Painting Skeletons - step by step...

I went over to the Wargames Foundry Miniatures shop on my birthday, I picked up a few things - some Foundry paints, the fantastic Kev Dallimore painting guide book, and a few packs from their Fantasy range of 28mm miniatures that I couldn't resist - including these excellent skeletons rising from their graves! 

At around the same time over on the Frostgrave facebook page there was a fun painting "competition" running with an Undead theme... so I decided to take step by step photos to document my process for painting skeletons.

The paints I used were:

Undercoat - Halfords Matt Grey spray primer

For the skeletons:

Army Painter - Matt Black

Army Painter - Matt White

Army Painter - Machinegun Metal

Game Color - Cadmium Skin

Game Ink - Skin Wash

For the base:

Army Painter - Ash Grey

Revelle - Gunship Grey (Matt)

Snow effect:

PVA glue

Bircarbonate of Soda

Cheap white acrylic paint (from "The Works")

(These are the paints I used because they are the ones I had - but any similar paints will do a similar job I'm sure... this is just a guide to my personal process!)

Make sure the models have time to completely dry between each step.

Prepare the miniatures for painting, and spray with Halfords matt grey primer.
Give the models a wash of watered down Matt Black paint. Then when dry, drybrush with Cadmium Skin.
This is the start of painting anything boney!

Give them a coat of Skin wash Ink.

 Drybrush again with Cadmium Skin.

Drybrush highlights with 50/50 mix of Cadmium skin and Matt white.

Final highlights on boney parts with Matt White.
The bone areas are now done.

Tidy up the models by painting anything that isn't bone Matt Black.

Paint the swords Machinegun Metal (leaving dark areas where appropriate around handles etc)

Give all metal a coat of Skin Ink Wash for a rusty effect.

Drybrush highlights onto the swords with Machinegun Metal.

And now for the bases.
Drybrush with Gunship Grey.

Drybrush highlights around the edges of the base etc with Ash Grey.

For the snow effect.. mix up 1/3 PVA, 1/3 cheap white acrylic paint and 1/3 bicarbonate of soda into a paste and apply with an old brush in small patches to the bases - and ontop of gravestones etc...

Add a few tufts (Army Painter)... and they're done!