Painting League of Votann in the Ymyr Conglomerate scheme is a sure way to get a striking army battle ready in no time at all!
This painting guide is slightly more technical than our Trans-Hyperian Alliance one, but just as fast to paint.
The key of this scheme is to match dark muted colors with the bright red of the Ymyr Conglomerate. It’s one of my favorite when it comes to painting League of Votann.
Painting League of Votann : Ymyr Conglomerate
One of the struggle when painting League of Votann models is deciding whether you airbrush the cloth or the armor. The models are about an even split of either.
Black
In the case of the Ymyr Conglomerate, painting the black of the cloth with the airbrush is the way to go. As such, that is what we are doing first, starting over a solid black under coat.
Next, airbrush an highlight with The Army Painter’s Wolf Grey over the whole model. Of course you can ‘aim’ for only the cloth and guns, not the entire model. But across a whole army you save a lot of time for very little extra paint by doing it this way.
Wolf Grey is very potent highlight, and to make sure our final result looks black, we shade everything with Nuln Oil. You can do this step just before the red, as you will need this shade on the next few steps as well.
Silver
You can make a case that the Ymyr Conglomerate’s official scheme has a gold for most metallic tones. Gold works well if it’s used as the accent color, because it contrasts really well with the red of the armor.
For our would-be army, we opt instead to make lenses, visors and energy weapon a bright green to contrast, so we switch out gold for silver.
There are a bunch of details like belt buckles and buttons to paint, plus part of the weapons to break off the black a little. We keep this simple with a base coat of Leadbelcher that’s going to be shaded with Nuln Oil later.
Brown
Belts, boots and other tactical gear is painted brown. Again, we go for a dark and muted color for this, namely Rhinox Hide. This is highlighted with Leather Brown that we are going to shade with, you guessed it, Nuln Oil.
This color selection that reuses the same shade is what truly speeds up the process of painting a whole army.
Skin
Along with the airbrushed steps, painting the skin is the only one I would say is mandatory before painting the red armor. We did not do this on the video, and came to regret it.
Unlike brown and silver where before or after seldom matters, the faces of most Votann models are buried in the armor. Painting them first is much easier to avoid mistakes later on.
Base coat the skin with Bugman’s Glow, and highlight with Cadian Fleshtone. Then, shade this with a light coat of Agrax Earthshade. This gives an easy skin tone that’s muted once again.
Red
We will spend more time on the red because it is the dominant color of the Ymyr Conglomerate. This is really a great place to spend extra time when painting yours.
Start with a base of Mephiston Red. This is a bright red that covers up the black, often in a single coat.
Next, shade with either Caroburg Crimson or Agrax Earthshade. The former gives a more vibrant look but will require more highlights; the latter offers deeper shading, but mutes the color a little.
Highlight the armor with Mephiston Red. Reusing Mephiston Red allows us to blend the colors easily and sets us up for a vibrant red with one more highlight.
Use Evil Sunz Scarlet to edge highlight the armor. This transition from Agrax in the recess with Evil Sunz on the edges will make every plate look crisp.
Green
Visors, lenses and power weapons are painted bright green in our scheme. This works well with our gold-less models, but you can change it to purple or blue if you are using gold for metallics.
The green is our favorite Moot Green, and highlighted with Flash Gitz Yellow.
Bases
One of the advantage of a mostly muted scheme like this is that there are many great options for bases. The one we used is a light brown desert look. Almost any grey or brown, or a snow base, would work great here.
Leather brown is great for this because you can spray it down with a can, and make quick work of your entire army’s worth of bases. Then simply drybrush with Skeleton Bone and add your favorite grass tufts.
Painting League of Votann in this scheme is eye catching and quick!