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Step by Step: Painting Qin Dynasty Archers

This article shows how I have painted my Qin Dynasty Archers. These are 15mm Essex Miniatures figures. They are probably the only accurately sculpted ancient Chinese army in the market now. Since you cannot go wrong when you have a whole army of live sized statues to reference.

The paint scheme is taken from two sources researching Qin Shi Huang Di's terracotta warriors, with a little artistic license applied.

The figures are based for DBx. I have decided paint them on their bases for easier handling. Although this means that some places are harder to paint, they are also places that are harder to see, so it is not a big problem.

I have indicated the time spent on each phase. This is absolute time spent painting, not including resting or photography time.

00hr 00min - Black basecoat

After filing off the moulding flash, I sprayed the figure black and glued them to Balsa wood bases. These bases have a magnetic base glued to the bottom for transporting and storage.

01hr 00min - Painting the larger areas

First, I painted the larger areas of the figure. It is usually wise to paint from the innermost garment to the outermost, since any mistake you make can be covered up later. I painted the Medium Blue trousers first, highlighting with a mixture of Medium Blue and White. I then proceeded to painting the Jade Green tunics, again highlighting by adding a little White. The last area is the basecoat for the leather armour plates. I painted it a Dark Brown. I have not highlighted it at this stage.

01hr 15mins - Painting the Brown areas

At this stage, I painted the skin areas Brown, as well as highlighting the armour plates. Basecoating the skin areas in Brown serves as the darkest shadow of the area. It is especially useful for eye sockets.

02hrs 32mins - Painting the details

There are multiple stages here that I have condensed into one single stage, because there is no need to paint any stage before others. I will describe each area in detail now.

Following the Brown stage, I painted a Dark Flesh tone and highlighted it with a Light Flesh tone. The highlights are merely dots and dashes on the forehead, nose, cheeks and knuckles.

After this, I painted the bow in a mixture of Yellow and Khaki. I have read that the Qin used bamboo bows, so I decided to paint the bows in a natural bamboo colour. They also stand out on the gaming table.

Next, I painted the quivers. There is a helpful tip that I learned from an 11 year old kid. He taught me that basecoating areas where you want to paint Yellow with a layer of Buff is better than with a base of White. Because Yellow is not very opaque, any translucency will show up less with the Buff. The rest of the quivers and scabbards are painted Red and highlighted by adding a little White.

The collars and sleeves are painted in Purple and highlighted by adding White. Next, I painted in the laces in White with a very fine brush. I had the Medium Blue paint handy to do touchups. The feathers of the arrows are also painted White.

For the last stage, I painted the moustaches and shoes Black. The hair needed some touch ups in Black because of wear from handling. I used a Neutral Grey to highlight the hair.

The figures are now done and ready to be varnished.

02hrs 55mins - Bases completed

After waiting for the paint to fully dry, I applied a layer of Matt Varnish. Once that is dry, I painted the bases Green and Flocked them. Job done all in one evening.

Conclusion

I probably lavish more detail on my 15mm figures than most wargamers would. I just feel that I ought to justify the sculptor's detail. Painting for 15mm is all about uniformity and bright colours. The smaller the colour palette, the better the army looks. These figures have so many colours because it was what they supposedly wore historically. Noone on earth will notice my purple colours and sleeve edging.

As for bases, I feel that a simple green base is best for 15mm, so that it does not steal the limelight from the figures.

I painted eight figures at a go because of the nature of the basing. I would have prefered to have done these six at a time. It is all about efficiency. By the time you get to your last figure, the paint on the first figure should have dried, and you can go on to the next colour. I find that it is optimal to paint between five to eight figures. Paint too many figures at a time and you lose the efficiency, as well as have a long painting session.

I hope that this article has been helpful. These are the paints I have used. Either because I like the quality of the paints or the tone of the colour. I use FolkArt craft acrylics for bases. They are cheap but too coarse, for my taste, for miniatures.

Vallejo

Citadel

FolkArt

© 2004-2006 Michael Sng Woei Shyong. All Rights Reserved.