Ghost Pirates: Bones 4 Figures

Chris Palmer

   This past week I worked on the Ghost Pirates set from the Bones 4 Core Set.   The Core Set came with 5 of these figures, and I ordered a second set so I would have a unit of 10 for larger games. I painted the second 5 the exact same way that I painted the first 5, so did not include progress shots of them; but I did include them in the group photos at the end.
   I prepped the figures in the usual way; soaking them in a dish of water with a couple drops of dish-soap added and then rinsing and drying.   I then glued each one to an unprimed 1" fender washer, with Aleene’s Tacky glue.  I then glued the figures to a number of tongue depressors with a couple drops of the Elmer’s glue each.

       I began by painting the washers with Americana “Metal Primer”.  I then painted the figures completely with Americana “DuraClear Matte” varnish; as I  planned to use ink on them, and the matte varnish gives the ink something to hold on to better than the bare plastic.  When the matte varnish was dry, I applied a heavily thinned wash of Citadel “Green” Ink to the figures, trying to keep it just on the pirates themselves and not on the “scenery” pieces on the bases.

Note, I added a coat of un-thinned “Green” ink to the bottles the righthand pirate is carrying to give them a green glass look.

      When the ink was was dry, I painted their eyes with tiny dots of Americana “Margarita”, and then painted the bases with Americana “Bittersweet Chocolate”.

     Next, I drybrushed the scenic bases with a 50-50 mix of Americana “Neutral Grey” and Americana “Mississippi Mud”.  This was followed with a lighter drybrushing using Folk Art “Barn Wood”, and a last highlight drybrushing with Americana “Dove Grey”.  I then painted the skulls on the bases with, first, Americana “Khaki Tan”, and then drybrushed with Crafter’s Acrylic “Light Antique White”.  Lastly, I painted the rest of the base and washer with the Mississippi Mud".
    I let the figures dry overnight and the next day I gave them a coat of Americana “DuraClear Matte” varnish.    Then, when  the varnish was dry, I used some white glue to apply a fine sand mixture to the bases.  I decided not to spray varnish these as I have had some issues in the past with the translucent figures getting a little tacky after a while; so I’m just going to go with the brush on matte varnish. I did put a little Americana “DuraClear Gloss” varnish on the bottles the drinking pirate is holding to make them look like glass.

This is the original five I painted as shown above.

These are the original five as well.

And here’s the whole crew.

     I’m really happy with these.  They turned out just as I had hoped.    The translucents are always a challenge to strike the right balance between keeping the translucency and applying shadow and highlight, and I think I hit a happy balance here.

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