The Sebeki are the crocodilian children of the Aegyptian god Sobek -- some of the most powerful warriors of the WarGods of Aegyptus game by Crocodile Games. Since they were sculpted to resemble crocodiles it seems fitting that they should be painted that way too. Most people’s mental image of a crocodile is that of a great green lizard. In reality, their colors are much more subtle and their patterning much more complex. Crocodiles appear almost grey when seen basking in the sun, but when wet, their colors and patterns become quite vivid and clear. This article will discuss the painting of the Sebeki, and it will treat them as if they are in their ‘wet’ state, as having a muted, grayish army isn’t very exciting.

The paints you need...

Colors Required:
The paints recommended to paint the Sebeki are the following: Vallejo Model Color’s #881 Yellow Green and #830 German Fieldgrey (Formerly German Green.) They work especially well, as they are bright enough to stand out on a gaming table, but still close to realistic crocodile colors. Also helpful (you can never have too many paints, right?) are #862 Black Grey and #986 Deck Tan, although if you can’t get them, it isn’t too hard to substitute similar colors. That’s it for the specific paints required for their skin; the remaining details such as clothing and weapons can be painted any way you like.

Getting Started:
Once your miniature is cleaned and assembled, it will need to be primed before the painting begins. This Sebeki painted in this article was primed with a white undercoat. A white undercoat causes the colors painted on the miniature to appear clean and bright, whereas a black undercoat causes paints to look darker than they are. As we want our Sebeki to really stand out, he’s best started with white.

Step 1 -- Basecoat and Wash

To begin, apply a solid base coat of Yellow Green on the model, leaving his belly white. When that is dry do a controlled wash it with thinned down German Green. This is a quick way to add shading. Once that is dry, do a wash with Black Grey only in the places where shadows would fall—The small of his back, the deep creases of his skin folds and the like. This makes the contrast of the green higher, which makes for a more vibrant model overall, and helps it to stand out on a gaming table. I used Black Grey because its greenish tint won’t muddy up the colors already on the model, like it would if I’d used pure black. See image above.

If you’re in a hurry, perhaps painting your warband up the night before a big tournament, those scales are perfectly good for game play, and you can move on to painting his details. Though if you want to just a little more, they can be dry brushed with a light yellow.

Step 2 -- Highlighting the Scales

If you’re in a hurry, perhaps painting your warband up the night before a big tournament, the scales are now perfectly good for game play; you can move on to painting his details. If you want to brighten his scales a little more, they can be dry brushed with a light yellow.
However, if you want to totally “wow” your opponent with your mind-blowing painting skills, you can take the skin a few steps further by adding even more definition. Start by lining around the scales using Yellow Green. This helps the model look tidy. While you’re doing that, block in the ones that would be in direct sunlight. The scales on his shoulders and back of the neck would be fully lit.
See above image.

Step 3--Adding Stripes

Since we’re going for a naturalistic paint scheme, we’ll want to add stripes. Crocodiles have horizontal dark stripes along their backs, and these high-contrast dark stripes on a bright green background looks great on Sebeki. The green parts aren’t finished yet, but it’s a huge time sink, not to mention rather frustrating, to have to paint black stripes over your painstakingly highlighted green scales. (I should mention, that while I was painting in the stripes, I got a bit carried away with the black paint, and lined and blocked in areas that I should have waited on. It would be simpler to do the lining after all of the skin is finished – we’ll come back to this when the time is right.)
It is good to paint the stripes a nice dark color, but avoid using straight black, as that makes the scales look a bit like plastic. If you haven’t got any pre-mixed dark colors you can soften your black by adding just a little bit of medium brown (which is what was done for this figure.) Also, it works out nicely if you leave two rows of green scales between your rows of dark ones
Next, use a fine-detail brush to outline the edges if the dark scales of the stripes with progressively lighter grays, keeping the brightest colors at the top, or corners where the light would hit them. This outlining makes the individual scales apparent. Before you highlighted them, they were very indistinct – now they’ll seem more visible. Be sure to keep this highlight subtle, as the end result should still show more Black on the scales than the highlighted grey edges.

Highlighting the Scales

Now it’s time to go back to finish the work on the green scales. They are highlighted in the same way that the scales of the stripes were. It is good to use a light yellow color for highlighting, that way your green stays vibrant. If you use white, the green can turn minty.

Painting his Belly

Take a deep breath. That was the hard part. The rest of the miniature should be much simpler to paint. Painting those scales can require a massive feat of patience, but they look awesome when they’re done.
The Sebeki’s belly should be lighter than the rest of his body, like a crocodile’s. I’ve used Deck Tan, because it is a very warm, natural color. The shadows have been blocked in using a mixture of Deck Tan and a dark grey—any dark grey will do. You can use whatever technique you prefer to get a smooth transition between these two colors. I’ve wet blended them together. That is to say, with both Deck Tan and the shadow color on my brush--the shadow color on the tip of the brush--and smeared it sideways across the transition line. If you’re more comfortable with layering—painting on several coats of progressively lighter paint, leaving some of the intermediate stages visible, then that works just fine too. Of course if you’re in a hurry you can just leave the colors blocked in.

Highlighing the Belly

After that, the blend is cleaned up using thin layers of Deck Tan. The Deck Tan is thinned down a lot so that when you paint it on it makes a very translucent coat. This covers up any roughness from the blend. Be sure to wipe any excess paint from your brush before you apply the paint, as it will want to spread out everywhere. The thinned paint dries quickly, which is nice because it usually takes several applications to cover up any roughness completely. Once the color transition is cleaned up his belly is layered up to white, keeping the white to the tops of details, where light hits it. I should mention, that since wet blending can’t make a sharp edge, these parts would need to be layered. Having a sharp edge makes the different parts of the model more distinct. There’s one last thing to do before his body is finished. The single scales on his belly should be dotted with black, and then painted Yellow Green on top of that.

Painting his Teeth

Blacklining:
The skin of the model is done, so now you can move onto blacklining, painting a thin line of black paint on the edges of details you want to be more visible and clear. This is an important step if you want the figure to be a real show-stopper. Slightly thinned-down black paint is applied to places where is skin meets his cloths and gear. And here’s a tip –the blacklining is easier if you only have to worry about keeping one edge neat – the edge next to the area that is finished (in this case, his skin). If it gets onto the details like his belt or wristbands, don’t worry; you’ll be painting over these parts later. In the case of his wristbands, later on it’s actually helpful to have them painted entirely black. His war-mallet will be dark, so give it a solid black basecoat.

Details, Details:
Now you can move on to his details. These can be painted whatever colors you like, perhaps using them to tie your Sebeki in with the rest of your army’s color scheme. The colors I’ve used for his cloth are Vallejo Model Color’s Cadmium Maroon, and Turquoise.
His mouth was painted with Vallejo Game Color’s #041 Dwarf Skin, and given a deeper, rosy flesh-colored wash. The ridges in his mouth were layered up to white and the tongue was painted light pink, shaded with a dark flesh color and highlighted up to white. After that, the teeth, and nails were blocked in with black paint, making sure the paint gets neatly into the area where the teeth meet the gums.
See the image above.

Finishing the Teeth

The teeth and claws are painted white, straight from the bottle. Be sure your paint isn’t too thin for this step. Straight-from-the-bottle paint will be less likely to flood into the cracks between his teeth, which we want to stay black. When you’re painting his teeth make sure to look at them from several angles. It’s easy to overlook big patches of black if you only look at it from one side while you’re painting it. By leaving a very thin section of black around each tooth, we have effectively blacklined each tooth the easy way.

Painting the Mallet

Moving on to his mallet. Paint thin dark brown stripes horizontally along the shaft, and vertically along the head. See the above image. While you’ve got your dark brown paint out you can go ahead and paint his wristbands and belt, even though they’re made of a different substance--leather not wood. The colors you’ll use to highlight them will make them contrast enough. Next paint medium brown stripes on top of the dark brown ones, trying not to paint over the dark stripes. The medium brown should be mostly towards the edges of the mallet, and should leave some of the dark brown visible. The last step for the wood grain is to paint very short white stripes on top of the medium brown ones, leaving some medium brown visible. Also all the edges of the mallet should be outlined with this color.

Painting the Leather Bits

Hopefully your dark brown paint is still wet in your pallet from painting the war-mallet. You may want to base coat the leather parts at the same time you use that color on the war-mallet, to conserve your paint. The dark brown color will work just fine for leather too, even though it’s a different substance. The colors you’ll use to highlight the leather parts will make them contrast enough.
The first highlight is a reddish brown outline on the belt. The straps on his wrists are much too small to outline effectively, so reddish brown is painted on where light would hit them. A small line of yellow ochre has been painted on the highest parts of the reddish brown. Finally they have been given a small highlight of almost pure white. Keeping the highlights small and sharp makes the leather look a little glossy.

At this time his loincloth and the straps on his mallet were base-coated with Cadmium Maroon. The parts that are metallic, his war-crown and the studs of his belt, were base coated black, as metallic paint looks much better on a black base than on white.

Painting the Eyes

Now it’s time to do another tricky bit—his eyes. They’ll require a pretty steady hand, so brace your elbows on the table, and your model-holding hand against your paintbrush-holding hands. His eyes are so tricky to paint because they are small and beady like a crocodile’s. First paint the eyeball black. Then very carefully dot yellow inside the black area. Lastly add a small black dot in the center. Some of you may be tempted to paint a white gleam in his eyes. On eyes this small it is exceptionally difficult to do, and tends to detract from the intensity of the yellow. All of this is pretty tricky; so don’t be discouraged if it takes more than one try.

Finishing Touches on the Details

Finishing Touches on the Details

His loincloth and straps on his mallet which were painted Cadmium Maroon earlier, were given a wash with a darker color. When that dried, any splotches of dark paint that were left on the Cadmium Maroon were painted over with Cadmium Maroon. Finally, they were highlighted with red. This Maroon is quite dark, so only highlighting it up to pure red provides sufficient contrast. However, lighter reds have a tendency to turn pink when you highlight them with white. If this has been an issue for you try highlighting them with oranges, all the way up to yellow-orange.

Doing the Last Little Bits

The final remaining details, the disk and the trim of his loincloth were painted with Turquoise, and the shadow color blocked in. The turquoise was blended with the shadow color, in the same manner as his tummy, and then outlined with Bluegreen.

A Finished Sebeki

All that remains now is to detail the base the figure. White glue was very carefully spread on his base, using an old paintbrush. Care was taken to avoid getting any on his toes. Then the model was dipped in a shallow tin of sand. When that dried, the excess sand was blown off. The sand was then painted brown, and then drybrushed with a lighter color. The grass is a product from “Woodland Scenics”, called Tall Field Grass, allied with tweezers and tiny dot of superglue. Finally, in one of the most important steps of all, the model is sealed with a matte, or gloss varnish. This prevents your figure from chipping, and ruining your painstaking paint job. At last you’ve got a finished Sebeki, ready for battle!