Assassin's Creed Brotherhood of Venice

For my next mission (0.4) of the Assassin’s Creed board game, I only needed to paint a single set of models, those being the hiding spots.

These are a terrain feature that allows assassins to hide from enemy models in the game.

Due to their basic design the paint job on these was very simple.

The first step as usual was to apply a basic black/grey/white zenithal with an airbrush using the Vallejo Primer range and Liquitex Titanium White ink for the last step.

For the curtains I applied a coat of Army Painter Speed Paint (APSP) Pallid Bone.

The stone structure of the hiding spots was painted with APSP Gravelord Grey.

The ivy that runs around the upper parts of the hiding spots was painted with APSP Camo Cloak and then drybrushed with Vallejo Model Color (VMC) Olive Green.

That’s not all for this update though, as I also painted the alternate sculpt for Ezio Auditore that was gifted to me by my good friend cookiesk8r that backed the kickstarter.

This model was painted for a painting competition at my local gaming club so received a bit more than the speed paint treatment.

This miniature is a PVC board game piece and as a result the details are quite soft. As I was finding the model quite difficult to read I trawled the internet and discovered the image below which I’m sure is the inspiration for the sculpt. This image helped hugely in painting the model.

Step one as usual, was to zenithal prime with an airbrush. For this model though, I knew I would be painting the outer coat and white, so I wanted this ‘priming’ stage to also do the heavy lifting in regards to painting for these parts of the finished model. This meant I worked up from black to a pale grey by gradually adding more and more ghost grey primer to the Vallejo black and doing more steps than I normally would do in a simple zenithal prime. The final stage was the white ink mentioned previously.

With this done I then applied base coats to the other parts of the model as indicated below using my usual VMC paints.

Lining of cape, lining of outer coat, collar of inner coat and cumberband – Carmine Red

Shirt sleeves and collar – Buff

Skin – Cork Brown

Beard, greaves, right bracer, assassin blade, heel caps, throwing knife handles, armour on right shoulder and chest and the rope tie running from front to back under the right armpit – Black

Pouches, inner bracer on right arm and bracer on left arm, boots, straps and the wrap over the left shoulder – Khaki Grey

Pillar and rubble on base – Stone Grey

Trousers – Burnt Umber

With everything base coated, I moved on to washes.

The red parts were washed with Vallejo Game Color (VGC) Red Wash.

The skin (face and hands) was covered with VGC Flesh Wash.

The shirt, pillar and rubble, pouches, straps, boots and bracers were washed with Citadel’s Agrax Earthshade.

When applying the zenithal through the airbrush the white ink had speckled in some places and to smooth the blends out I applied APSP Holy White, almost like a glaze which I think worked quite well.

With this done I applied a few highlights, but not too many as it is after all a board game piece.

I applied some ivory to the clasps securing the leather wrap over the left shoulder.

All the metal pieces e.g. heel caps, armour etc. I painted with VMC Gunmetal Grey then VMC Silver highlights.

The intricate stitched patterns on Ezio’s outer jacket I painted in VMC Gunmetal Grey.

I picked out a couple of folds on the lining of the cape in a 50:50 mix of VMC Carmine Red and VMC Buff.

I highlighted the face and hands with a 50:50 mix of VMC Cork Brown and VMC Brown Rose.

Lastly I reinforced some of the definition from the zenithal with highlights of VMC Light Grey, Sky Grey and Silver Grey as the white parts of the model were where I wanted the main focus.

To keep consistency with the other board game models I finally applied VMC Basalt grey to the cobbled areas of the base. Then I applied Citadel Nuln Oil wash, a drybrush of VMC Neutral Grey and a VMC Black base edge to finish things off.

I was pleased to place second in the competition with it and given the paint job was 4 hours or so I was pleased with the end result.