Kingdom Death: Multi-part kit challenge - Model complete

Born of strife...

As 2015 came to a close, we looked at the multipart Survivor models that came with the Kingdom Death boxed game.  We were not too thrilled with the models, their proportions, the level of detail, and cast quality were just not as good as many of the other single pose Kingdom Death models.  These considerations made us uncertain what we should do with the models; it just did not seem like it was worth our time and effort to try to assemble them.  We ended up deciding to make a single model out of all the sprues and then send the rest off to another hobbyist, with the hope that they will continue to pass the models around to other hobbyists to see what they could create with the parts.  The Muli-part of Death Project was born.  In the last post, we showed you the model that we came up with.  I found some time to start painting the model last month and am pleased to show you the finished model!


Going into painting the model, I knew that I needed to keep the color palette drab, dark, and earthy to emphasize the cruel setting of the game. To this end, I chose to paint all of the survivor’s armor as if it were crafted from leather, pieced together by the wearer from various sources. This also allowed me a lot of freedom to experiment with different tones of browns and also with different types of highlighting and effects. Some of my favorites are the hints of red in some of the leather and the stippling I used on places to mimic different textures. I also painted a few scars on her skin by adding a little red and pink to the highlights.

For the model's base I tried to create an interesting looking stone/marble effect. 

For the model’s skin, I wanted to experiment with some different skin tones.  Having painted mostly white skin in the past, I wanted to challenge myself to something different.  I ultimately decided to try to create a very dark black tone, so that it would contrast more with the lighter shades of the leather armor. The skin tone was achieved with a mixture of Vallejo Black and Camo Black Brown, followed by a few successive highlights adding a little grey paint to the mixture.

I painted everything in drab, earthy tones to emphasize the nightmare world of Kingdom Death. 

For the survivor’s dagger, I painted it to resemble bone, complementing the bone armor she wears on her face and shoulder (who knows, maybe she made the dagger from the same victim as her mask). With the bone color painted, I could not help but add a little blood splatter to the blade. The blood was painted using the Special Effects Set produced by Vallejo, specifically Fresh Blood (72132) and Dried Blood (72133). I was a little skeptical that just two colors would be enough for convincing ichor, but the combination worked beautifully, creating a satisfying effect quickly and easily.

Overall, I am really happy with how my first and only multipart Kingdom Death Survivor model turned out.  It allowed me to try a few new techniques and experiment with different skin tones.  I cannot wait to see what other people do with the sprues!  I am excited to announce that we sent the remaining sprues to the very talented Odie over at Heavy Static, and hear that he has largely finished creating a model from them!  I would also like to extend an invitation to anyone reading this that owns a copy of Kingdom Death: Monster, or has some of the multipart sprues from it, to try to create their own model.  If you send in some pictures, we would be happy to post them on the blog next to all the other ones, and hopefully create a group of some of the best looking Kingdom Death models on the internet!

- Adam Wier