Painted Banshees are better than unpainted.
Welcome to another Warband Showcase under its new format as I continue my week of Lady Harrow’s Mournflight content. This time I’ll be going over how I painted my Mournflight. It was easier than Rippa’s Snarlfangs but had some equally difficult points for me.
Brainstorming
First I looked at my own ghostly warband: my Thorns of the Briar Queen. I had gone with a bright ghostly green and considered going down that route. After some failed test models (more on that later) I decided I wanted a more darker green look. Remember for all my Warhammer Underworlds warbands they need to have GREEN and sandy yellow bases. Thus I needed a dark green colour to compliment the bright yellow bases.
Research
Thankfully research was minimal as I had already settled on a concept. Plus there’s not much you can search for ghosts and Warhammer. This time I was just looking got painting guides. I looked through my library of ones I’ve saved online and picked this one by Dorn’s Arrow for painting Sons of Horus for Horus Heresy (check it out here). I was going to try a contrast method first but if that failed then it would be airbrush time!
I was going to include a lot of weathering and rust so I did some research there too. This time I followed some tips by Darren Latham from Games Workshop. You can check out his guides on his Instagram here as his YouTube will be deleted. But basically instead of highlighting the rusted/weathered areas normally I would stipple them on as he suggests to get a rougher look.
Also I planned on getting name plates. Normally I don’t see the need with Warhammer Underworlds warbands but the banshees are too similar. To make it easier for me and my opponents I went and bought name plates from Versatile Terrain (check out my review on them here as well as a direct link to their store here). I was also going to use their new skull icons on the name plates because it felt right for Death faction models.
Test Models
Did you know I bought the Myrmourn Banshees back when Dreadfane was released in America? Well I tried painting them as how I did for my Thorns of the Briar Queen. It did not go well. Then I tried using contrast paints. Now I love contrast paints and use them a lot in my painting currently. However they’re terrible for large flat areas…like the Mournflight. Realising contrast was out of the picture I went with Dorn’s Arrows painting guide.
Painting
Like last time this was primarily an airbrush job as it’s perfect for smooth coats on large flat areas. I primed them via my airbrush with Vallejo white primer to get smooth coverage and let it cure for 24 hours. Thankfully I also had all the paints from Dorn’s Arrow’s tutorial I was planning to paint some Space Marines with it. I went with the Scale 75 part of the guide as I love Scale 75 paints from their coverage, colour, to matte finish. With that I was ready to go!
I started with the Banshees first. Airbrushing took a while. Even once all steps have been completed I usually work back and forth between painting steps to help blend the layers together better as well as fixing any mistakes. For example I went from the final highlight, back to the step before that, then back to the final highlight and then every step back to the basecoat to get a smooth blend. All with the airbrush. Painting all 4 Banshees took about a whole day of airbrushing.
Once all the airbrushing was done I did some fine edge highlights. I find finishing off your airbrushed areas with edge highlighting really helps to define them. I followed the guide again then did some super fine highlights of pure white.
Bases were painted in my usual way: Zandri Dust, Casandora Yellow Wash, Lahmian Medium/Agrax Earthshade 50/50 was over rocks and stones then drybrush of Ushabti Bone. Organic details were all based with contrast paints then highlighted with normal layer paints. An important part was to leave parts of the base that the Banshees had phased through as green to represent their eerily creeping ectoplasmic energy.
For metallics, the steel was painted with Vallejo Game Air (VGA) Chainmail Silver, washed with Nuln Oil, Agrax Earthshade then watered down Vallejo Game Colour (VGC) Smokey Ink. Once dry I lighted highlighted the steel with VGA Chainmail Silver then stippled on VGA Silver as a final edge highlight.
All the copper was painted using Scale 75 paints as I find they have the best range of colours for copper. The copper areas were the corsets and nameplates. I was going to originally go with gold for the name plates but wanted them to stand out more as copper. Also it would allow me to do more weathering and contrast the gold. Speaking of, all the dagger hilts were painted gold.
Now the weathering! This is where I have the most fun. On the copper areas I painted diluted Sotek Green into the recesses. Once dry I painted diluted Temple Guard Blue into the recesses while leaving the previous layer showing. For the rust I painted diluted Skrag Brown over the steel areas. Once dry I used diluted VGC Rust (any orange colour will do) while leaving Skrag Brown still showing.
Finally I seaped everthing with Vallejo polyurethane gloss varnish via the airbrush. I then did some pin washes of black oil paint wash and then some pin washes of Coelia Greenshade one the oil wash had dried and was cleaned up. Then everything was covered in a Vallejo polyurethane matte varnish layer via the airbrush to seal in the washes and knock down the gloss.
Pictures
Here’s what they all look like after all the painting has been done. No WIP pics this time as I was trying to churn these out as fast as possible.
Overall I’m very happy with how my Lady Harrow’s Mournflight turned out. I went a little heavy in places on the primer to cover the coloured plastic but those are just errors I can learn from for future painting projects. Main difficulty was that these models had to be painted while glued to their bases which caused lots of difficulty when trying to paint hard to reach areas. Otherwise I’m really happy with how the teal green came out along with the weathering. Remember you can find Dorn’s Arrow turtorial here and Versatile Terrain name plates here. There’s no harm in using painting tutorials. Even though i usually wing it with painting to good results, even I use other peoples’ guudes so don’t feel like it’s bad to do the same.
My #playitpainted life will continue so expect more Warband Showcases in the future. As of writing I only have Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers and Ironsoul’s Condemnors left to paint. Painted models roll more crits!
Can You Roll A Crit? 
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