House Baratheon Knight & Warhorse [Renly Faction]

Getting to the finish line with knight number three in my Game of Thrones project tuned out to be slower than expected due to the lunar new year holidays. Spending precious family time took precedence over all painting projects but fortunately I still managed to at least finish the House Baratheon Knight and Warhorse in the colours of the youngest Baratheon brother, Renly.

Knight of House Baratheon, or even Renly himself

This particular Bretonnian Knight conversion can serve either as a simple knight in the army of House Baratheon (under Renly's colours) or as Renly Baratheon himself.

All House Baratheon heraldry designs were painted freehand

Greens that I am used to working with are those of the ork or gretchin skin variety hence I was relatively 'green' (groan) and inexperienced painting with Citadel colours such as Dark Angel Green, Snot Green and Scorpion Green. My blending techniques also leave much to be desired as I continuously fall into the trap of impatience and still tend to hurry up the blending process.

Minor conversion done to the scabbard whose sword hilt was removed

I also did a little mini-conversion in which the sword hilt in the scabbard on the knight's left thigh was removed to add believability to the overall look of the miniature because you might have noticed that the knight has a sword drawn on his right hand. Little details such as this can sometimes make or break a miniature. It wouldn't look right to have a sword sheathed on the scabbard in this case.

Front and back view of the House Baratheon Knight and Warhorse

To add depth to the metals, I tried using a black followed by blue wash on the armour; a purplish wash on the chains and a wash comprising a mixture of black, purple and flesh colours on the sword.

Stag horns on the helmet suited to subject matter to a tee

As with the previous two knights (House Lannister and House Clegane) in my Game of Thrones painting project, this miniature gave me the chance to practise freehand painting - in particular the heraldry designs of House Baratheon in Renly's colours. Nearly all the designs were of a whole stag rearing on its hind legs with the exception of one - a stag head - on the front left of the horse.

Metals on the miniature have a variety of washes on them to add some depth

Next up will be a knight from a Game of Thrones royal house whose strength comes solely from its location in Westero as it seems to lack any strong characters, at least so far as I have read which is somewhere past the mid-way mark of Book Three of the series written by George R.R. Martin.

From this angle, the knight seems to look as if he is a tad too big for the horse

360 view of the House Baratheon Knight in Renly's colours
For a 360 degree view of the House Baratheon knight and warhorse, please check out the video of the miniature below. For other videos, check out my YouTube channel FourEyedMonster Miniatures.

I hope I can get my painting projects back on track after this short lunar new year holiday period. After all, it's tough to get back on the hobby horse (groan again) after a period of relative inactivity.

House Baratheon warhorse in Renly's colours

Settling on a lopsided ratio of the types of House Baratheon heraldry on the warhorse, i.e. one stag head to three stags rearing on its hindquarters, I managed to finish painting the stag designs freehand over a period of two days. Although the stag head was easier to paint freehand, it didn't looks as impressive as the other heraldry depicting a rearing stag hence the lopsided ratio.  

House Baratheon heraldry in Renly's colours, the stag head

For the rearing stag, I had to change the positioning of its antlers because the original heraldry design wouldn't have translated well into miniature paint form, especially with my limited skills. To make things easier, I positioned one of the antlers as how it would have been seen if the stag had turned its head slightly more towards your or my viewpoint/direction. End result is a more stylized rather than realistic design which was much easier to paint freehand on the warhorse. 

House Baratheon heraldry in Renly's colours, the rearing stag

To make the House Baratheon heraldry (Renly version) stand out, I used bright yellow colours as opposed to the pastel ochre shades found in the original designs. Another difference was that my versions were painted in flat colours versus the original's more shaded colours. This was to ensure that this miniature would not look out of place with the general design of all the other Bretonnian Knight conversions I have done so far and will do in the future for my Game of Thrones project. 

House Baratheon warhorse complete with Renly's heraldry, side view (left)

House Baratheon warhorse complete with Renly's heraldry, side view (left)

Work now shifts to the knight to be seated on the warhorse, so do stayed tuned for further updates.

Adapting House Baratheon heraldry for miniature form

Chosen as the next miniature in my Game of Thrones project purely for its colour scheme, Renly Baratheon has two main heraldry designs that can be painted freehand on the Bretonnian Knight conversion. One is a stag head while the other has a stag rearing up on its hindquarters. With some simple changes, both can be adapted to become freehand paintings on a miniature, more so for the latter design below as it contains a complicated drawing of the antlers.

House Baratheon heraldry [Renly version]

As with my previous two heraldry freehand paintings, the process began with  some large not-to-scale drawings to get a feel of what could or couldn't work. At the top of my to-do list was to find a simple way to depict the crown as well as antlers on the stag. Due to the scale of the Bretonnian knight, I settled for the simplest form I could the results of which you can see in the first two pictures below. The practice paintings are very rough in form and gives me an idea of what I need to do later in order to make the two stag designs stand out - at least in theory as I am still not sure if I can pull it off.

Early not-to-scale drawings to decide what could be done

More precise-to-scale drawings and rough paintings on a 12-mm by 15-mm shield

In preparation for the feehand painting of House Baratheon heraldry a la Renly's version, I painted the cloth on the warhorse in a slightly dark green look. As this was my first serious try at blending green acrylic colours (the ork skins I did previously were pathetic so they don't count), it resulted in a less than stellar result. What surprised me most was how chalky some of the greens were, an issue I was not expecting for the shades of green I was working with - from Orkhide Shade to Dark Angels Green to Snot Green to Scorpion Green and mixed colours in-between.

Mixing some different shades of green on the wet palette

House Baratheon [Renly version] warhorse sans heraldy (left side view)

House Baratheon [Renly version] warhorse sans heraldy (right side view)

So the next step will be the painting of Renly's heraldry, my toughest freehand challenge yet.

 

Picking a Baratheon king to paint

Next up on my Game of Thrones miniature painting project is House Baratheon. But which brother do I choose? Right off the bat, I have ruled out Robert for now as his colour scheme is too similar to my recent Ser Gregor Clegane piece. So that leaves Renly and Stannis, both of which I plan to work on. To kick-off work on House Baratheon, I will paint Renly Baratheon whose yellow-on-green colours is the most different from what I have done so far i.e. House Lannister and House Clegane.   

Robert, Renly and Stannis Baratheon (from left to right)

A beautiful piece of fan art by 'saracennegative' on devianART pretty much sums up the different colour schemes involved for separate branches of House Baratheon as led by the three siblings.

Colours of House Baratheon for Robert, Renly and Stannis (from left to right) by saracennegative

For this miniature, I did a very minor re-sculpting of the Bretonnian Knight by cutting out the sword hilt so that it looks like only the scabbard is attached to the knight's left leg. This was done because the knight (or in this case, a temporary king in the form Renly) was already holding up a sword. It would have looked odd and unrealistic to still have a sword in the scabbard. So the hilt had to go.

Renly Baratheon - all primed in white and ready for the initial basecoats

Minor miniature re-sculpting to remove sword hilt and show just the scabbard

So far, I have only managed a few thin layers of the basecoat colours. I have kept the initial layers thin because I plan to do some washes on the warhorse before building up the basecoat colours again going on to mid-tones and highlights. The bright greens here won't be too far off from a Space Marine Salamander colour scheme. Meanwhile, the bluish band on the warhorse is based on a photo of Renly (see below) although I haven't quite got the correct hue yet which is teal so I need to add more green and/or turquoise to the bluish mix I painted ... that's what I think will work anyway.

Renly Baratheon's warhorse - early stages with a few thin layers of basecoat

Teal-colour of Renly's gloves will be incorprated into the warhorse

If you recall, I still have another version of Ser Gregor to do, a Nocturna Models miniature painted in Clegane colours. That one is still progressing slowly as I intend to spent a much longer time blending colour transitions so no worthwhile photos yet. Work should progress faster with Renly ... I hope.