Painting Guide: Kili

Every elf maiden’s dream dwarf arrives with Kili of Games Workshop's Escape From Goblin Town set miniatures.  The sculpt of the Kili miniature is accurate and provides a nice dynamic pose for the rash young dwarf.      

1.   Paint the flesh using Tanned Flesh.

1a. Wash the skin with Red Tone to get the ruddier tone of the Dwarfs.

1b. Wash the skin again in Flesh Tone.

1c. Highlight using Barbarian Flesh.

2.   Paint Kili’s overcoat, trousers, gloves, and quiver with a 10:1 mix of Oak Brown and Matt Black.

3.   Paint the arrow shafts and hair with Oak Brown and highlight the trousers with the same.

4.   Paint the arrow fletchings with Monster Brown and highlight the hair and overcoat trim with the same.  The bottom of the overcoat and its sleeves have a fringe and so need small vertical lines vice one horizontal line.  A very fine 5/0 or 10/0 brush works best for this.

5.   Highlight the overcoat with Leather Brown.

5a. Wash the overcoat with Strong Tone.

6.   Now paint the quiver, sword belts, scabbard, and knife handle with a 1:1 mix of Oak Brown and Chaotic Red.

6a. Highlight the above with Leather Brown.

7.   Next paint Kili’s tunic and hood with Deep Blue.

7a. Highlight the same with Crystal Blue.

7b. Finish with a final highlight of Wolf Grey.

8.   Paint the tunic’s trim Matt Black.

8a. Now, using a very fine brush and thinned Desert Yellow, paint the “X”s down the trim.

9.   Paint the boots, bootstraps, and wrist guards in Matt Black.  This step is not in a the graphic as I did not have it in my notebook due to the miniature being primed in black.

9a. Highlight the above with Uniform Grey.

9b. Do a second light highlight with Ash Grey.

10. Paint the studs and buckles on the belts and wrist guards in Gun Metal.

11. Paint the sword blade in Plate Mail Metal.

11a. Paint the hilt and pommel in Greedy Gold.  I did not wash Kili’s weapons as, like Dwalin, he is one of the best warriors and I feel more likely to take astute care of his weapons.

12. Finally for Kili’s bow paint the wood portion with Fur Brown.

12a. Paint the grip and the tips in Matt Black.

Some last notes:  

A. The eyes were painted between the Flesh Tone Wash and the Barbarian Flesh Highlight.  The eyes are done with a 5/0 brush.  First paint a horizontal white line and then place a black dot in the center.

B. AP Soft Tone is a good wash for flesh and other light colored items.

C. AP Strong Tone is a good general brown wash similar to Citadel's Agrax Earth Shade. 

D. AP Dark Tone is a good black wash similar to Citadel's Nuln Oil.

I based the miniature with coral beach sand for the rocky/sandy caves of Goblin Town and added some Highland Tufts and Meadow Tufts from The Army Painter Battlefields range.  I then painted the edge of the base in Deep Blue. 

I am beginning to dislike the blown up pictures as I can see all the mistakes and areas I need to correct.  Good learning tool I guess.

Next week Kili’s brother comes in right behind him.

I have to thank TALE OF TWO PAINTERS for the inspiration for these tutorials.  Unfortunately, I do not have step by step photos like they do as I found their site after I was a quarter of the way complete.  They painted the miniatures using Citadel paints.  I felt a guide using The Army Painter brand was warranted, especially as there is no readily available conversion chart for Citadel and AP brands like the other major miniature paint brands (Vallejo, P3, Reaper, etc.).  I currently only have the 42 bottle 2015 Mega Paint Set II, so there is a lot of mixing of paints to get the right color. (I’m hoping to get the Veteran Warpainter Upgrade Set with an additional 82 paints that just came out on the first).