The Dark Future set combines our love of science fiction and building atmosphere on our miniatures. This set can be used for dramatic shadows, non-metallic metals, night-time atmospheres or just to enhance colours you've already used.
Miniature Review
For the second of the Squidmar paint sets I decided to paint a the elf. I wanted to try out the OSL techniques learnt from the previous orc lava base, this time with a one directional purple hue.
The miniature itself has a great base to practice on, and there are a few different textures from the armour to the cloak to the skin that allows for a variety of techniques to be used.
The Paints
We didn't tell you everything about these paint sets - and its haunting us!
Here are some ways that the paints in the range are best used:
Silvers
These are used for any silver or steel metallic areas. Dark Gunmetal is used as the basecoat, then depending on how bright you want it slowly mix in more Silver until you reach the desired highlight.
For a brighter silver, start with a 50:50 mix of Dark Gunmetal and Silver, then slowly mix in more Silver to highlight.
Dark Gunmetal should be dark enough that there is no need to use washes to shade it further. This helps to avoid muddying the metallic effect.
Gold Non Metallic Metals (NMM)
Start with a basecoat of Dark Rust. Then use Parasite Brown clean, no mixing, to highlight the shadow tone. Then use 3 levels of mixes of the Parasite Brown and Ice Yellow to create midtones and highlights. Finally Sun Yellow can be used to glaze to make the gold look really rich.
The easiest way to paint perfect Gold on Warhammer
Steel Non Metallic Metals (NMM)
Start with Dark Sea Blue as your shadows, then mix in Deck Tan 50:50 to create your midtone. Then the brighter you go add in more Ice Yellow to create your highlights. For a more dull steel effect replace Dark Sea Blue with Black.
Idiot-proof recipe for steel NMM using only THREE paints
Browns
Parasite Brown can be used in a similar way to Japanese Uniform WWII from the essentials set, but with a slightly warmer tone. Great for leather, wood, horns, teeth and other materials.
For leather start with Dark Fleshtone as a base coat, then use Parasite Brown for the midtone and Sunny Skin Tone for the highlight.
It also works great as a shade for yellow, especially when mixed with Sun Yellow. It can even be used for sun kissed skin.
Blues
Dark Sea Blue is the base, Turquoise is the midtone, then Blue Green as the first highlight and finally Ice Yellow as the final highlight. Ice Yellow can be replaced by Light Flesh or Ivory for a cooler highlight.
Magentas
These reds work really well with the blues. Use Evil Red as the base, Violet Red as the midtone and Magenta as the highlight. Sunny Skin Tone can be used as a final highlight to add some warmth.
Express
Similar to Skin Ink and Magenta Ink from the essentials set, Snake Green is best used with an airbrush to shade miniatures from below and add vibrancy to shadows. As it's semi-translucent it works really well to blend colors together when applied as a filter.
If you spray it over blues it adds a greenish tint that can really make the shadows pop.
Painting Techniques
Rather than list all the paints I used for each part of the miniature I'll point to the tutorials I followed. All paints were from the Squidmar sets, mostly from those listed above included in the box set.
How to paint NMM and skin as a megahacker - box art tutorial
Roundup
As previously I limited myself to a couple of hours to wrk my way through the tutorial and get the miniature to a point I could call it done. I'm really happy with the results, the OSL effect is really striking and I think I've managed to achieve a half decent NMM effect on the armour. I still need a lot more time and practice to get the hang of it but it's a good first step.
