Scion of Black Blood: Neverborn Indigeneous

The Scion of Black Blood has a very dramatic pose. A weapon in each hand, arms spread out, chest out, wide eyes.  Puffy-chest incarnate. His M2E picture invokes the moment as the crazed fighter wanders through the fog of war out into the edge of battle, taking it all in, just before he's about to go berserk.

And then in third edition, they gave him a name.

Maurice.

Today, I wonder if the Scion has this pose because he's about to flip out that someone named the chosen heir of acid blood something more appropriate for a local British solicitor.

Anyway, I'm going to use the Indigenous color palette I set up on my post about skin tones for Malifaux's Nephilim.  (I painted him about 18 months ago before M3E decided he was half-blooded.)  To get the "peanut worm" translucence -- I chose a purple base, light wash of a deep blue shadow in the crevices and then a thin overcoat of a light but dull blue tone over everything.

As to getting the colors right his other features, I found a decent reference to a 1912 Winchester off Wikipedia (technically a little ahead of the Malifaux's alternate timeline but it still works for what he's holding).

For his horns, I wanted to avoid the typical bone color but wasn't sure what to use.  I little searching and I found a costume piece on Etsy that had a nice greyish / dull violet look. 

Maurice, the tax auditor Scion of Black Blood Color Scheme

• Skin - Undertone Base: Reaper Twilight Purple Skin, Shadow (Wash): Ceramcoat Purple Smoke, Main Base: Heavy Glaze of FolkArt Linen, Highlights: Reaper Bloodless Skin and FolkArt Parchment
• Pants -  Undertone Base: Reaper Worn Olive, Shadow (Wash): Olive Drab, Overtone: Heavy Glaze of Ceramcoat Autumn Brown
• Arm Braces and Shoes: Base: Reaper "Nut Brown"** and Orange Brown, Shadow (Wash): Heavy Wash of Ceramcoat Cinnamon
• Horns: Undertone Base: Reaper Cloudy Grey, Shadow (Wash): Reaper Cloudy Grey, Highlights: FolkArt Mushroom
• Metal Bits:  Undertone Base: Reaper Cloudy Grey, Shadow (Wash): Reaper Cloudy Grey, Overtone: Reaper Concrete Grey

** At least I think it's Nut Brown.  It's labelled as "MSP Sample" and I got it for free in a Reaper package.

Here's the first cost of Twilight Purple with a heavy glaze of Linen over the main coat.

From the top down, I could see a mistake in the eye by the nose I would have to clean up.

 First Wash

More lighter skin glaze and 1st coats on clothes.

Leather gauntlets.  Making sure to distinguish them from the pants.

1st wash on clothes and highlighting details

2nd  wash on clothes. Belt clean up and definition. My first attempt at a tattoo - using a thinned out black.  Not great.

Wood grain on gun

Final thoughts: I'm really happy with the style of this Indigenous Nephilim palette.  The overcoat method worked.  The pants could have used a little more definition and shading, but overall I'm proud to bring this one to the table.

Neverborn Skin Tones

Painting a demon seems kind of boring to me.  Sure, when I was a kid, Chernabog was ominous in Fantasia. But fantasy lines are so rife with this BBG that I now find them commonplace, much less scary.  Red skin, big horns, goat's legs, Tim Curry's voice.  Next please...

So I avoided picking up Nephilim figures from Wyrd's Malifaux line.  It was too in the vein of what I was avoiding.  I thought the nightmares from Malifaux captured my imagination more.

But my "to be painted" collection started growing bunches of these Nephilim: Nekima. Tuco. Angel Eyes. The Scion of Black Blood. The Bloodwretches.  Stuck with them, I struggled on what to use for skin tones.  Especially since each of them have a slightly different background.

So to start, I picked the most unusual part of the their biology: Black Blood.  So what would a creature that had "black blood" look like?  The closest real "Earther" counterpart creatures with purple or violet blood.   Of these the most interesting palette I saw was this picture of the sipuncula or peanut worm.  The creature is interesting because different parts have different palettes based on how the camera captured its translucence.

Having recently picked up the 2nd Edition Core Through the Breach book, I got to read up a little on the history of Malifaux.  The planet starts off with human-like people.  Eventually they got to war with their greatest enemies - the Tyrants.  To defeat them, they turn their blood black - basically a defense mechanism similar to the Alien Xenomorphs.

The lore also talks about a ritual to turn a human into a Neverborn.  From some of the stories I've read, you can tell when someone doesn't look like an indigenous Neverborn who had existed in Malifaux before the Breach opened.  As such, a transformed human can still disguise him or herself a little among other humans.

So I'm classifying them as three types of creatures: Indigenous, Once Human, Mid-Transformation.

One thing I learned from painting the warpigs: A simple two-tone color scheme can have unexpected depth by using a a deeper or darker undercoat and then a heavy glaze of a lighter color for the base coat.  Here the shadow is a third color on the undersides of the model. Final highlighting would be a white skin tone that had little-to-no red in it - probably a linen, recalling the Jen Haley tutorials.
So terms I'm using for this process are: Undercoat, Shadow (Wash), Base (Heavy Glaze).

One specific thing regarding the term "undercoat": I'm still priming white, uniform grey, or black - and THEN applying what I'm calling "undercoat".  (I recognize a prime coat is technically an undercoat, but whatever...)

So I'm breaking out skin tones in three sections:

• Indigenous (e.g., Nekima and the Scion) would have a more blue/purple skin tone than a human one.  The males have a deeper purple undercoat - Reaper HD Twilight Purple.  The females slightly brighter purple - Reaper HD Gem Purple.  Base coats will be straight Linen color.  No fleshtones - like Caucasian.
• Once Human (e.g., Tuco and Angel Eyes) may still retain a little of the human skin tone.  Reapers Dusky Skin tone might work as a undercoat base with an base of the Reaper Caucasian fleshtones, with final highlights being Linen.
• Mid-Transformation (e.g. Bloodwretches) would still retain more of that Caucasian skin tone with blends in the Once Human in the extremities - similar to the Swine-Cursed.

Warpigs: Gathered in their Marshes...

Painting pigs usually always means "pink".  The whole pig - painted pink.  But looking at various pics of pigs - while they have a pink or "pinkish" skin - there's a fine white fur that makes the pink more fleshtone.

So taking the lessons learned from the Swine Cursed - this calls for undercoating and glazes.

Warpig Color Scheme

• Main Skin - Undercoat: Reaper Maiden Flesh mixed with Reaper HD Entrail Pink, Base Coat: Heavy Glaze of Reaper HD Fair Skin Shadow and Reaper HD Maiden Flesh, Highlights: Thin Glazes of Reaper HD Caucasian Flesh, Reaper Maiden Flesh, and FolkArt Linen
• Hooves - Base: FolkArt Butter Pecan with dark brown washes (FolkArt Walnut Brown)
• Eyes - Base: Reaper HD Bright Red
• Fur - Autumn Brown with Reaper HD Golden Brown highlights

Having played a game or two running the Ulix and his pig crew, I realized I needed two warpigs for some heavy hitters.  At the time I bought the figure Malifaux only had one sculpt.  Since there's no variance in the sculpt itself, I needed to be able to distinguish the one from the other.  (It makes a huge difference in preventing mistakes mid-game.)

So I decided one pig would NOT have the pre-packaged gremlin with banjo riding him.  The other would.

Warpig 1 had the rider.  Primed white and black wash for separation.

First coat was all pink.  He really looks like a hot dog here.

With the first glaze of fleshtone you can already see the more natural pig skin color. I didn't take good notes here, but I think I used a warmer skin color with the first pig - like Fair Skin Shadow or Tanned Skin.

Another snap after more highlighting.

Warpig 2 needed to have all traces of the gremlin rider removed.  Some Dremel work handled that nicely.  Of course afterwards meant some green stuff work.

Primed and separated below.  I was pleased with how well my green stuff work came out.

I missed taking a snap of the undercoating of pink for Warpig 2.  But below you can see the first heavy glaze.

Putting him on a nice muddy base. 

Final Thoughts:
Very very happy with running an undercoat for painting pig skin tone.  Big success. 

Wish I could remember specifically was I used for Warpig 1 on the first heavy glaze (Reaper Fair Skin? Fair Skin Shadow? Tanned Skin?).  The yellow in the color makes an obvious difference in the tone below.  Warpig 2 looks a little cold in comparison.

Also I could have used a dark brown for separation on the ears rather than black wash.  Separation on the ears and tusks look a little harsh. Still table top ready!