Claudia Rodriguez "The Sculpt" - Valhalla Part 2

Having finished the first half of this Kickstarter a while back, it was high time that I jumped into the rest of it.

With that in mind I set about getting the remaining miniatures assembled. Overall not too painful compared to some of the other miniatures. A couple needed pinning and a bit of milliput in the base to weigh them down, particularly Gondull as she is leaning right back.

Once everything was dry I moved onto the painting. I didn’t want to spend a huge amount of time on these like I had with previous Valhalla miniatures, as with all the individual characters it can be quite the time sink. But on the other hand I did want them to look better than the Zombicide Invader miniatures I had slapchopped my way through. So there would be a small amount of base/wash/highlight style painting but otherwise I would be leaning on contrast paints where I could.

With a plan in mind I primed them all with Colour Forge Standard Grey. Before moving onto the zenithal highlight there was something that I wanted to try. One of the things I had noticed about doing all those Zombicide Invader models was that the grey basecoat really washes the vibrancy out of Guilliman Flesh. To remedy this, I basecoated all the areas of skin on the Valhalla miniatures with Cadian Fleshtone. If I got any on areas that were not skin, I tidied them up with some Two Thin Coats Dungeon Stone. Once that was done, I gave each of the models a zenithal highlight with some Liquitex Titanium White Acrylic Ink. In this way, my highlights were done for most areas and all I needed to do was to go over them with contrast paints.

Herja

First up was Herja, and in defiance of what I said above I started by basecoating her tabards with Two Thin Coats Celestial Blue, which I then highlighted with Ulthuan Grey. Next I used Army Painter Speedpaint Broadsword Silver for all the metallic details. This was much stronger than I had anticipated and kind of eliminated my zenithal highlight, but it did nicely shade all the recesses. For the gold details, I gave them a coat of Snakebite Leather which turned out a nice burnished gold colour over the Broadsword Silver. I highlighted the rivets on the shield with Scale75 Dwarven Gold.

I then moved onto the area I had been putting off: the skin. I was a little worried if my plan to basecoat it Cadian Fleshtone before the zenithal highlight would pay off. It was with some trepidation that I carefully painted the skin with an even coat of Guilliman Flesh. And it turned out alright! Perhaps a bit too saturated in the shadows but it looked much better than the skin does on the Zombicide Invader Civilians.

Moving onto the remaining details, the leather such as her belt and boots I painted with the ubiquitous Gore-Grunta Fur. The fur trim on her boots I painted with Cygor Brown. Her hair I painted with Army Painter Speedpaint Burnished Red and the staff of her spear with Wyldwood. Lastly, I painted her thigh high socks with Skeleton Horde.

It was at this point I realised I had forgotten about the bases! For previous models in this series I had usually glued down a bit of basing material before priming, just to add a little extra to the miniature. Oh well, it is what it is. I kept things simple anyway, giving the base a coat of Valhallan Blizzard texture paint followed by a wash of Pylar Glacier contrast paint, before a final light drybrush of pure white.

Brunhilda

Brunhilda is probably one of the more well known valkyries, being a central character in the Völsunga Saga.

For the miniature I started off with the metallics, skin and leather; painting them in the same way that I had for Herja. As Brunhilda is quite heavily armoured this accounted for most of the model and I could move swiftly onto the remaining details. The staff of her spear I painted with Wyldwood and her hair with Garaghak’s Sewer contrast paints. The cape on her waist I painted with Macragge Blue and the trim with Vallejo Heavy Goldbrown. To mirror the colours on the cape I painted the face of the shield with Army Painter Speedpaint Royal Robes and Imperial Fist contrast paint. The last thing I needed to paint was her underwear, which was not something I ever thought I’d have to do when I got into this hobby painting genetically engineered seven-foot tall super soldiers in the forty-first millennium. In any case I toyed with the idea of painting them Macragge Blue to match the cape, but in the end I went with Ulthuan Grey.

For the base I started by covering it with Stirland Mud texture paint, before giving it a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone. Once that was dry I then drybrushed the base with Tyrant Skull. To add some variation, I dabbed on some PVA glue and sprinkled on some static grass.

Geiravor

As I had the process down at this point, I quickly painted the skin, metal and leather on Geiravor in the same way that I had for Brunhilda and Herja.

For the skirt I painted it with a few thin coats of Ulthuan Grey, the trim I then painted with Snakebite Leather. As she is a blonde, I painted her hair with Skeleton Horde. The feathers on her spear I painted with Imperial Fist and the baubles I painted with Blood Angels Red. Which in hindsight does make them look like a Christmas decoration.

The billowing cloud that she is mounted on already had a lot of its texture defined thanks to the zenithal highlight with white ink. To take advantage of this I simply washed it with Drakenhof Nightshade then layered the raised areas with Ulthuan Grey. I then tidied things up with a matt black paint.

Gondull

Like Brunhilda, Gondull was a quick paint job owing to the model wearing a fair amount of armour. To differentiate her from Brunhilda however, Gondull’s cuirass was painted in gold rather than silver with gold detailing. The skin and leather belt and shoes were painted in the same way that I had painted the rest. And like Geiravor I painted her hair with Skeleton Horde. To add a bit of visual interest to the model I painted the pteruges (the leather tassels around her waist) with Garaghak’s Sewer, as I felt that Gore-Grunta Fur is a bit too visually striking for such a large area. The scarf around her neck I painted with Army Painter Speedpaint Runic Grey to match the softer tones of her hair.

Her base was equally quick, I smothered it with PVA glue and dipped it into a tub of Geek Gaming Scenics Base Ready Patchy Plains. Job done.

Gunnr

Last but not least we have Gunnr, who by this point was an amalgam of ways that I had painted the other four models.

Her skin, leather and metallic details I painted in the same way as the others. I painted her hair with Army Painter Speedpaint Burnished Red like I had for Herja. And like Brunhilda I painted her underwear with Ulthuan Grey. Even her billowing cloud base I painted in the same way as Geiravor.

The one part that separates Gunnr from the rest is the cloth under her hair and around her waist. I decided to use these to practise wet blending, as I had Duncan Rhode’s triad of purple paints: Amethyst Rayne, Runic Purple and Sorcerer’s Cloak. I started by base coating the cloth with the midtone Runic Purple. Then with all three paints on my palette I could paint some Amethyst Rayne into the recesses and while it was still wet use some Runic Purple to blend it in. I then did the same for the highlights using Sorcerer’s Cloak. The results turned out alright, definitely something I need to practise at though.

Wings

I saved the wings until last as I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them. I knew I didn’t want to paint them white as that would look too angelic. I also considered painting them individually, perhaps each mirroring a particular species of bird. But this approach would take far more time than I was willing to devote, so I opted for something more simple.

I decided the easiest thing to do would be to take advantage of that zenithal which had beautifully highlighted the feathers and in places had produced a nice gradient from light to dark across the wings. To further bring out the texture of the feathers and to smooth those gradients I gave the wings a wash of liquid talent, aka Nuln Oil. I kept a careful eye on the models as they dried as any pooling would stand out like a sore thumb. Once the wash was dry I dry brushed the wings with Ceramite White, which brightened up the wings where the wash had really darkened it down. And as a bonus really accentuated all the beautiful texture.

Final Thoughts

Really happy with how these turned out, although if I’m honest I really should have played around with more skin tones like I had for other Valhalla miniatures instead of doing exactly the same for all of them. Fortunately I have another lot of valkyries from Claudia’s subsequent Valhalla II Kickstarter that I can use to play around with some different skin tones.