The Four Horsemen: Don't Look Back in Anger

 The original concept for my Four Horsemen Undead army saw the section lead by Death painted in grey-scale with the idea that they would represent soldiers who have had their souls reaved from their bodies. At the time I was happy with the outcome, though it was suggested that a splash of colour may help the overall look.

The Original Scheme

As you paint through an army, especially one done over several months you pick up different ideas and by the time I reached February and painted up the Wraiths I'd moved onto a darker scheme with lighter highlights and a dash of colour. I really liked this scheme and wanted to transfer this over to the original models when I worked out how and had some time in the painting schedule.

New Style Wraiths

So with nothing else on the blocks to paint at present I've been back and had another look at what can be done. In the end it was actually very easy and much quicker than I anticipated to complete, being done in only 1 1/2 days.

New Style Soul Reaver Infantry

A simple black wash achieved the first aim of making the models much blacker overall and it didn't take long to work through the four regiments and four individuals I had. I left the faces and arms in the original colour as much as possible to draw a distinction between what was and wasn't flesh (well bone in some cases).

This helped bring a real depth to the grey scale scheme which I then reinforced with a dry brush of white. The main obstacle in the process was the fact the models where on the base already which made it harder to get to the bits in the middle of the bases that at the edge. It did have the advantage of forcing me not to try anything too fancy that couldn't be reproduced on the hard to reach areas of the models.

After that I went over some areas with red in order to pick out a few spots of interest and catch the eye. I resisted the temptation to go with red eyes on everything other than the dogs and decided to go with weapon edges and a couple of details on the shields.

A quick application of matt varnish over the top and that was job done, I had expected it to take much longer than it did to achieve a pleasing effect, but a simple black wash really worked wonders in the end.

New Style Soul Reaver Cavalry

So now the Soul Reavers are ready to ride and march forth to do what they do best, punch face, very hard.

Death and three Vanguard Soul Reavers

And one final word, yes Stu, they do look better with a splash of colour.