How to Paint: Zhufbar Dwarfs
In which I get ready for Dawi to return to The Old World...
With The Old World bringing back two of my white whales from my childhood in the form of Bretonnians and Dwarfs I’ve had a lot of fun projects this year. I wanted to do a slightly different Dwarf scheme than the old green and gold I remember seeing in White Dwarf as a kid and settled on the old Zhufbar livery of white and light blue. It makes for a striking force on the table top and is relatively speedy to paint up as detailed below!
N.B: If I don’t specify a brand I’m using Citadel paints. You can swap for similar Citadel colours although I do highly recommend the Army Painter tones as they work out of the pot and are used in the Marine Juice recipe.
Setting yourself up for success
As mentioned in my previous painting guide I do a Zenithal+ undercoat as so:
Black undercoat.
Heavy zenithal drybrush* of Mechanicus Standard Grey.
Lighter zenithal drybrush of Administratum Grey.
A lighter still drybrush of Corax White.
Final highlight of Pro Acryl Bold Titanium White.
This should leave you with some nice shadows and strong highlights over which to apply your washes and contrast paints:
Zenithal undercoat with extra steps
*I used Artis Opus drybushes if you are interested...
How To
Paint all the metal parts with base colours:
Darkstar Platinum for the chainmail
Darkstar Tarnished Steel for the weapon parts
Runelord Brass for the helmet metallics as well as some details to add variety
Pro Acryl Rich Gold for the gold details
Wash the silver metallics with Army Painter Dark Tone
Wash the gold and brass with Army Painter Strong Tone
Paint the blue trim with Lothern Blue
Paint the cloth with Ulthuan Grey
Use Gagrak’s Sewer contrast on the helmet and leathers
Use Gulliman Flesh contrast on the skin
Use Black Templar contrast on the boots
Use Skeleton Horde on the horns
Paint the beard with a basecoat:
Thinned down black for a black beard
Balor Brown for blonde
Rhinox Hide for dark brown
Dawnstone for grey
Doombull Brown for reddish brown
Wash all the non-metallic areas with Sonic Sledgehammer’s Marine Juice
Highlight silver metallics with Runefang Steel
Highlight gold and brass with Canoptek Alloy
Highlight the blue with a 50:50 mix of Lothern Blue and Ulthuan Grey
Highlight the cloth with watered down Pro Acryl Bold Titanium White
Highlight the beards as so:
Mix in some bone colour to make a higlight of the brown/blonde beards
Highlight the grey beards with white
Highlight the black beards with a light grey
Highlight the flesh with Bugman’s Glow
Paint the eyes with a small brush using an off white
Dot the eyes with black
Paint the base rims with Dawnstone
Use a suitable basing material such as Geek Gaming Scenic’s Base Ready Mountain Pass
The scheme is relatively quick to get down with most of the shading done using Marine Juice and simple highlights. You could always do more blending to improve the highlights but for painting an army I think this gets the balance about right between speed and quality.
I’m really happy with how these turned out:
If you enjoyed this make sure to check out my painting Instagram, painting Twitter and painting Mastodon accounts and feel free to use the Element Games Affiliate link below to get discounted minis and send some money my way too!
Tom Out!