Scythe Miniatures Painting Journal

Craig Moore

Introduction
I am really excited about the upcoming delivery of
Scythe. It looks to be another great game with the
amazing components that Stonemaier Games is known
for. When Jamey Stegmaier gave me the opportunity to
show what the miniatures look like painted, I was happy
to do it. Now that I’ve completed the painting, I wanted
to provide a Painting Journal to describe what I did and
why. This is not meant to be a step by step guide on
how to paint your miniatures, but more of a source of
inspiration for your own creations. I hope you will find it
useful, and I look forward to seeing what you can do
with your own set of miniatures and paints.

One of the challenges was to find the right artwork to

use as a guide for color selection. Jamey has
graciously given permission to include Jakub Rozalski’s
amazing art in this document for easy access while
painting. Thanks, Jamey!

Before I go any further, let me state that I am not a professional painter. I am mostly self taught, while picking up a few
pointers from magazines and videos over the years. I simply did the best I could with what I had available to me, and I will try
to describe some of those choices and techniques here for you. I don’t use any magnification when I paint. Instead, I paint
by the motto, “if I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist”.

Tools
For paints, I used older Games Workshop Citadel supplies I had lying around. I used some spray cans for the basecoat, and
standard or foundation paints for most areas. The color names have changed, so I’ll refer to them descriptively. I also made
heavy use of washes, also called inks, to give the miniatures a shaded or blended look. These are essential, in my opinion.

I mainly used 4 different brushes for this project:

­ Basecoat Brush ­ This was my main brush for most areas. It is in good enough shape to get some detail, but big
enough to cover larger areas quickly. I even used it for applying washes in smaller areas.
­ Fine Detail Brush ­ Used for anything I couldn’t control with the basecoat brush.
­ Wash Brush ­ For larger wash area applications.
­ Medium Drybrush ­ For dry­brushing on some of that textured look.

Preparation
The first step was to prime all of the miniatures with a basecoat. I did about half of them in white and the other half in black,
but looking back now I wish I had done all in black except for Zehra & Kar of the Crimean faction, Olga & Changa of the
Rusviet faction, and the Polania Mech. I feel that a black basecoat is more forgiving if you miss a spot. I did not worry about
the bases at this point as I planned to paint over them with a color similar to their original plastic when I finished.
The Characters
The characters represent a person and their animal companion, making an interesting combination to paint together. The
main thing to remember about the characters is that these characters are in the middle of a warzone. They should look dirty,
so don’t be afraid to throw some mud on their clean clothes. One challenge of painting the animals is that they aren’t as
textured as their real life counterparts. This mean you have to spend a little extra time trying to make them look furry (or
feathery) using dry­brushing and a few extra layers of wash.

Gunter & Nacht

This was the first character I painted, and it is
still my favorite. The best part about Gunter is
that between his hat and his squinting, you can’t
really see his eyes. This let me focus on some
other details such as the lining of his coat. First,
I painted the coat, pants, and shirt with a dark
gray. Then I took care of some larger details
such as the gun holster, the shoes, the belt, and
the inside lining of the coat (in a
maroon/burgundy color). Afterwards, I applied a
layer or two of black wash for shadows, then a layer of brown wash to the
lower parts to try to give him that well­traveled look.

The helmet is painted with a real dark metallic color, giving it a mostly
black look with a little shine to it. The beard is done in a leather color
with a heavy brown wash to give it some depth. I also applied a light
wash to his hands and face.

Finally, the part that really

makes him pop ­ the fine
details. For this, I used a
metallic silver or steel colored
paint (mine was called mithril silver). I added a tiny dot for each button, a very thin
line for the coat lining, a belt buckle, and a line across the front of the helmet. I
also tried adding a small spot on the front of the helmet to represent the insignia
found there in the art, though I’m not sure it’s
even visible at this scale.

Nacht was much easier, mainly because he’s

almost all black. I made sure the basecoat was
solid and touched up any spots I missed with the
spray can. Then I took the drybrush and added
just a hint of a medium gray all over. The black
still shows through, but it looks a little more
natural than a solid color. If this looked too light
afterwards, then I may have used a coat of black
wash to tone it down. For the eyes, I simply
added two eerie looking dots of off­white. The
color I used was bleached bone, which seems to
be a good description.
Zehra & Kar

I found the miniature of Zehra to be full of

interesting details. From the flowing dress
with random bits of color throughout to the
obscene amount of gold jewelry, there was
plenty to keep me busy. I started with the
dress, and for good reason. I chose to use
one of my favorite techniques here, which is
to color an area entirely with washes instead
of paints. Starting with a white base, I added
layer after layer of red wash until the dress
had the proper shade. I’m guessing I added
8­10 layers to get to where it is now, but
results may vary. This has the effect of giving the dress a maximum
amount of depth and shadow without actually having to paint lighter and
darker colors in the peaks and valleys. The hat was done with the same
technique. I finished the dress with a few tiny specks spread
throughout, using whatever yellow or green colors I saw in the artwork.
In contrast, the hat appeared to have gold specs, which I added in the
same way.

Zehra’s hair was done with a dark brown followed by several layers of
black wash until the brown was barely visible. Her face is well sculpted
with a well defined location for eyes. I decided to attempt both whites
and pupils. The result was a tiny bit of white and a decent set of pupils
that are looking mostly in the same direction. She doesn’t suffer from
too much of the “wide­eyed” look that I struggle with. My technique for eyes is a little odd, but it works for me. Basically, I
take a tiny bit of paint on my smallest brush and try to tap it in the target area. If I
miss, I just paint over with the flesh color and try again. Then if I am doing additional
colors (such as black over white) I try again with the next color and again, cover it up
if I miss. Once the eyes are in the right place, I take more of the flesh color and,
coming up from the bottom, I slowly cover up the area under the eye until I have
removed some of the roundness from the shape. If there is room, I do the same
thing from the top.

Zehra’s gun was not too difficult. The barrel was not separated from the stock, so I
had to freehand paint a straight line down the length of it to make it look like two
separate pieces. I used the gunmetal color for this. The wood was simply medium
brown with a brown or black wash to add some wood grain shadows. I then finished
with a few rings of a steel color around the barrel to break it up. Note that the guns
for Bjorn, Olga, and Anna were done in almost the same fashion.

The rest of her equipment was an interesting challenge. The bow was sculpted for
durability, so the area between the shaft and the string is filled in. I tried to hide this
by using a black wash to create a shadow effect. It doesn’t draw the eye too much
as long as the bow itself is much darker than this area, though the light gray color
ended up looking a bit out of place. The quiver was done with a simple brown
followed by two shades of gold for the decorations. The arrows have brown shafts
with red feathers, with a lot of black wash to get between the arrows to show texture. The bow holder was rather interesting.
I found that a slightly raised pattern was sculpted into it. Since the art didn’t have any reference for this item, I tried to use
colors that tied her clothing in with the colors on her faction’s power dial. To that end, I used yellow and gold, with a lighter
gold in the center. Finding the actual pattern was a little tricky, since it wasn’t raised very much, but for that same reason, it
is not noticeable if I happened to miss the lines a little. This area was covered with an
orange/sepia wash to blend it together.

Zehra’s jewelry is the focal point of the miniature, by which I mean it is the first thing
my eyes are drawn to. For all of the gold areas, including her sleeves and belt buckle,
I used a darker gold for the base, and then painted a few “coins” on top with a lighter
shade of gold. I then followed this with a light orange/sepia wash to add shadows
without taking away too much shine. The dagger was a great opportunity for detail. I
used a solid burgundy on the hilt and handle to make it stand out from the dress. A
few fine strokes of gold gave it a nice accent to match the original art.

Kar was an interesting challenge. The model was sculpted with a fair amount of
texture for the feathers, but I wasn’t able to get that much to show up by using a
wash. After several layers without much depth showing up, I decided to try
dry­brushing. I found a tan color that would work well with the brown foundation, and
brushed around the wing feathers, as well as a little on the body and tail. I am pretty
happy with the result, though it doesn’t do justice to the original artwork.
Bjorn & Mox

Bjorn was quite simple to paint compared to the

other characters. His eyes are squinted, so I
didn’t bother painting them. His accessories are
pretty simple. Overall, he didn’t require much
detail. His coat was a solid blue with a black
wash over top. I gave him a black belt with
leather colored pouches. His hair is a light brown
shade with orange and brown washes added on
top. For his face, I started with a flesh color that
is a bit rosier than the others, and then carefully
added a little brown wash to the eyes and mouth
to make them stand out. If you look carefully at the miniature and art,
he has a pair of goggles. I painted these black and the followed up with
a silver metallic paint for the lenses. I used the same color to pick out 4
buttons on his coat with the fine detail brush.

Mox, in contrast to Bjorn, was anything but simple. Jakub’s art shows a
dynamically colored, furry beast. The miniature was well sculpted, but it
doesn’t have the texture to match the fur. This left the challenge of
trying to blend in a few of Mox’s fur colors in a natural looking pattern. I
started by painting all of the fur a dark brown followed by a layers black wash and a layer of brown wash. I then found a
lighter brown and applied a lightly dry­brushed layer all over the fur. I had to be careful because there is not a lot of texture to
pick up the dry­brushing. Often with dry­brushing, you can drag the brush in any direction and get the same effect as it
catches on a raised area. When the surface is flat, the lines will reflect the brush movement. Next, I wanted to capture the
contrasting white hair depicted in the artwork. Using an off­white with a bit of tan in it, I
applied very faint layer of dry­brushing across the top of the head and back. It didn’t take
much, since the color was so contrasting.

The horns and feet were done using the same color as the white hair. I added a highlight
to the front tops of the horns in a slightly lighter shade. I also used this color around the
mouth, but followed it with a brown wash to subdue it. Mox’s eyes were done with a few
layers of black wash followed by two tiny dots of off­white. I finished the hooves with a
careful layer of brown wash starting where the ankle ends and the hoof starts. Across his
horns is draped a pendant of sorts. The string for this is
actually sculpted to run across and then behind the
horns. I used a few layers of gold and silver for the
pendant, though it ended up looking more gold than I
intended. I’d probably just use silver and a few layers of
wash to match the art better if I were to do it again.

Mox’s saddle and straps are laden with additional

features. Most of the bags I colored in a light leathery
brown with a brown wash. The straps were mostly done in black to contrast from the fur, but
I used brown for the actual saddle strap. I went back with a medium gray metallic paint to
add some details to the straps such as buckles and loops. The biggest challenge of the
accessories was the blanket running beneath the saddle. In the art, it appears to be red and
blue. To represent this, I painted it all red and then went back with the blue paint used on
Bjorn’s coat and lightly applied little specks of it randomly over it. I made each spot small
enough that it doesn’t appear to be a feature on its own, but instead seems to add texture to
the blanket as a whole.
Olga & Changa

Olga and Changa were probably the most

challenging of the characters. Looking at
the wonderful art of Changa, I was
troubled by the different colors. There
was white, orange, and black, and I
couldn’t tell exactly where anything
started or stopped. This was nothing like
Tony the Tiger with perfectly defined
stripes. Olga herself was fairly straightforward, though she was full
of fine details that would require a steady hand.

I started Olga by painting her coat in medium gray, her boots in a

tan leather color, and her hat, turtleneck, and pants in black. I saw a
cloak on her shoulders and looked at the artwork for what color to
paint it and quickly realized this was added to the sculpt. This was
an opportunity to incorporate any color I wanted, while still holding true to the original art. My creative juices were flowing as
I pondered the color wheel before finally deciding on...medium gray. Olga’s hair was a challenge for me. I struggle with
blonde hair, because anything I add to it makes it look less real. I decided to just do a simple layer of the off­white color,
bleached bone, which turns out to look like bleached blonde. I had to touch up the cloak a few places where the hair color
went past her hair. I then added red for her skirt where it sticks out, and black for her belt. Now she was ready for washes ­
brown on the boots and black everywhere else. The jacket needed enough layers of wash to make it look actually black, with
gray showing through. I decided to treat the cloak as if it were a woolen material, giving it only a thin layer of black wash. I
also added a little brown wash towards the bottom to represent dirt from her travels. Her face and hands received a flesh
color with a light brown wash for shadows. The gun was done much in the
same manner as Zehra’s. Olga’s hat is supposed to be made of fur and it
was looking way too flat, so I took some medium gray and lightly dry­brushed
over it to give it a little more texture.

Her coat has several patches of red, which I added without any additional
wash on top to make them more obvious. Her hat has a small red star buried
in the fur, which I tried to recreate. The result was much more obvious than in
the art. I added a few black dots for her coat buttons, and a thin line of
metallic silver to the edge of her coat to make it stand out. I also used that
same silver for a thin outline of her belt buckle.

Now on to Changa. First, I painted her

packs and straps in appropriate shades
of brown or leather. I used brown and
black washes to darken and weather the packs, and added a few accents, like the red
stars. Then I made sure the fur was solid white, by touching up anywhere the spray
coat missed. This also gave me a chance to touch up anywhere I went over on the
leather straps. Next comes what I consider my best technique and worst
implementation of the entire project. I added a layer of orange wash, starting from the
top and working down in all of the areas that had orange fur. This involved a lot of
freehand, and a lot of referring to the picture. Once I was satisfied with the result, I
took a medium sized brush filled with black wash and attempted to replicate the stripes. I made lots of quick, random lines of
varying widths. A single layer of black wash was enough to make a dark enough stripe. This is the part I wish I had spent
more time studying the pattern of the stripes before I went in swinging my brush around, though. The results look good, but
not great, and there are several areas where the stripes don’t look quite realistic in my finished product. Overall, though, I
am satisfied with the result.
Anna & Wojtek

Anna and Wojtek were the

last of the characters that I
painted. I think I used a little
less finesse on these than
the others and Anna looks
less realistic as a result. Her
clothes were pretty simple;
brown boots, green jacket, tan shirt, and a blue hat and
cloak. The only tricky part here was the color for her
pants. I didn’t have anything like it in my supply, so it
was time to mix paints. I really dislike doing this for
several reasons. First, I waste paints trying to get
enough on the palette to give me some flexibility while mixing, and still end up with enough that doesn’t dry right away.
Second, if I need to go back and touch up or paint over a mistake, I have to start the mixing process over. For this color,
which I also used on Wojtek’s packs, I mixed green with a little tan and possibly a dab of yellow. I gave her some orange
leather color for her hair and a pale flesh color for her face.

After the basecoat, I moved on to washes. The cloak got a blue wash to darken the
shadows, while the rest of the clothes got the typical brown wash treatment to dirty
them up. I added a little orange wash to her hair to give it some texture. Her face
got a thin line of red wash around the lips. Her eyes were done with a white dot
followed by a smaller black dot. This didn’t turn out as well as I hoped. From the
side, it looks normal, but from straight on, her face is a little distorted. I had trouble
finding the features of the left side of her face based on the molding, so it took a few
tries to figure out where to put her left eye. Her hair covers a good part of her face,
so I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be partially hidden.

Apart from her face, there were only a few fine details to paint. Her hat has a small
silver emblem on it, so I made a small dot using a silver metallic paint. The best
detail for giving her some character is the arm band. I used a dark red along with a tannish white in two small bands around
the arm. I did the lighter color first and didn’t worry about the bottom edge as much. Then I covered up as much as I needed
with the darker color. These were also covered with a thin layer of brown wash, because it would be no cleaner than the rest
of her outfit. I did the same thing later on Wojtek for his matching armband.

I started Wojtek with the straps, using the same mixed color as I used on Anna’s pants. I applied it liberally around the strap
areas, and all over the packs. I did so quickly because I was planning on carefully covering the areas up to the straps later,
and I wanted to use the custom color before it dried. Once complete, I painted all of the fur in a medium brown and then
added some details such as the armband and the red cross on the medical supply pack. Then I applied a brown wash all
over. I made it extra thick in areas around the flaps of the packs, and anywhere else that
had extra shadow. I finished the fur with a medium brown drybrush. Wojtek has a little
more texture in his fur than Mox, so the dry­brushing worked better. I then applied a
heavy dry­brushing of his muzzle with the same off white that I used for the armband.
This covered most of the brown fur in this area.

I switched to my fine detail brush and added some black eyes and nose, and then added
a thin line of wash for the mouth that flowed into the indentation there. I added some
metallic lines in various places on the straps for clips and buckles. Then I got really
ambitious and tried to write Wojtek’s name on both of his larger packs. Luckily, I started
with the side mostly hidden by Anna where I ran out of room. After my “practice” side, I
did much better.
The Mechs
In contrast to the characters, there was very little detail on the mechs that I chose to paint in different colors. Don’t
misunderstand, the miniatures are quite detailed. From a painting perspective, however, they are just pieces of metal
attached to different pieces of metal. The biggest question when painting the mechs was whether to paint them using
traditional paints and try to make them look metallic with layers and shading, or metallic paints, which have a metallic shine
built in. In the end, I chose some of each to try out different techniques, partly just to make them look as different from each
other as possible. I also tried to incorporate a little bit of their faction’s color to make them match their base a little better.
Saxon Empire

I chose a non­metallic style with the Saxon Mech. I

started by painting it all over with a dark gray, just
like Gunter’s coat. I followed this with a heavy wash
of black to give it as much shadow as possible. I
wanted it to end up looking darker than the other
mechs to match the its black base. After the wash,
it looked a little dull, so I added a layer of medium
gray dry­brushing to it, focusing on its edges, its
legs, and the mechanical details on its sides.

In one of the pieces of art, I noticed a small yellow and black crest on the
front of the mech. I tried adding this to the mech using the fine detail
brush. I started with a roughly shield shaped yellow patch, and then
added a few spots of black in the center. If you squint hard enough, it kind
of looks like the crest in the artwork.

I finished up as I did the other

miniatures by painting the base
in a solid color to cover up any
errant brushstrokes, even
though the basecoat was
already black.
Crimean Khanate

The artwork for the Crimean Mech left a lot to my interpretation.

I decided that it was probably both rusty and metallic. I went
for more rust here than the other mechs to incorporate the
original yellow color of the base.

I started with a coat of dark gray metallic, called Boltgun Metal.

This resulted in a shiny looking, “fresh off the production line”
mech. Then I added several layers of black wash to bring out
the features and make it look a lot
less new. I was intentionally sloppy
so that it had inconsistent light and
dark regions throughout. I went
especially thick on the wheels so that
it would make the spokes more
noticeable. Next came a few layers
of a sepia colored wash to rust it up.
Once it had a good orange cast to it, I came back with a thin line of a
medium gray metal along the edges of some of its major features. This
highlight gives it a little more definition and contrast with the darker areas.
Nordic Kingdoms

I could not find much art to use for reference on the

Nordic Mech. What I did find made me think of a
viking ship emerging from the fog. The only color I
got from this was light and dark gray. I wanted to
incorporate some blue in the design without
making it look forced. The resulting design was a
foundation of blue­gray, mostly covered up with
light and dark gray layers. Like the Saxon mech, I did not use any metallic
paints.

For the foundation, I used a color called Shadow Grey, which is what I
would imagine a bluish fog would look like. I painted the entire mech in
this color, and then I decided it was not metal enough. I took some
medium gray and painted most areas while trying to leave a few spots of
the foundation. The look I was going for, or perhaps just ended up with,
was “sloppy”. This lack of perfection or consistency looks ok to me because I want
to keep the feel of imperfect visibility of a ship sailing out of the fog. I then applied a
lot of black wash all over, as heavy as I could. There were plenty of crevices on this
sculpt for it to collect in, giving it a lot of shadows. The final touch was to try to
recapture the edges by highlighting them with a lighter gray. I used my drybrush for
this, dragging it across the sides of the legs and along the sides of the ship to accent
anything sticking up enough to catch some paint.
Rusviet Union

The Rusviet Mech had the most art to use

for reference, though the colors all tended
to have the same dirty, rusty metal look. I
used metallic paints for this piece, just like
the Crimean Mech, but I decided not to
make it look rusty so it would look different
on the table. There wasn’t much in the
way of red that I could add to the metal
color, so I decided to just add a red accent
to connect it to its base color.

I started by painting the entire mech in a dark gray metallic color.

For the scythe arms, I wanted to do something different to make
them look like long continuous pieces of imperfect metal. I added
a few thin, watered down layers of the metallic paint, letting it pool
toward the points. I then applied several thick layers of black
wash all over, trying to make it look as weathered as I could.
Next I went back with a lighter metallic gray and highlighted any
areas that got lost in the wash, especially the edges of the scythe
arms.

The final touch was to add the red star to the center, just like in the artwork.
There wasn’t a feature in the sculpt to paint, so I was left to free­hand it. Let it
be known that I am not good at freehanding. I have sloppy handwriting. I paint
miniatures because it often comes down to “coloring between the lines”. To
make this star, I didn’t try to make an outline and fill it in. Instead, I tried to make
5 dots for the points, allowing the brush to
lie down toward the center of the star in
case any paint came off the side. Then I
simply tried to connect the dots to the
center. The result is not a perfect start,
but it looks close enough for my
diminishing eyesight.
Republic of Polania

The artwork for the Polania Mech shows a great dark

behemoth. This was contrary to what I was trying
accomplish in incorporating the base color into the color
scheme. In my opinion, this is the coolest and most
modern looking sculpt. I think of this mech as the “white
knight”, so I decided to make it a little less dark and
dirty, and a little more shiny.

I started by painting it all over with a medium gray

metallic paint. Then I went over it with a black wash, but I used much less than on
the other mechs. The exception was the cockpit. I wasn’t going to try to paint each
individual window, so instead, I put several layers of wash on it, letting it run off the
borders and down into the window areas. I repeated this until the windows were
dark enough. I also added
extra wash to a few random
features for variety, including
some panels on top, the gun
barrels, and the exhaust pipes.
In the end, this one was
probably the simplest of the
paint jobs.

Art by Jakub Rozalski, used with Permission, and can be found on ​

https://www.artstation.com/artist/jakubrozalski​
as well as Jakub’s
Facebook page. Miniatures and pictures thereof used with Permission, and can be found at ​http://stonemaiergames.com/​ .