Fleshcraft Studio - Umbratouched Grovestalker
When I saw this model at UKGE it was an instant buy. Painting wood is a lot of fun, my tried and tested method of a Vallejo Khaki basecoat followed by a coat of Wyldwood contrast paint is wonderful for bringing out sculpted detail.
However.
Of late I have been looking to switch up my painting style. I’m trying to see if I can find a nice balance between the speed of something like slapchop and the detailing of more traditional base/wash/layer/highlight. I had some good results with some zombies and I wanted to see if I could apply a similar process to something beyond dead flesh. And this Umbratouched Grovestalker by Fleshcraft Studio presented a great model to test such an approach.
I had a spare 40mm base so I first mixed up some milliput and stuck down some vegetation that I got from Epic Basing. I additionally stuck down a spare tree stump from Kromlech. Once everything was where I wanted it, I then glued down the Grovestalker. I left things overnight to fully dry then I primed it with Colour Forge Standard Grey. Once that had dried I then gave the model a zenithal highlight with some Liquitex Titanium White Acrylic Ink, and then sprayed it from below with Daler-Rowney Sap Green Acrylic Ink.
As mentioned above my usual method for painting wood would be to give it a coat of Wyldwood contrast paint at this point. Unfortunately, Wyldwood is a highly saturated colour that would wipe out the highlights and shading that I had done up to this point. I then had the idea to use an airbrush paint. It seemed like a good idea at the time, they are after all thin and usually quite transparent. With that in mind I painted the Grovestalker with Vallej Model Air Camouflage Medium Brown and the cloth wraps around their neck and waist with Mig Ammo Green Moss. The air paints worked in that they didn’t cover up my preshading but they lacked the flow of contrast paints so the finish was very flat. In order to bring out the detail I washed the wood with Strong Tone and the cloth with Athonian Camoshade. I then highlighted both with Vallejo Khaki but for the wood I drybrushed to bring out the wood grain.
Reasonably happy with how things had turned out I moved onto the remaining details. I’m not sure if it’s a hat or some sort of ethereal smoke coming out the back of their head but whatever it is, I first painted it with some Army Painter Speedpaint Desolate Brown. I then highlighted the raised areas with Vallejo English Uniform. For the rock fist, I first painted it with Basilicanum Grey, then picked out the vines with Death Guard Green. I then washed the fist and thorns with Army Painter Strong Tone. I finished things off by highlighting the spikes on the thorns with Ionrach Skin.
Moving onto the base, I started with the tree stump. I wanted to differentiate the stump from the Grovestalker, so I mixed some Wyldwood with some matt medium. This sucked a lot of the colour out of Wyldwood and my tree stump ended up looking a little flat. But as with the air paints above, at least I could see the pre-shading underneath. The mushrooms on the tree stump I painted with Blood Angels Red contrast paint and the mushroom by itself I painted with Iyanden Yellow. The latter I then highlighted to terrible effect with Yriel Yellow. I finished off the painting by giving the reeds a coat of Creed Camo contrast paint.
Next I slathered on some Vallejo Thick Brown Mud, enough that it obscured the mounds of milliput. Once that was dry I gave it a wash of Strong Tone. Usually I’d then give it a drybrush of Tyrant Skull, but it looked like I might have trouble getting to all the areas on the base. So I didn’t bother. Instead I dabbed on some PVA glue and sprinkled the base with Geek Gaming Scenics Base Ready Forest Ground Cover. Finally I painted the rim of the base black.
Looking back at this model it’s safe to say that the experiment was a failure. I pretty much spent the afternoon trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead of playing around with matt mediums and airbrush paints, I should have just thinned some Wyldwood (or other contrast paint) with a bit of water. That way it’d retain the properties of contrast paint whilst being a bit more transparent.
Live and learn I suppose. Whilst I didn’t stumble upon a new painting hack, I also didn’t sink a massive amount of time into it and to be honest the model didn’t turn out half bad anyway. You win some, you lose some. Sometimes you just need to take the L and move on.