I finished the Dol Amroth Banner Bearer for the One-Ring April Painting Challenge. This was a great miniature to paint with a nice pose and plenty of interesting details.

I basecoated the miniature with a spray gun and Vallejo's light grey primer to get a good, even surface without obscuring the details. I'm really learning to like the spray gun primers compared to the spray cans I've been using for over ten years. That's a nice technological advance in this hobby.

After primer I painted the metals with Chainmail and the rest with Foundation paints. I used Astronomicon Grey for the white parts, Mordian Blue for the banner, Heavy Charcoal for black parts and Balthasar Gold for the golden parts. Then I gave the metals a black wash with Nuln Oil and drybrushed the chainmail parts with Runefang Silver.

For the face I tried a new technique. I painted a basecoat of Vallejo's Tan over Tallarn Flesh base. Then I added small amounts of Kislev Flesh to Tan until the final highlights on the nose and chin were pure Kislev Flesh. These helmeted faces don't need many highlights because pretty much everything would be in shadow anyway.

I re-basecoated the banner with Vallejo's Magic Blue. Mordian Blue was there just to give an even blue surface to work from, because it is so much quicker to get an even basecoat with a Foundation paint under the real base colour. Then I highlighted some folds by adding Vallejo's Electric Blue to Magic Blue and  shaded the deep folds with Asurmen Blue wash (not washing but just painting some transparent dark blue shadows). The last phase was to deepen the blue a bit by giving it a blue glaze with the new Guilliman Blue. I really like Citadel's new glazes.

The white cloth was highlighted first with Ulthuan Grey, then with a mix of it and white, and finally with pure white. The black gloves and belts were highlighted first with Eshin Grey and then I added some Stonewall Grey to it for final highlight. Then I gave a Nuln Oil wash to the black parts.

The golden parts were basecoated with Balthasar Gold. It's really good for basecoating compared to Citadel's old metals: just one or two coats and it covers anything. I re-basecoated the metals with Shining Gold, highlighted with Burnished Gold and washed them with Gryphonne Sepia. Then I edge highlighted the armour, sword and golden parts with Runefang Steel. Finally I glazed the larger armour plates with Guilliman Blue and shaded some armour parts with Asurmen Blue wash.