GUIDE TO PAINTING PREHISTORIC SETTLEMENT MINIATURES

My personal preferences for painting figures are to use acrylic paints, followed up with a matt varnish. I tend to use various different makes of paint as I have not yet found a range of paints which meets all of the necessary requirements - coverage, colour tone, smoothness, drying time etc. The steps outlined below are only a guide should you want to paint up your tribes. This isn't essential to the game as it is possible to play a game with just the bases of your tribes painted different colour e.g. blue, red, yellow & purple. However the look of beautifully painted figures on a table is very pleasing to the eyes, so if you decide to have a go the steps below may be of use to you........

CLEANING UP - Figures generally need their bases filled so that they stand up properly and usually need a quick scrape over any mould lines with a scalpel or small needle file before painting starts.

UNDERCOATING - Start with a black undercoat, ensuring that there is no metal visible

FURS - Using the bear skin colour as an example, dry -brush dark brown paint (such as burnt umber) across the fur area. Then using a lighter colour brown dry -brush once again over this area - dry-brushing is a technique where paint is dabbed off of the brush using a rag etc. to remove most of the paint before the brush is then dragged across the grain of the object, so as to only leave paint on the raised areas. The edge of the furs should be painted using a light tan colour to represent skin.

TIDYING UP - After each of the previous and following sections it may be necessary to tidy up any messy areas using black paint. Do this before proceeding to the next stage.

FACE & BODY - Paint on the base flesh coat, this should be darker than the intended flesh colour. Then using the intended flesh colour highlight raised areas such as nose, cheeks, chin etc. with the intended flesh colour trying to paint inside the areas covered by the initial colour. Finally mix a little white to this colour and paint a small amount on prominent features and a small circle over eye areas. The lips are then done by painting a fine dark pinky - orange line over the bottom lip. Teeth if any show are painted as tiny white dots, and the inside of the mouth should be dark red / brown.

HAIR - After tidying up areas of messy flesh colour that go across any areas of hair with black paint (as described earlier) it is now time to paint the figures hair. If you are using the Tribe colour guide in the rules, then you will notice for the AHK it says Dark Brown hair, so using the same colours that you used for the Furs (dark brown & and mid to light brown) dry-brush the areas of hair or beards, only this time they will need to be applied neatly. It is not essential to go right to the edge of the hair areas as it will not matter if a small amount of black still shows.

EYES - Split the small circle of light flesh colour over the eye areas with a fine dark brown line. Then place small white dots in the corners of each eye and the face is complete.

WEAPONS - Bows should be painted tan, spear handles, mid brown, flint, muddy grey, bow case should be tan & bones and tusks should be painted cream & white.

The figure is then completed by first varnishing with a strong gloss varnish, when this has properly dried follow it up with a well covered coat of matt varnish. The base of the figure should be covered with various coloured flocks, static grass etc.

COLOUR GUIDE

The colours for the various Tribes are outlined in the Rule Booklet, but so far we haven't mentioned the Buildings. These are covered with various skins, so different shades of brown are best with tan colour stitching. The tusks and bones on the Tent, Food Store & Warriors Camp are cream or white. Finally, the Temple should have grey stones and cream or white tusks, and the Burial Mound should have grey stones at the entrance and the rest of the building should be painted dark green and when dry, static grass or flocks should be glued onto the bulk of the building so that only the entrance appears painted.