Gloomhaven - Red Guard and Cragheart

Inspiration and motivation can be funny things. Between work and life I’ve been struggling to find the drive and energy to continue with the remaining Blightkings and Myth Forged miniatures. But a friend came over recently and we cracked open Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. I took one look at the Red Guard character that I would be playing, and I knew exactly how I wanted to paint him. Not to mention that playing Jaws of the Lion has rekindled a desire for my wife and I to continue our Gloomhaven base game campaign and to finish painting the starting classes. As luck would have it, I had already done the Brute, who is my current character in the game and there had been some progress on the Spellweaver, who is my wife’s current character. So, that left me with the Cragheart, Scoundrel, Mind Thief and Tinkerer left to paint. I chose the Cragheart because he looked fairly simple to paint; He’s essentially just rock, some bracers and a loincloth. 

Enough preamble, let’s get onto the good stuff. I have wanted to try bright red armour for a while now, and seeing that Red Guard character art for the first time provided me the perfect excuse to finally give it a go. More or less every guide you read for bright red, like a candy apple red, recommends using Tamiya Clear Red. Unfortunately I haven’t got any yet so I will have to make do with Blood Angels Red contrast paint. Additionally, I have heard that putting the red over gold instead of silver results in a much richer colour and fortunately, I have a rattle can of Retributor Armour left over from my Custodes. With a plan in mind, I primed the model gold and drybrushed it with some Necron Compound. Then used Blood Angels Red through the airbrush for all the armour. In hindsight, I probably should have brushed the Blood Angels Red on as the armour came out wonderfully red but looking a little flat. Nothing I couldn’t fix with some Nuln Oil in the recesses and Mephiston Red for some edge highlights. To bring back that metallic shine, I gave the armour a quick coat of gloss varnish. For his cloak I basecoated it with Evil Sunz Scarlet before giving it a wash with Nuln Oil and drybrushed across the folds with Jokaero Orange for highlights. With the majority of the model now done I could pick out the remaining details. I painted his undersuit, gloves and boots with Mechanicus Grey, and his weapon and shield with Leadbelcher. All of these areas were then washed with Nuln Oil. To finish off the shield I painted the design with Army Painter Greedy Gold, forgetting what a terrible paint it is. For the few patches of skin showing and his tail, I first painted the areas with a couple of thin coats of Kislev Flesh before washing them with Army Painter Red Tone. Using a lighter skin tone like Kislev Flesh made sure the skin ended up reddish as Valrath skin should be but not too red, given the absurd amount of red already on the model. 

For the Cragheart I painted all his rocky skin with a couple of thin coats of Mechanicus Standard Gray, washed it with Strong Tone and drybrushed with Dawnstone to bring out as much of the texture as I can. As the gold non-metallic metal on the Voidwarden (spoilers for a future article) hadn’t turned out as well as I would have liked, I decided to try again on the Cragheart. I mean, I still had all the paints out so why not? I started by coating the pauldrons with a mix of Mournfang Brown and Scrofulous Brown, I then used pure Mournfang Brown in the recesses and shadows. The first set of highlights, I used pure Scrofulous Brown. I followed that with Scrofulous Brown mixed with Matt White, I then used this mix for edge highlights as well. Finally I glazed some Scale 75 Instant Colour Sulphur Yellow over all the gold pieces. Finally, I ran a line of Wyldwood contrast between any panels to help separate them. For the loin cloth and the wraps on his wrists, I painted them Khaki before giving them a wash with Strong Tone and highlighting the folds with Khaki again. All that was really left to do was the crater in his chest. I was a little unsure what to do for this, as it’s what gives the character his namesake. According to the lore: before a Cragheart is exiled, however, they earn their name by having their chest cavity marred and shattered. The artwork has it in black, but as my Cragheart is already dark grey it wouldn’t stand out all that well. In the end I decided to keep with a theme and paint in some very thinned down yellow. I started with Averland Sunset, painting it into the chest cavity and branching out slightly along the cracks. I then did the same with Yriel Yellow except I made sure to keep it inside the Averland Sunset and hopefully have a bit of a transition. Finally I repeated the process this time with a small amount of Flash Gitz Yellow. 

For the base I kept it simple: slopped on some Stirland Mud before washing it with Strong Tone and drybrushing with Tyrant Skull. For the rims, I used Mephiston Red for the Red Guard and Averland Sunset for the Cragheart. Finally, I stuck on some grass tufts and they were done!