How to Paint Tomb Kings Skeleton Archer for Beginners. Part 1

Today I would like to to time this tutorial for the Halloween - In it I will show you how to paint a simple skeleton with a bow. It will be a simple tutorial - designed for beginners. In similar way  you can paint any "bone" parts on your models. Also it will be a test model for my army. All painting of the skeleton (excluding  detail work) will be made for the sake of simplicity using drybrush. I'll also wont be mixing any paints as well.  I will use  Games Workshop™paints  To begin I'll prepare a model for priming- but I just primed a several in one time (still the same primer use anyway). 

After 24 hours, we get the model completely dried up and ready for painting.

In this photo we see the paint and other materials needed to paint the body of the skeleton archer. We'll need two brushes - one simple sable brush and second one with synthetic bristles with high elasticity and medium thickness (Or any medium "Drybrushing" brush).

Now we take the Scorched Brown and cover (not drybrushing) the whole skeleton - the color is slightly diluted with water to the consistency of milk. This is usually done in 2-3 full passes. Do not stop at places where the paint get poor coverage, allow 10 minutes to dry and start a new layer. You will see that after several such layers,  paint will cover everything. Try to make all brush strokes in  one direction - for example: 1st vertical , 2nd horizontally and 3rd  again vertically. This will make the base color homogeneous. 
You should see something like this

 If there are still spots on the base layer - apply more layers of the Scorched Brown.

Now take Devlian Mud straight from the pot and carefully cover the entire model.

The model again will turn black - let it dry for 10-15 minutes  

 We'll get something like this :

Now we take a synthetic brush and straight from the pot take Scorched Brown (only tip of the brush) -  wipe the brush on a napkin each time before applying paint to the model.

Apply paint on the model (WARNING do not swing  brush up and down. This is true for every painting but especially drybrush!  )Start from the top and move brush down . Usually one pass suffices.  
Your task is not to paint model back in Scorched Brown but to regain the color on some parts .  
Here is mine skeleton after 1 layer :

Now we take Bestial Brown and start drybrushing whole model the same way. Bestial Brown layer  must be  more "transparent"- your job is to give only light shade of Bestial brown :

 


The new layer is Vomit Brown and done as the previous one.

Now we need Bleached Bone - drybrush it on top of previous layers but even more carefully by focusing on the convex parts and elements of the model-  on which the imaginary vertical light cast. Having something like this:

You'll  need to decide in process how white you want to see bones of your model - when you're happy with the result and then it's time to stop drybrushing.

On the very edges of your model, apply Skull White - the main thing is not to overdo it.

Then dilute 1:3 Devlian Mud or even 1:5 - until it looks like a dirty water and then apply it on the model. This will align the colors and make drybrushing less sharp. Each layer must dry for at least 10 minutes. Repeat until thie desired result.

Skeleton will look something like this.

After that, once again lightly  drybrush Skull White - here is final result 

The skeleton body painting is finished - do not worry about that now it looks not as you hoped - first this is the easiest way to paint,  and second  and more important - it's not finished model. The model will look much better when it will be completed  and all the details are painted - in fact details will create character  and charm of  the finished model.