Giant lizards riding dinosaurs!

In the spirit of giving giving credit were credit is due, I used GW's online tutorial on painting stegadons for the scales and skin on the cold ones. I previously used this before on the Saurus hero's mount, but using it on a whole unit was a colossal pain in the ass in regards to the skin. The first few steps of base coating 5 cold-ones with a orkhide/knarloc mix was annoying enough (I ended up buying the GW spray-gun out of frustration - side note, useful tool to add to your arsenal), but I had tons of trouble with the orkhide wash. This has something to do with the way the pigment, or whatever, seems to separate in the foundation paint, which it will also want to due when watered down to a wash and drying on your models (I've heard/seen this explained before, but I'm too lazy to go out and track down that info again, so e-mail/comment a link if you're inclined). This would explain why in the tutorial the guy used a hairdryer to speed up the drying process. I ended up mixing a similar color using regular GW paints to use as the wash instead. When I expand the unit, whenever that may be, I'll just based coat the cold-ones knarloc instead to speed up the process.

I also borrowed from this tutorial for the off-white cloth/linen straps. I've been using that recipe fairly regularly now.

Overall, I'm rather pleased with these guys. There's something about the way the colors transition from the top to the bottom of the model, from the riders to the cold-ones (black -> scaly green -> orkhide/turquoise mix -> knarloc) that really works. I recall reading somewhere in a White Dwarf article, that when painting a cavalry model, you can make the rider stand out from the mount by using similar, but distinct shades of color (yeah, I buy an occasional WD - reading material for the can - I know how most people feel about GW's overpriced monthly propaganda piece). I don't know the exact color theory thing behind how this works, I just paint toy soldiers for kicks, man.