I may not play play with these during my family Heroquest games; they're quite dark....
I absolutely love these Heresy ghoul models, I saw them years ago painted by Mika over on the Warhamner Forum and loved how he had created a great contrast between the ghoul's greenish skin and the dark reds of the blood and gore. They are pretty dark miniatures (I found applying the blood and gore to the baby quite upsetting) but they are wonderful characterful sculpts that are a real pleasure to paint. There's actually not much to them, they are mostly flesh with a few other details so it was imperative that I got the skin tone spot on. I realised early on that it would have to have a green tinge so that it complemented the inevitable red of the blood, but I also wanted to create a layered, transparency it the skin too. This would be offset with the neutral grey basing. I also did a bit if research into how to create such blood and gore and found a great recipe to make the blood quite physical, see below. I usually steer clear of too much blood, but these ghouls, being cannibals and because of the additional details of body parts being butchered and eaten, these guys did need to have a realistic blood effect added.
So after some skin experiments (I'd already decided to veer away from my Orc skin recipe) I went for this approach:
White Primer
Earthshade wash
Small amount of earthshade plus increasong amounts of white, layered on for the highlights
Glazing with purples and blues in the shadows and especially apparent in the faces
Yellow glaze over the teeth
Then final glaze with green ink (and lots of medium) over the skin to remove any chalkiness from the highlighting.
Before the physical blood and gore was added (see below) I washed a mixture of purple and red inks to the hands, feet, knees and elbows (to create a little extra contrast and to break up the large areas of green skin).
Finally I prepped the areas that would be getting the blood effect with a combination of black, purple and red inks, increasing the amount of the latter where the blood was to be most fresh.
After weathering the bases I then approached the blood and gore. Quite simply I used a mixture of Tamiya Clear Red, black ink, UHU glue and a cocktail stick to mix the mess together and to apply it to the areas of stringy, gooey gore. The cocktail stick was used to stretch he goo between two surfaces , for example from mouth to floor. I didn't want to overdo it, so I had to keep restraining myself because it's a smashing effect and easily done. I decided that several of the models would not have any of this applied at all.
With regards to the Ghoul King who is digging out a grave, I decided to use a Tamiya weathering stuck (essentially an oil pastel the colour of mud) and applied this to the grave area, the base and dollop on his shovel too.
Lots of photographs to follow, as I have a new iPhone and have used this as an opportunity to experiment with it's focus and exposure corrections during the shot and it's editing abilities after. I'm pretty damn happy with these:
