper halves (with the shields) glued to High Elf Dragon Prince lower halves, again with the black sashimonos glued to their backs.
Now, my new basing plan for my models. I decided only Generals and Commanders (collectively called Heroes) should be on round bases. As for regular guys, I feel they belong on quadrilateral bases. So, all of my infantry will go on 20mm square bases, and all of my cavalry will go on Closed Cavalry bases. Then, I will use the Warhammer modular trays to organize them into infantry quads of 12 Easterling Warrior swordsmen, 12 Easterling Warrior pikemen, 12 Easterling Warrior bowmen, 12 Easterling Axemen, and 12 Dragon Guard; and cavalry quads of 6 Easterling Kataphrakts, 5 Dragon Pioneers, and 5 Easterling Horseback archers.
Capes for the hero-figures I decided should be coated with Evil Sunz Scarlet, the Citadel Paint of cherry-red coloration. Some of them have or will have makeshift capes made of red-colored Duck Brand duct tape. This brings me to the banners. I was (and am) never a fan of Games Workshop's Shining Sun banner design, it was untrue to the source material and also too much inspired by real world Sinic Culture, so I'm blotting out the plastic and resin sun-shine flags with this Red duct tape and I'm painting the Anaconda design from film 2 onto it. Sycorax Bronze and Abaddon Black shall be used to paint on the bronze outlining of the triangle and to paint the five-curved bronze serpent with black eye, black belly, and black tongue. When this dries, I'll use a thin-tipped black sharpie to put on the scale outlines.
I am going to still decorate my models' bases as I did after reading GW's now-gone basing article, but that'll be the only mutual trait.
See how different that was? Thanks for reading and for clicking the links.
~KP~
