Sven Forkbeard

and his Viking Warband

- a painting guide by
Jonas Fring

Sven Forkbeard painting tutorial
- by Jonas Faering from made for Gripping Beast. To speed up things, I only used the
The Army Painter
Gaming with painted is the joy for most gamers, but getting there can
sometimes be a bumpy and rough ride. Fortunately there are helping
aids for busy folk like me with too many games to play and too many
miniatures that need painting. The Army Painter product line has
been designed with the sole purpose of speeding up painting, thus
allowing you more time for gaming!
In this article Ill take a look at painting the Viking Hero
from Gripping Beast for my Saga Warband.
Preparation
The first step is clean the model from mould
lines using a thin file, than glue it together and
to the base. I filled the gap around the hands
with a bit of Green Stuff putty to strengthen
the joint. Mix the yellow and blue parts of the
putty and it turns green ready for modeling
into place using a sculpting tool.
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Colour Primer
Spray
This next step is where you really save precious
time. Instead of traditional black or white
primers, The Army Painter Colour Primers
allow you to prime and colour the miniatures
in one coat. As the Sven miniature was
predominately clad in chainmail I opted for
the Colour Primer: Gun Metal as my starting
point. There is 24 different colour primer
sprays to choose from, so finding a
good starting point for your army
project is easy.
The Army Painter Master Tip: Use different size brushes for
Cloak Grey each layer of detail, this gives you complete control over even
Saga the most difficult parts of your paint job
Basecoat [photo:
Now it is time for basic painting using the Warpaints acrylic
colours from The Army Painter and the Saga Warpaints we
Unbleached
Wool
Saga
Wargamers: Regiment Brush (roughly a size 1 or 2 brush). Big
brushes inevitably make you paint faster. Dont paint the chain
mail leave it Gun Metal spray. Any slip-ups onto the metal
were touched up with the Warpaint Gun Metal acrylic colour,
which happens to be a 100% match to the spray of the same
name.
Colours used: Tanned Flesh
Leather
Brown
WP1127
WP1123
skin: WP Tanned Flesh, dark leather: WP Oak Brown, belt:
WP Leather Brown, skull: WP Skeleton Bone, scabbard:
Desert
WP Desert Yellow, shield and rim: GB-WP Viking Red, hair:
GB-WP Cloak Grey, clothes: GB-WP Unbleached Wool.
Yellow
WP1121
Warpaints Quickshade
Inks Viking Red Oak Brown
WP1124
At this step I could have chosen to use the polyurethane
Quickshade, but since I was only doing one model the easier
option is to use acrylic Warpaint Quickshade Inks. Again using Skeleton
my Wargamer Regiment Brush I painted the Bone
WP1125
chainmail WP Quickshade Dark Tone, the skin
and trousers WP Quickshade Soft Tone and the
rest WP Quickshade Strong Tone. Use plenty of
ink, but remove excess pools.
Even at this stage the model looks great and could
easily make it onto the battlefield. But I want my Sven
Forkbeard Hero to be painted to a higher standard and
The Army Painter Master Tip: Some miniatures may be to fragile to DIP
and SHAKE, like our hero here, in that case simply paint on the Quickshade
Ill proceed with a few highlights. for the same fatastic result as dipping - this is also an excellent technique for
large miniatures, like monsters, tanks and other vehicles
First Highlight Second Highlight Eyes
For the first highlight Im using my smaller The second highlight must be kept small and The eyes were painted WP Matt White with WP
Wargamer: Character Brush (size 0). neat, this time sticking to a Wargamer: Detail Matt Black for the dots using the aptly named
Brush. Wargamer: Insane Detail Brush.
Colours used:
Colours used: skin: WP Skeleton Bone, skull:
skin: WP Barbarian Flesh, dark leather: WP
WP Matt White mix, scabbard: WP Skeleton
Leather Brown, belt: WP Monster Brown, skull:
Bone mix, shield and rim: GB-WP Pure Red/
WP Skeleton Bone/Matt White mix, scabbard:
Lava Orange mix, hair: WP Matt White and
WP Desert Yellow/Skeleton Bone mix, shield
and rim: GB-WP Pure Red, hair: WP Ash Grey metal with WP Shining Silver.
and clothes: WP Matt White.
The Base
Finishing off the base is almost as important
Viking Warband
as painting the model, but again I want to save
time. Once the base has been painted WP Oak
painting tutorial
Brown I glued in Battlefields: Black Battleground
- by Jonas Faering from
(which is basically pre-coloured sand, ready for
drybrushing), highlighted with WP: Monster The Army Painter
Brown and WP: Skeleton Bone. And lastly I glued
in some Battlefields XP: Swamp and Wilderness
In the first section of this article I demonstrated how to paint my Saga Warband hero
Tufts using a spot of super glue.
Sven Forkbeard, painted and highlighted to a masterclass standard. In this article
I will be showing how to paint a Saga Warband using the fast The Army Painter
Technique, using different Colour Primer sprays and Quickshade
Dipping.
The models in the Warband are all plastics, primarily the Viking
Hirdmen and the Unarmoured Dark Age Warriors from Gripping
Beast with some extras from Warlord Gamess
plastic Celtic Warriors..

Finished! Preperation Basecoat

Sven Forkbeard ready to lead his
Viking Raiders onto ever more
pillaging and plunder.
Next article Ill be painting my
Saga Warband using different
Colour Primers some for my
bondsmen and different sprays for
the hirdmen. Ill also be doing all
20 men in the cause of a few hours
using Quickshade dipping.
The models were clipped from the plastic
sprues, cleaned for mould lines and glued
together using the components from The
Army Painter Plastic Assembly set; clipper,
knife and plastic glue.
The next step is where your real painting
adding basecoats to your models. By sticking
to a very limited palette matching the Colour
Primer colours I painted the whole Warband Army Painter Master tip: Every Warpaint is a 100%
in a few hours. color match to its namesake Colour Primer - making it
skin: WP Barbarian Flesh perfect to cover up mistakes during basecoating
clothes: WP Desert Yellow / WP Army
Green / WP Leather Brown
metal: WP Plate Mail Metal
details: WP Skeleton Bone Barbarian
Flesh
beards and hair: various brownish and WP1126

Until then Jonas yellow colours

Notice how sticking to using only the same

few different colours blend the models
together giving a coherent feel. For instance,
with the Viking Bondsmen unit, once
basecoated it is hard to tell what model were Leather
primed in what colour however you have let Brown
Colour Primer the spray do most of the painting for you
WP1123

Spray Desert Army Green

Yellow
Any slip-ups onto the primed areas were WP1121
WP1110

This spray step is where you really save touched up with the Warpaint of the same
precious time. The Army Painter Colour name as the Colour Primer, which is a 100%
Primers allow you to prime and colour the match to the spray.
miniatures in one coat. And by chosing the
right spray for the right job, youre half way Army Painter Master tip: Save
done before you even begin. For my Saga time and energy by spraying your
Warband I used: miniatures in their primary color
- giving you more time for gaming
Colour Primer: Plate Mail Metal for all
Plate Mail
chainmail armoured Hirdmen Metal
WP1130
A mix of Colour Primer: Desert Yellow
/ Army Green / Leather Skeleton
Brown for Bondsmen Bone
WP1125

Colour Primer:
Barbarian Flesh
for the half-naked
Berserkers

4 5
Warpaints Quickshade Dip Other miniatures in
The unique formulation of the Quickshade Dip allows you to Svens warband
add instant shading to the whole of the model in just a few
seconds. Using a pair of pliers, dip the whole of the model
into the Quickshade can and remove the excess Quickshade
by flicking the model a few times. Its messy business, so do
it outside!

The Quickshade is in effect pigmented varnish, so not only

will it add instant shading, it also coats your models in a hard
protective layer of varnish.

Anti-Shine Matt Varnish

Once the Quickdshade has dried and hardened for 24-48
hours, you can remove the gloss shine with a few very thin
coats of Anit-Shine Matt spray. The objective is only to remove
the shine, so just give your models a very thin coat or two. Army Painter Master tip: Finish your dipped
miniatures with an Anti-Shine Varnish which alleviates
the shine of the Quickshader and gives your miniatures
Shield & Base a life-like matt finish - line up an entire regiment and
spray in a continuess motion for efficiency
I finished off the models by completing the bases in the same
manner as for my Warband Leader it is imperative that
the bases look the same throughout the Warband. I
glued in Battlefields: Brown Battleground (which
is basically pre-coloured sand, ready for
drybrushing), highlighted with WP:
Monster Brown and WP:
Skeleton Bone. And
lastly I glued in some
Battlefields XP: Swamp and Wilderness
Tufts using a spot of super glue.

The shields (done separately) with the

fantastic transfers from Little Big
Men Studios were glued in place
and the Norse Warband was ready to
take any Saxon weaklings on the
gaming table.

All in all I spend an evening

spraying, basecoating and dipping
the models and a few hours the next
day finishing the bases and doing the shields. A fast way to
get your Saga Warband done and spend more time gaming!

extra SHIELDS were dry I coated the whole shield with WP Matt
Varnish to remove the shine from the transfer.
The shields were left in the sprue for easier handling
and sprayed with Colour Primer: Leather Brown Glue on model
in the back and Colour Primer: Matt White on the Glue in place using a spot of Super Glue and you
front. are done!
Adding transfers
Following the instructions from LBM I added the
transfers to the shields. Super quick!

Details and matt

varnish
Next I painted the rim in the matching WP Leather
Brown, the boss with WP Plate Mail Metal and
shaded the whole thing with the acrylic WP
Quickshade Strong Tone Ink. When the Warpaints

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