Massive Darkness 2: Hellscape - Ytheria, Undead Queen
Having completed the Ghoul I was keen to move on and get the rest of the roaming monsters done. With that in mind I also reached for Ytheria, the Undead Queen. Much like the Ghoul, I figured I could also get her done in no time as she is all robes and cleavage. Unlike the Ghoul however I realised that all those robes would be ideal to paint with a slapchop style approach.
With that in mind I primed the model with Colour Forge Raven Black, and then gave it a zenithal highlight using Vallejo Cold Grey through the airbrush followed by a drybrush of Army Painter Matt White.
Despite setting myself up for slapchop I did however decide that I wanted to use more traditional methods for painting the skin. Slapchop is great for bright colours but it does struggle with the more pale tones. With that in mind I basecoated the skin with Two Thin Coats Griffon Claw. For a wash I used Guilliman Flesh rather than Reikland Fleshshade as there isn’t a huge amount of detail on the skin so any shadows and recesses really needed to be as dark as possible. Guilliman Flesh does however tint the surface quite a lot so I then want back in with Griffon Claw to re-establish that basecoat on the raised areas. I then built up a layer of highlights by mixing some Vallejo Pale Flesh into Griffon Claw and painting this onto the raised areas as well, albeit in a smaller area than I had with pure Griffon Claw. Once that was done I added some spot highlights using pure Pale Flesh, mainly onto things like the knuckles and the tip of the nose. Ytheria has a line of stitches running from the corner of their mouth and across their cheeks. Whilst the Guilliman Flesh had done a decent job of shading them, I did want to make them stand out a little more. So with that in mind, I thinned down some Scale75 Indian Shadow and ran this into the recesses of the stitches. To finish off the skin, I mixed a touch of Archive-X Caboose Red into Griffon Claw and painted this over the lips.
The official artwork has the Undead queen in red robes with white trim, which is a little too close to Christmas for my liking. So I went in a slightly different direction. I did paint some of the robes red with Flesh Tearers Red but I painted the majority of them a deep rich brown with Garaghak’s Sewer. The trim meanwhile I painted with Skeleton Bone, which is fairly close to white when it comes to slapchop. Any leather, such as the quiver, I painted with Gore Grunta Fur, and any wood details, like the bow, I painted with Wyldwood. Her hair and the fletching on the arrow I painted with Black Templar. And the arrowhead I painted with Army Painter Speedpaint Gravelord Grey.
For the metallic details, I painted her halo with Vallejo Hammered Copper and any jewellery with Scale75 Dwarven Gold. Both of these areas I then washed with Army Painter Strong Tone. I didn’t highlight the jewellery, but I did give the halo a drybrush of a mix of Hammered Copper and Scale 75 Speed Metal. That was followed by a lighter drybrush on the tips of the spikes with Necron Compound. For the jewellery, I picked out the gemstones with Archive-X Caboose Red.
Moving onto the base, as there isn’t much of it I kept things rather simple. I painted the whole thing with Two Thin Coats Death Reaper before giving it a thick coat of Martian Ironearth crackle paint. Once it was fully dry I sealed it in place with some Geek Gaming Scenics Matt Sealant and painted the rim of the base with a matt black.
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The folds in the cloth and robe mean that Ytheria is ideal to receive the slapchop treatment. But that doesn’t mean we can ignore the skin, she is the Undead Queen after all.