When is a druid not a druid?

When he's a warrior priest!

I wanted to paint Branowen the druid from the adventurer starter set, but due to the fact I was unlikely to ever need a druid figure for my wargaming, I decided to paint him as a warrior priest instead. I'm not 100% happy with a couple of areas on him, but right now it's about getting models finished, and I can always go back and touch things up later. I also really struggled to get a decent picture of him (especially his purple robes), but here you go.

I used the new citadel paints on him, and overall I was really impressed. The base paints cover incredibly well, but don't suffer from being incredibly thick and drying way too quickly like the old foundation paints did. They also come in a much larger range of colours, so lots more choice which can only be a good thing.

The layer paints surprised me the most. I was expecting them to be the same formulation as the old citadel colour paints, but they are slightly thinner, and quite a bit less opaque. I found them really good for highlights, but when trying to paint a solid block of colour I needed an extra coat or two.

Shades worked pretty much as expected, and I couldn't see too much difference between them and the old washes. They didn't pool on the flat surfaces as much as washes, and found their way into the recesses more consistently, but they did seem to darken the raised areas more too.

I'm definitely a fan of the new range, and the massive increase in the number of colours can only be a good thing. I've read a lot about the new 'Citadel painting system' being a terrible thing which will stifle creativity and force people to paint in a certain way, but it strikes me as being a great system for beginners to learn with, and as they get more experienced they will find new ways to use the paints just like painters always have. As for anyone who is already an experienced painter, I'm pretty sure the Games Workshop painting police won't be knocking on your door if you don't use the paints how they want you to.

My next project is a group of 5 ghouls. I need to find faster ways of painting larger numbers of troops, and so I'll be using them as an experiment with 'dip'. I've seen some really great models done using dip, but also some really terrible ones, and I'll be hoping I can come up with something that fits into the former category.