Jez Allum has been at it again – following our previous showcase of is fabulously painted Algoryn army, he’s turned his hand to our recently released Freeborn…
Hello all you fabulous people. Today I’ve finally finished a very special project. The guys at Warlord Games asked me if I could paint up some of the new Freeborn squads from there forthcoming Beyond the Gates of Antares range.
Hardly one to turn down such a generous offer I eagerly awaited the delivery, as at this stage I had no idea what they looked like. When they turned up to say I was impressed was an understatement. It turns out it was a new Domari squad. Beautiful models with very little clean up required. I’m guessing you already know about sticking models together so I won’t bore you with that, besides, my brain started fizzing with ideas of which colours to paint them.
Basically I had Carte Blanche as long as it wasn’t in the studio scheme. So, where to start? The first thing I knew for certain is I wanted completely black skin. Not brown, black. The background of the Freeborn states that they go in for things like body modifications, can alter their skin colour depending on what’s in fashion, anything they want really so I thought, I’m sick of painting pink skin, let’s try something different.
The skin was the first part I painted, and I was immediately taken with it. Next I wanted some cool contrast colours to the black skin so I went for a white under suit.
The panels on the suit again needed a good contrast or complimentary colour, and again I knew pretty much straight away that I wanted a mid to light orange.
So far so good, so now it’s the cloak and hoods turn. This took quite a lot of deciding on whilst I was painting, and I was mentally running through the colours in my head whilst painting up the orange. Finally I settled on a nice dark green on the outside with a green/white inside.
Now the bit I was really stuck on, the weapons. I decided to do a mix of the cloak colours and the under suit to tie them in together so I ended up with green panels and a white body to the guns.
The drone was done with the same colours as the under suit with green accents to tie those in with the unit as well.
All the models were finished off with Jez’s Blue Glow Effect™©® on the guns, drone and the strips on the cloaks and legs and arms. This was done the same way as I did with my Algoryn. See my previous tutorial for how to achieve this.
Finally they were based up with Agrellan Earth as I wanted a cracked ground along with a few tufts to give it a wind blasted desert effect. The base edge was painted dark brown and the models were varnished to protect them.
All in all I have to say I’m extremely happy with the end result, and I can’t wait to get a hold of some more and start a small force off, maybe I’ll do a Concorde Task Force as I need an excuse to paint my models up lol.
Once again, if there’s anything you would like to know then just ask away in the comments, but for now, enjoy
To see more of Jez’s work, head on over to Jez’s Painting Blog – and please take a look at our previous articles showcasing his work – click here to see his Algoryn force, and click here for a Battle Report in which he faces the ferocious forces of Andy Singleton!
Sam Phillips